When I got into the train again, I found as a fellow-passenger one of the men who had come out from Derry with me, and after I had described the cashel to him—for he had never seen it—we got to talking about Home Rule. In spite of its militant Protestantism, Derry has a very large Catholic population, and my companion said that opinion in the town was about equally divided for and against Home Rule.
"The result is," he went on, "that whenever we have a meeting, no matter which side it's on, there's sure to be a shindy, and the police has their hands full. Most of the fellys who do the fighting don't care a rap about Home Rule, but they just take pleasure in layin' a stick against somebody's head. It's all done in a friendly spirit, and next day they will be workin' side by side the same as ever. The only ones who are really fighting Home Rule are the big landlords and manufacturers, who imagine they'll get the worst of it in the matter of taxation at the hands of a Catholic parliament, and they do everything they can to keep their people stirred up. That has always been their policy; and the big Catholic employers in the south—what few of them there are—aren't a whit better. They're all afraid that if the Catholic workingmen and the Protestant workingmen once get together they'll fix up some kind of a union, and demand better wages. As long as they can be kept fighting each other, there's no danger of that; and the poor idiots haven't sense enough to see how they're being made fools of. But they'll see it some day, and then look out!"
"How about this army of Ulster the papers are so full of?"
My companion laughed.
"There isn't any army around here, unless you can call a few hundred devil-may-care boys an army. I did hear something about some drill going on, but as far as fighting goes that's all nonsense. The boys are ready enough to crack a head with a stick, but they're the first to run when the police arrive, and they'll think a long time before they try to stand up against the British army. I'll not say that they're not more in earnest over Belfast way; but even there, a few politicians have stirred up most of the talk—Sir Edward Carson and the likes of him. It's all a political game, that's how I look at it."
I walked around Derry for a time that afternoon, and so far as public buildings go, Catholicism and Protestantism seem about equally represented—and with the strangest contrasts. Across the road from St. Columb's College are the Nazareth Homes; around the corner from St. Augustine's Church is the Apprentice Boys' Hall; a few steps farther on is a Presbyterian church, and the Freemasons' Hall, and then St. Columb's Temperance Hall, and then a convent; and if you walk back again to the Diamond and make some inquiries, you will find that one of the radiating streets is the home of militant Catholics, and the next the home of militant Orangemen, and you will be accommodated with a fight at any time if you go into the latter and shout "To hell with King Billy," or into the former and shout "To hell with the Pope!" And if you buy one of the two papers which the town supports, you will read denunciations of Home Rule and contemptuous references to "croppies," while, if you buy the other, you will read denunciations just as fierce of Orange plots against Ireland.
I have wondered since how much of this agitation is subsidised and how much is real. I have heard both Catholics and Protestants complain that it is kept alive in great part by professional agitators, working in very diverse interests but to a common selfish end—and that end, as my friend of the morning pointed out, the continuance and, if possible, the deepening of the rift between the two religions. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that Protestants and Catholics alike take a fierce joy in an occasional fight, as lending a real interest to life. But I am convinced that religion has really little to do with this—that it is just the peg upon which the quarrels are hung. If it wasn't that, it would probably be something else, for Irishmen have been fighting each other ever since history began. The fights at Donnybrook were as fierce as any, though there wasn't a Protestant in the crowd!
The Orange Societies, of course, with their parades and taunting songs and flaunting banners and praise of Cromwell and "King Billy," do not make for peace. Usually, on such occasions, blows are exchanged; and so the name of Orangeman has come to be associated with riots. But, as another writer has pointed out, in considering these things, "you should not forget the common pugnacity. Only an Irishman can appreciate the fierce joy of shouting 'To hell with the Pope!' Many a man who had no claim to belong to the Orange Society has known the delight of breaking Catholic heads or of going down in a lost battle, outnumbered but damaging his foes to the last. And many who are slow to attend Mass, are quick to seize their cudgels when they hear the Orange bands play the tune of Boyne Water. Like the Crusaders, the Protestant and Catholic champions alike feel that by their battles they make amends for the errors and shortcomings of peace."
So it is a mistake to take these rows too seriously. To an Irishman they are never serious; they are rather the innocent and natural diversions of a holiday, small events which add to the savour of existence; and, indeed, they are far less numerous and far less deadly than they once were. In time, if the people are let alone and old sores are allowed quietly to heal, they will probably cease altogether.
It is a mistake, too, I think to take the Orangemen too seriously. They have such a habit of hyperbole that most Irishmen smile at their hysterics and threats of civil war as at sheer fudge. In fact, the Ulster controversy is so full of comic opera elements that it is difficult to keep from smiling at it. For instance, Sir Edward Carson's elder son is a member of the United Irish League because he believes in a united Ireland, while John Redmond's nephew and adopted son is enrolled among the Ulster Volunteers because he is opposed to coercion! Gilbert and Sullivan never invented anything more fantastic.