This good-natured fellow had had a brother killed in an ambush. He had lost his work through the firing of the shop where he worked. He had his own and his brother’s family to maintain—“orr Oi would be wid the bhoys on the mountains, I would.” He came to the hotel where I was staying to say that some unknown person had stopped him and asked him for the name of the lady to whom he was speaking.
“It’s wan av thurr dhirty sphies afther ye. I just told him ye was me half-cousin, Mary Ann Watson, av Manchester, and ye’d called to see the pore childer an yurr way to Dublin. So now ye’d better be afther takin’ yurr tickut for Corrk, forr Oi’m thinkin’ the crathur isn’t believin’ me at all.”
I had gone to Tipperary for a sentimental reason. Hundreds of thousands of gallant young Britons had marched out to meet the foreign foe, cheering one another and their own sad hearts with the refrain: “It’s a long, long way to Tipperary.” This song has become for all time associated with the British Army. On several social occasions in foreign lands I have asked the orchestra for an English song; or knowing my nationality the orchestra has volunteered the compliment. It was invariably “Tipperary.” The very sound of it calls up visions of healthy, sturdy young British manhood marching out in its millions to engage its lives and fortunes in what it believed to be the most righteous war that ever was waged. Surely, I thought, if any place in Ireland should be sacred to Englishmen and to the memory of the 250,000 Irishmen who enlisted in England’s battles, it should be Tipperary. But what did I see in Tipperary?
The whole of the principal street of this little market town was blackened and disfigured with burnt and burning buildings. A magnificent stone-fronted draper’s shop was completely gutted. Such shops as remained were shuttered, for a murdered policeman was to be brought through the town for burial later in the day, and the authorities were afraid of a demonstration. The streets were full of “Black and Tans,” the name derived from the nondescript clothing which these military police wear, black coats and khaki trousers, blue trousers and khaki coats, Scotch bonnets, and blue helmets—a mixture of garments as varied as their wearers’ breeding. Officers on horseback dashed about furiously. Numerous groups of idle men lolled against the walls, regarding the ruins of their town with philosophy and curious about the stranger within their gates. Was she an English spy? was the query in their glances. Is she a Republican agent? the eye of the soldier on duty at the street-corner questioned. It was an awkward situation. I had no papers with me, nothing to identify me with one party or the other. And it was a lawless time.
One hundred and twenty-seven buildings in Tipperary (whether town or county was not quite clear) had been deliberately destroyed by fire. The damage was estimated by a lawyer in the district at £300,000. A girl had been taken to the barracks the day before, and not allowed any female attendance. A young draper’s assistant had been bayoneted to death in the guard-room a little while previously. “Shot trying to escape,” was the report from the authorities on a Tipperary lad brought into the barracks dead. But the wound was in the forehead, and men trying to escape do not usually run backwards.
The young women of the town rarely undress when they go to bed, so fearful are they of a midnight entry and search. The Irish girl has a delicacy all her own in matters of this sort. The nerves of the children are fearfully affected, and many of them scream in the dark. Ruin, misery, desolation and death in Tipperary—“It’s a long, long way to Tipperary, but my heart’s right there.”
It was not very easy to go about Ireland’s more remote districts. One day I walked for several miles into the country alone. On the way back I passed a country school. Through the open window came the sound of singing. Sweet children’s voices sang of spring and the nightingale—an English nursery song. I stopped to listen. There followed two verses of “Men of Harlech,” “The Bluebells of Scotland,” was the next item on the programme. I waited for the Irish song. It never came. A face appeared at the window, a face with the strained look of every Irish eye. The first song was begun again. I walked away slowly, full of pity. The young voices shrilled forth:
“The awkward owl and the bashful jay
Wished each other a very good day,
Tra la la.”
Within a hundred yards of this school, full of bright young creatures and their sad-eyed teacher, the smoke was still rising from a burning homestead, and the smell of scorched timber spoilt the freshness of the air.