On the next day things were worse. No one could be found to supply a coffin for the murdered man.[17] When the police called upon the priests to exert their influence and enforce some semblance at least of Christian and Catholic decency upon the people confided to their charge, the priests not only refused to do their duty, but floutingly referred the police to Lady Mary Burke. “He did her work,” they said, “let her send a hearse now to bury him.” The lady thus insolently spoken of is one of the best of the Catholic women of Ireland. At her summons Father Burke, a few years only before his death, I remember, made a long winter journey, though in very bad health, from Dublin to Marble Hill to soothe the last hours and attend the death-bed of her husband.
No one who knew and loved him can wish him to have lived to hear from her lips such a tale of the degradation of Catholic priests in his own land of Galway.
Mr. Tener pointed out to me, at another place on the road, near Ballinagar, the deserted burying-ground in which, after much trouble, a grave was found for the brave old soldier who had escaped the Russian cannon-balls to be so foully done to death by felons of his own race. There the last rites were performed by Father Callaghy, a priest who was himself “boycotted” for resigning the presidency of the League in his parish, and for the still graver offence of paying his rent. For weeks it was necessary to guard the grave![18]
From that day to this no one has been brought to justice for this crime, committed in broad daylight, and within sight of the highway. Mr. Place, whom I saw at Portumna, told me that he believed the police had no moral doubt as to the murderer of Finlay, but that it was useless to think of getting legal evidence to convict him.
Mr. Tener tells me that when Mr. Wilfrid Blunt came to Woodford he went with Father Egan, and accompanied by the police, to see the widow of this murdered man, heard from her own lips the sickening story, and took notes of it. But when Mr. Rowlands, M.P., an English “friend of Home Rule,” was examined the other day during the trial of Mr. Blunt, he was obliged to confess that though he had visited Woodford more than once, and conversed freely with Mr. Blunt about it, he had “never heard of the murder of Finlay.”
Such an incident is apparently of little interest to politicians at Westminster. Fortunately for Ireland, it is of a nature to command more attention at the Vatican.
Nature has sketched the scenery of this part of Ireland with a free, bold hand. It is not so grand or so wild as the scenery of Western Donegal, but it has both a wildness and a grandeur of its own. Sir Henry Burke’s seat of Marble Hill, as seen in the distance from the road, stands superbly, high up on a lofty range of wooded hills, from which it commands the country for miles. And no town I have seen in Ireland is more picturesquely placed than Loughrea. It has an almost Italian aspect as you approach it from Woodford. But no lake in Lombardy or Piedmont is so peculiarly and exquisitely tinted as the lough on which it stands. The delicate grey-green of the sparkling waters reminded me of the singular and well-defined belts and stretches of chrysoprase upon which you sometimes come in sailing through the dark azure of the Southern Seas. I have never before seen precisely such a hue in any body of fresh water. The lake is incorrectly described, Mr. Tener tells me, in the guide-books, as being one of the many curious developments of the Lower Shannon. It is fed by springs, but if, like the river-lakes, it was formed by a solution of the limestone, this fact may have some chemical relation with its very peculiar colour. It contains three picturesque islands. No stream flows into it, but two streams issue from it. The town of Loughrea is an ancient holding of the De Burghs, and the estate-office of Lord Clanricarde is here in one wing of a great barrack, standing, as I understood Mr. Tener to say, on the site of a former fortress of the family. Lord Clanricarde’s property here is put down by Mr. Hussey de Burgh at 49,025 acres in County Galway, valued at £19,634, and at 3576 acres in the county of the City of Galway, valued at £1202. These, I believe, are statute acres, and in estimating the relation of Irish rentals to Irish land this fact must be always ascertained. Of the so-called “Woodford” property the present rental is no more than £1900, payable by 260 tenants. The Poor-Law valuation for taxes is £2400. There was a revision of the whole Galway property made by the father of the present Marquis. Of the 260 Woodford holdings only twelve were increased, in no case more than 6-1/4 per cent, over the valuation. In 1882 six of these twelve tenants applied to the Land Court. The rents were in no case restored to the figures before 1872, but about 7 per cent. was taken off the increased rental. The assertion repeatedly made that in 1882 rents were reduced by the Land Court 50 per cent. on the Clanricarde estates, Mr. Tener tells me, is absolutely false. In the first year of the Court no reduction went beyond 10 per cent., and in later years, even under the panic of low prices, the average has not exceeded 20 per cent.
After making arrangements for a car to take me on to Woodlawn, where I was to catch the Dublin train, I went out with Mr. Tener to look at the town.
My drive from Loughrea to Woodlawn was delightful. It took me over a long stretch of the best hunting country of Galway, and my jarvey was a Galwegian of the type dear to the heart of Lever. He was a “Nationalist” after his fashion, but he did not hesitate to come rattling up through the town to the Estate Office to take me up; and after we got fairly off upon the highway, he spoke with more freedom than respect of all sorts and conditions of men in and about Loughrea.
“He’s a sharp little man, that Mr. Tener,” he said, “and he gave the boys a most beautiful beating at Burke’s place.”