V. F. M. to Captain Gwynn, M.P.
“Drishane House,
“Skibbereen,
“Feb. 10, 1912.
“I do indeed value your letter, and like to think you snatched so much from your busy day in order to write it.... By ‘snakes’ in Ireland, I mean a set of new circumstances, motives, influences, and possibilities acting on people’s lives and characters, and causing disturbance. My chief reason for this fear that I have is that Irish Nationalism is not one good solid piece of homespun. It is a patch work. There are some extremely dangerous factors in it, one of the worst being the Irish-American revolutionary. The older Fenianism lives there, plus all that is least favourable in American republicanism.... (These) will look on Ireland as the depot and jumping-off place for their animosity to England. Apart from America there is much hostility to England, dormant and theoretical, innate and inherited—and it is fostered by certain Gaelic League teachings. Here again I speak only of what I know personally. I have seen the prize book of Irish poetry given at a ‘Feis’ to a little boy as a prize for dancing. A series of war songs against England.... You see what I am aiming at. There are dangerous elements in Ireland, and strong ones, Irish-American, Gaelic League, Sinn Fein, and what I feel very uncertain about is whether straight and genuine and tolerant people, like you, will have the power to control them. With the Home Rule banner gone, what is to keep them in hand?... I am sure that you will despise this feeling on my part. You feel that the Church of Rome is with you, and that with its help all will fall into line. And you feel that men of high and practical talent are with you and must prevail.... A Roman Catholic ascendancy and government will bring Socialism, because now-a-days Socialism is the complementary colour of R.C. government or ascendancy. America will play its part there—the general trend of the world will continue; the priesthood knows it, and I am sorry for them. I do not want to see them dishonoured and humiliated. I know their influence for good as well as I know the danger of the policy of their Church. That is my second point. A Vatican policy for Ireland it will have to be, under Home Rule, or else the Priesthood is shouldered aside, and that is an ugly and demoralising thing. The religious question is deep below all others, and we all are aware of that. There is perfect toleration between the Protestants and Catholics individually (except for the North). All, as far as I have ever known, is give and take and good-breeding on the subject. We accept the Holydays of the R.C. Church (which are still in full force in the West) and they go to early Mass in order that they may drive us to church later in the day. There is no trouble whatever, and we go to each other’s funerals, etc.! But the larger policy of the Church of Rome is a different thing, and a dangerous—and Socialism is its Nemesis....
“I wish that I did know the men you speak of. I am sure they are tip-top men, and no one realises more than I do the talent and the genius that lie among the Irish lower and middle classes. I am not quite clear as to what either you or I mean by ‘middle classes,’ I think of well-to-do farmers, and small professional people in the towns. We know both these classes pretty well down here.... Last year we had a middle-class man at luncheon here, an able business man, working like a nigger, and an R.C. and Home Ruler. We discussed the matter. He said, as all you genuine people say and believe, that once Home Rule was granted, the good men among Protestant Unionists would be selected, and the wasters flung aside. I said, and still say, that the brave and fair thing would be to select them beforehand, show trust in them, give them confidence, and then indeed there would be a strong case for Home Rule. His argument was that they must keep up this artificial, feverish, acrid agitation, or their case falls to the ground. Two exactly opposite points of view.
“The people that I am most afraid of are the town politicians. I am not fond of anything about towns; they are full of second-hand thinking; they know nothing of raw material and the natural philosophy of the country people. As to caste, it is in the towns that the vulgar idea of caste is created. The country people believe in it strongly; they cling to a belief in what it should stand for of truth and honour—and there the best classes touch the peasant closely, and understand each other. ‘A lady’s word.’[16] How often has that been brought up before me as a thing incorruptible and unquestionable, and it incites one, and humbles one, and gives a consciousness of deep responsibility.
“I think the social tight places you speak of exist just as tightly in England, Scotland, and Wales. Social ambition is vulgarity, of course, and even a republican spirit does not cure it—witness America. It is not Ireland alone that is ‘sicklied o’er with the pale thought of caste!’ ... I venture to think that your friend looks on me with a friendly eye, especially since I told him that my foster-mother took me secretly, as a baby to the priest and had me baptised. It was done for us all, and my father and mother knew it quite well, and never took any notice. I was also baptised by Lord Plunket in the drawing-room at Ross, so the two Churches can fight it out for me!...”
V. F. M. to Captain Gwynn.
“Drishane,
“Nov. 8, 1912.
“It is nice of you to let the authors of ‘Dan Russel’ know that what they said has helped[17] ... and I can assure you that it gives us real pleasure to think of it.
“I am very glad that you yourself like it, and feel with us about John Michael and Mrs. Delanty.