Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule

by Robert John Buckley

"The English people have seen the results of the influence exercised by the present Irish leaders. One would think that sensible Britons would decline to entrust such men with power. Did they not bring about the rule of the Land League, with its stories of foul murder which sound like a horrible dream of the tyranny of the Middle Ages? Are these men not hand and glove with the clerical party, which hates England as heretic and excommunicate? It is not proposed by Home Rule to put in office men who are the mere tools of the Catholic church, the most unyielding and intolerant system in the world!"

I remembered the leader in the Irish Catholic, which sings a pæan of triumph over alleged successes against the Freemasons of Italy. British Masons may be interested to learn that this authority couples them with Atheists, Fenians, and Ribbonmen, and holds up the craft to contumely and scorn. The acceptance by Mr. Gladstone of the principle of Home Rule seems to rejoice the Papist heart. "Never was it more clear than it now is that the indestructible Papacy exercises an authority over the hearts and minds of humanity which nothing, neither fraud, nor oppression, nor misrepresentation, can weaken or destroy. How near may be the day of its inevitable triumph no man can say, while that its coming is as certain as the rising of the morning sun ... none will doubt or deny. That in the moment when the Vicar of Christ is vindicated before the nations, and the reign of right and truth and justice re-established throughout Christendom, Ireland can claim to have been faithful when others were untrue, will be the proudest trophy of an affection which no temptation and no tyranny was ever able to weaken or destroy." The Freemasons are expressly stated to lie under "the terrible penalty of excommunication," but they are afterwards lightly dealt with. They are regarded with an amused tolerance by Irish Catholics, who only laugh to see them "hung with a number of trumpery glass and Brummagem metal trinkets about their persons, and generally indulging in an amount of fantastic and childish adornment which would turn the King of the Cannibal Islands green with envy." Their profanation of God's holy name and their sacrilegious oaths are regretted, but they will never do much harm in Ireland, where the people laugh at their "fantastic tomfoolery." A parallel column advises the public to join in the present pilgrimage to Saint Patrick's Purgatory, where the saint saw, by special favour of God, the purgatorial fires. Another column advertises prayers at fixed prices—a reduction on taking a quantity. The men who hold these beliefs and opinions are the sole governors of Irish action, the sole creators of Irish opinion. For the lay agitators who from time to time have dared to oppose the clerics have been mostly suppressed, and the few still in existence will probably disappear before long. Colonel Nolan must hold this opinion, for when canvassing in Headford, the parish priest came up and cut his head open with a bludgeon. The gallant militarian submitted to this, and would fain have passed the affair in silence. How many Englishmen would have stood it? This incident, properly considered, should enlighten Britons on the dominant influences of Irish Parliamentary action.

On the way to Dundalk I met Major Studdert, of Corofin, County Clare. He spoke of the disturbed state of the district, and thought the present condition of things scandalous and intolerable. He mentioned the case of Mr. J. Blood, who has been four times fired at for dismissing a herdsman. He said:—"Mr. Blood is universally admitted to be one of the most amiable and benevolent of men. His herdsman had a son who would not work, and who was reckoned one of the greatest blackguards in the county, which is saying a good deal in County Clare. Mr. Blood told him to send away this son, or he himself must leave his situation. He refused, and Mr. Blood discharged his herdsman, but with an extraordinary liberality gave him one hundred pounds as consolation money. Since then Mr. Blood is everywhere protected by four policemen. One of the bullets aimed at him passed between his back and the back of the chair he was sitting in."

"I have only one argument for the country folks who talk of Home Rule. I challenge them to show me a single industrious man in the whole country who is not well off. They can't do it. What Ireland wants is not Home Rule but industry. When they are at work they do not go at it like Englishmen. I go over to Cheshire every year for the hunting season, and it is a treat to see the English grooms looking after the horses. They pull off their coats and roll up their sleeves in a way that would astonish Irishmen. It is worth all they get to see them at work. They get twice as much as Irish grooms, and they are worth the difference. The people around me, the working people, do not perform five months' work in a year."

And these are the people who are surprised at their own poverty, and who monopolise the attention of the British Parliament, which toils in vain to give them an Act which will improve their worldly position. The Irish farmer is petted and spoiled, and a victim of over-legislation. Do what you will you can never please him. Mr. Walter Gibbons, of South Mall, Westport, told me of a case which came under his own observation, as follows:—Rent, five pounds a year. None paid for seven years. Tenant refused possession. Landlord paid tenant twenty pounds in cash, and formally remitted all the rent, thirty-five pounds to wit.

"I saw the money paid," said Mr. Gibbons, a fine specimen of the British sailor, present in the Cornwallis at the bombardment of Sebastopol.

"And was the landlord shot?" I inquired.

"Not that I know of," said the old sailor.

Most people will agree that if ever a landlord deserved shooting this was the very man.

The walls of Dundalk were placarded with a flaming incitement to Irishmen to meet in the Labourers' Hall at eight o'clock, to "join in the onward march to freedom." The meeting was to be held under the auspices of the Irish National Federation—Featheration, as the Parnellites call it and most of its members pronounce it—and therefore it was likely to be a big thing, especially considering the Parliamentary tension existing at the present moment. I determined to be present, To beard the lion in his den, The Douglas in his hall; to see the labouring Irish in their thousands marching onward to Freedom. A friend attempted to dissuade me from the project. "You'll be spotted in a moment, and as you are very obnoxious to the priests, to be recognised at such a meeting might be unpleasant." A public official who pointed out the place followed me up with advice. "Unless you are connected with the party, it would be better to keep away. These people are very suspicious." These were fine preliminaries of a public meeting. The building is poor, but not squalid, and seems to have been built within the last few years. A gateway leads to the yard and the Hall blocks the way. All the rooms are small, and I looked in vain for anything like an assembly chamber. Two roughish-looking men, who nevertheless had about them a refreshing air of real work, stood at the gateway, and from them I learned that the meeting would take place upstairs. Twenty-four steps outside the building almost gave me pause. At the top was an open landing, whence the Saxon intruder might be projected with painful results. Trusting in my luck, I entered a narrow corridor, some fifteen feet long, with doors on each side, and one at the opposite end. That must open on the assembly room. No, it only led to another flight of outside steps, and here it was comforting to observe that the drop might be into the soft soil of a garden, instead of a bricked yard. But where was the great meeting?