Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule

No. 30 The "Union of Hearts." ToC

It was strange to hear the tune of "Rule Britannia" in the streets of Mullingar. The Irish madden at "God Save the Queen," and would make short work of the performer. It was market day, and the singer was selling printed sheets of poesy. The old tune was fairly correct, but the words were strange and sad. "When Britain first at Hell's command Prepared to cross the Irish main, Thus spake a prophet in our land, 'Mid traitors' scoff and fools' disdain, 'If Britannia cross the waves, Irish ever shall be slaves.' In vain the warning patriot spoke, In treach'rous guise Britannia came—Divided, bent us to her yoke, Till Ireland rose, in Freedom's name, and Britannia boldly braves! Irish are no longer slaves." The people were too busily engaged in selling pigs to pay much attention to the minstrel who, however, was plainly depending on disloyalty for custom. Westmeath was once the home of Whiteboyism, Ribbonism, Fenianism, and all the other isms which have successively ruined the country by banishing security; and a spice of the old leaven still flavours the popular sentiment. "They may swear as they often did our wretchedness to cure, But we'll never trust John Bull again nor let his lies allure. No we won't Bull, we won't Bull, for now nor ever more; For we've hopes on the ocean, we've trust on the shore. Oh! remember the days when their reign we did disturb, At Limerick and Thurles, Blackwater and Benburb. And ask this proud Saxon if our blows he did enjoy When we met him on the battlefield of France, at Fontenoy. Then we'll up for the green, boys, and up for the green! Oh! 'tis still in the dust and a shame to be seen! But we've hearts and we've hands, boys, full strong enough, I ween, To rescue and to raise again our own unsullied green." A group of farmers standing hard by paid some attention to this chant, and one of them, in answer to my inquiry as to how the Union of Hearts was getting on, chuckled vociferously and said, "Aye, aye, Union iv Hearts, how are ye? How are ye, Union iv Hearts?" The group joined in the laugh, and I saw that the joke was an old one.

The Invincibles had a few recruits in Mullingar and district, and the Land Leaguers also made their mark. The stationmaster sued somebody for travelling without a ticket. He was shot dead in the street immediately afterwards. Miss Croughan did not meet popular opinion in the matter of farm management. She was shot as she walked to church one fine Sunday morning. Patrick Farrelly took land which somebody else wanted. Shot as he walked home from work. Mr. Dolan, of a flour mill in the neighbourhood, had some misunderstanding with his workmen. Shot, on the chance that his successor would take warning, and accommodate himself to the public sentiment. Miss Ann Murphy, who with her two brothers lives at a small farm a mile or two away, supplied a jug of milk, and said that things were quiet for the moment, but there was no telling what might happen. The house was roofed with corrugated iron. "Ah," said Miss Murphy, "we were nearly burned to death, myself an' my two brothers. An' this was the way iv it. Tramps and ruffians would call here at nightfall, an' would ask for a shelter an' a lie down, an' I would lay a few bags or something on the flure over beyant, an' they would sthretch themselves out till mornin', an' often and often I would wash their cheeks an' heads where they had been fightin', an' would be all cut an' hacked. One fellow was often here, an' my brothers had reason to refuse him free lodgin's, an' so the next mornin' we found the gate lifted off the hinges an' carried away down the lane. My brothers spoke to the police-sergeant about this, an' the very next thing was to try to burn us alive in our beds. Some ruffian came in the night an' put a match in the thatch, an' I woke almost suffocated. I ran out, an' there was the house on fire, and the cow-house, with a beautiful, lovely cow, all a solid piece of blazin' flames, till ye could see nothin' else. We saved the four walls an' some of the furniture, an' we got £50 from the County. That's the sort of people the Land League brought out all over the country."

A sturdy farmer living near said:—"An' that's what we'll have to suffer again, once ye let Home Rulers have the upper hand. The only way ye can manage these scamps is to make them feel the lash. No good tomfooling with these murdherin' ruffians. With Home Rule they expect to do as they like. If I go into a whiskey shop on a market day, what do I hear? Ever an' always the same things. There is to be no landlords, no policemen, no means of enforcing the law. There ye have it, now. The respectable people who work and make money will be a mark for every robber in the country. An' in Ireland ye can rob and murther widout fear of consequences. See that hill there? Mrs. Smith had her brains blown out as she drove by the foot of it. They meant the shot for her husband, who was with her. They don't make many mistakes. They bide their time, avoid hurry, and do the work both nately an' complately. They track down their victims like sleuth hounds, an' there's one thing they never go in for,—that's executions. Mrs. Smith, Farrelly, Dolan, Miss Croughan, and the stationmaster, were all comfortably shot without anyone incurring evil consequences. It's devilish hard to catch an Irishman, an' when ye've caught him it's harder still to convict him. They're improvin' in their plannin', but they are not so sure o' their shootin' as they used to be. They fired at Moloney from both sides of the road at once. That was a good idea. But they failed to kill him, and seven of them are arrested. Of course, we'll have no convictions, but it looks better to arrest them, an' it ensures the man that's arrested a brass band an' a collection. So everybody's pleased an' nobody hurt. An' what would ye ask for more?"

