One Irish Summer

by William Eleroy Curtis

The shortest distance between Ireland and Scotland is only twelve and three-quarter miles—between Torrhead and the Mull of Kintyre. The shortest practicable crossing, between Larne, a few miles north of Belfast, and Stranraer, Scotland, is thirty-nine miles, and is made in two hours by steamer. The crossing from Belfast is sixty-four miles, and it is five hours to Glasgow. There are steamers several times a day—in the morning, afternoon, and at night—and the largest part of the business as well as the sympathies of the people are with the Scots. Since the tunnel under the Hudson River has been completed between New York and Hoboken, the plan for an “under sea railway” between Larne and Port Patrick has been revived. The engineers have reported that they can make a tunnel from Ireland to Scotland, less than forty-five miles, one hundred and fifty feet below the sea level, at a cost of $60,000,000, and some day, perhaps, it will be possible to cross by train under the Irish Channel, rather than by boat over it.

The racial, religious, and political antagonisms between the north and south of Ireland are well known, and can never be removed. Three-fourths of the population in this section of the island are Protestants, mostly Calvinists of the sternest kind, and the portraits of John Knox and Oliver Cromwell hang on the walls of the houses rather than those of the popes. The religious feeling, however, is not so intense as formerly. A generation ago, the 12th of July (the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne, in which the Protestant army of William of Orange overcame and dispersed the Roman Catholic forces under James II.) never used to pass without a riot and many broken heads, but of recent years there have been very few collisions. Formerly, the Roman Catholics used to lie in wait at a certain bridge to attack the procession of Orange societies as it passed over, with shillalahs and stones. The Orangemen, who are mostly mechanics from the shipyards and machine-shops, always armed themselves with iron bolts and nuts for the fray, and missiles flew freely, leaving many unconscious and sometimes dead men on the ground. And on other holidays, whenever the representatives of either religious faith came out in force, the other usually attempted to interfere with them. But those days have passed. The rival religionists glare at and taunt each other now, but do not strike.

One cannot blame the Roman Catholics for their bitterness. In the middle of the sixteenth century, in consequence of the rebellion of the earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the heads of the great clans of O’Neill and O’Donnell, against the authority of Queen Elizabeth, the territory belonging to them and their followers was confiscated by the crown and sold to Protestants, chiefly from Scotland, just as the southern counties were distributed among the “undertakers” from England, but with a difference. The “undertakers” who were granted the estates of the rebellious earls in southern Ireland were mostly adventurers and speculators. Many of them never came to Ireland at all. Few of them settled permanently upon their grants, while nearly all of those who undertook to carry out the contract of colonization were indifferent to the class of settlers they brought in. In Ulster Province, however, which is the northern third of Ireland, after the “flight of the earls,” their confiscated lands were taken up in small parcels by actual settlers from Scotland, whose descendants have occupied them until this day—a sturdy, thrifty, industrious, and prosperous race, and the children of these “Scotch-Irish” Protestants have borne as important a part in the settlement and development of the United States as the children of the Pilgrims have done.

The “planters,” who came over from Scotland, brought with them their morals and their religion, and most of them were Presbyterians. In 1637 the surveyor-general of the Ulster plantations reported to the king that there were forty Scots to one English, and fifteen Presbyterians to one of all the other sects combined. And the Presbyterians have ever since been the leading religious body in the north of Ireland. They are a stern, stolid, conservative race, stubborn of opinion, persistent of purpose, and fully conscious of their own rectitude. When William, Prince of Orange, invaded Ireland in 1689, after James II. abdicated his throne and fled from England, he landed at the little town of Carrickfergus, about six miles below Belfast, where he was received with great rejoicing. Here he unfurled his flag and displayed his motto, “The Protestant Religion and the Liberties of England I will maintain,” and the people of Belfast have endeavored to maintain them with vigor ever since. The term “Orangemen” has ever since been applied to organizations of Protestants of a political character, and they have received more or less support from the church. Most of them are semi-benevolent, like the Hibernian societies among the Catholic population of southern Ireland, and they are found in every town and village in the province of Ulster. There are Orange halls in every parish of Belfast and the surrounding country. They embrace in their membership representatives of all the Protestant denominations, the Church of Ireland and the Methodists as well as the Presbyterians—but the latter are most numerous and in some districts you will find none but Presbyterians.

The O’Neills were kings of Ulster in ancient times and their coat of arms was a red hand, whereby hangs a startling tale. According to tradition, the original O’Neill came over from Scotland with a party of invaders, among whom it was agreed that he should be king whose hand first touched the soil of Ireland. The boats were all stranded on the beach, and the captains and the crews were striving desperately to make the shore, when “The O’Neill,” with the nerve that has always distinguished his clan, drew his sword, chopped off his own left hand at the wrist, threw it upon the beach and claimed the throne, which was accorded him. Hence a red hand or “Lamh dearg” is on the coat of arms of Ulster, being placed upon a small shield in the center of a large shield, upon which appears the red cross of St. George, thus signifying England’s domination over Ulster.

Neill of the Nine Hostages, who reigned from A.D. 379 to 405, was the most warlike and adventurous of all the pagan kings, and, with two exceptions, all the overkings of Ireland, from the time that Red O’Neill tossed his amputated hand upon the shore, to the accession of Brian Boru, belonged to this illustrious family. And they gave England a great deal of trouble. In 1551, Conn O’Neill was created Earl of Tyrone, and Mathew, who claimed to be his son, was given the right of succession. “Shane, the Proud,” the legitimate son and heir, was a mere boy at that time, but when he grew to manhood he disputed his half-brother’s parentage and apologized for his father’s conduct with the remark that, “Being a gentleman, he never refused a child that any woman named to be his.”

After the death of Henry VIII. Shane O’Neill inaugurated a rebellion which cost England more men and more money than any struggle that has ever occurred in Ireland; an expenditure equal to $10,000,000 of our present money, besides tens of thousands of lives and millions of private property destroyed. After peace was restored in 1558, Shane was elected “The O’Neill,” in accordance with the ancient Irish custom, and in 1561 he accepted the olive branch from Queen Elizabeth and went to London at her invitation, followed by his gallowglasses in their strange native attire—loose, wide-sleeved, saffron-colored tunics, reaching to their knees, with shaggy mantles of sheepskin over their shoulders, their heads bare, their long hair curling down on their shoulders and clipped short in front, just above the eyes.

The last of the earls of Tyrone was Hugh O’Neill, a son of Shane, who organized another rebellion in 1584, and, being defeated, fled to his castle in the dense woods of Glenconkeine, and there awaited anxiously for Philip of Spain or Clement VIII., the reigning pope, to succor him. One by one O’Neill was deserted by all the Irish chieftains except Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, and as they saw no hope of relief they made peace with England. Several years later, in 1607, being accused of a plot, they fled from the shores of Ireland with a party of ninety-four kinsfolk and retainers. They finally found their way to Rome, where Paul V., the reigning pontiff, gave them shelter and expressed his deep sympathy with the Irish exiles. The following year Rory O’Donnell, Earl of Tyrconnell, died of Roman fever, and in 1616 the last of the Irish kings bearing the name of O’Neill was laid to rest in the Church of San Pietro on the Janiculum, the same which claims the dust of St. Peter.