On Thursday last, at eleven in the morning, Mr. Weldon C. Moloney, solicitor, of Dublin, was driving near Milltown, on the Bodyke property, when he was wounded from the ankle to the thigh by several simultaneous shots from both sides of the road, and the horse so badly injured that it must probably be destroyed. Mr. Moloney believes that he will be able to identify his assailants, and the police are sure they have the right men. Nothing, therefore, is now wanting to the formalities accompanying the Morley administration of Justice but the march to Court, the cheers of the crowd, the twelve good men and true—who, having sworn to return a verdict in accordance with the evidence, will assuredly say Not Guilty—and the brass band to accompany the marksmen home. If the heroes of this adventure be liberated in the evening a torchlight procession will make the thing complete, and will be handy for burning the haystacks of anyone who may not have joined the promenade.

Athlone is well built and beautifully situated. The Shannon winds round the town, and also cuts it in two, so that one-half is in County Westmeath, province of Leinster, the other in County Roscommon, province of Connaught. The people are fairly well clad, but dirt and squalor such as can hardly be conceived are plentiful enough. The Shannon Saw Mills, which for twenty years have given employment to two hundred men, will shortly be removed to Liverpool, and the Athloners are sad at heart and refuse to be comforted. The concern belongs to Wilson, of Todmorden, Lancashire; and the manager, Mr. Lewis Jones, says that all the timber within reasonable distance is used up, besides which the place is not well fixed for business purposes. The workpeople are manageable enough, but somewhat uncertain in their attendance. They require a half-hour extra at breakfast time every now and then, perhaps twenty times a year or more, that they may attend mass, on the saints' days and such like occasions.

This reminded me of my first entrance to Galway. All the bridges and other lounging places were covered with men who looked as if they ought to be at work. It was Ascension Day, and nobody struck a stroke. My invasion of Athlone afforded a similar experience. There were sixty-five able-bodied men lounging on the Shannon bridge at three in the afternoon—all deeply anxious to know whence I came and whither I was going, all with an intense desire to learn my particular business. Other pauper factories were in full swing, and at the first blush it seemed that the Athloners lived by looking at the river and discussing the affairs of other people. It was Corpus Christi Day, and none but heathen would work. The brutal Saxon with his ding-dong persistency may be making money, but how about his future interests? When the last trump shall sound and the dead shall be raised, where will be the workers on saints' days? Among the goats. But the men who spend these holy seasons in smoking thick twist, with the Shannon for a spittoon, will reap the reward of their self-denial.

Mr. Lewis Jones has always taken a strong interest in politics, and his present opinion is remarkable. "I came to Ireland a Gladstonian, a Home Ruler, and, what is more, a bigoted Home Ruler. How the change to my present opinion was brought about I hardly know. It was not revolution, but rather evolution. No-one can remain a Home Ruler when he understands the subject. The change in myself came about through much travelling all over the country and mixing with the people. I do not blame the English Home Rulers a bit. How can I do so, when I myself was just as ignorant? Had I remained in Liverpool I should have remained a Home Ruler. I am certain of that. Unless you actually live in the country you cannot gauge its feeling, and the Irish people are very difficult to understand. I have always got along with them famously, and I shall take ninety per cent. of our workmen with me to England. No, Home Rule has nothing to do with the removal of the works.

"My cousin and I worked like horses to get in Mr. Neville for the Exchange Division of Liverpool. We actually won, for by a piece of adroit management we polled a number of votes which would certainly have remained unpolled, and we polled them all for our man, who won by a very small majority, eleven, I think. I would willingly go to Liverpool to undo that work, as I now see how completely I was mistaken in my views of the Irish question. I was always a great Radical, and such I shall always remain; but as a Radical I am bound to support what is best for the masses of the people, and I am convinced that Home Rule would reduce the country to beggary. Bankruptcy must and will ensue, and with the flight of the landowners and the destruction of confidence, employment will be unobtainable. Who will embark capital in Ireland under present circumstances?"

A financial authority told me that poor Ireland has thirty-six millions of uninvested money lying idle in the banks. The Irish not only lack enterprise, but they will not trust each other. Great opportunities are lying thickly around, but they seem unable to avail themselves of the finest openings. Mr. Smith, of Athlone, makes twelve and a half miles of Irish tweed every week, and sells it rather faster than he can make it. He commenced with two shillings a week wages, and now he owns a factory and employs five hundred people. A Black Protestant, of course. Mr. Samuel Heaton, of Bradford, is about to go and do likewise. I went over his place an hour ago, and this is what he said:—"This was a flour mill which cost £10,000 to build. The machinery would cost £10,000 more, I should think. It did well for many years, and then it was left to three brothers, who disputed about it until the concern was ruined as a paying business, and the place was allowed to lie derelict. The water power alone cost them £100 a year, and goodness knows what these splendid buildings would be worth. The Board of Works had got hold of it, and it was understood that anybody might have it a bargain, but nobody came forward. I offered them £30 a year for the whole of the buildings, the waterpower, and the dwelling house hard by, also that other immense building yonder, which might prove handy for a store-house; and my offer was accepted. I took all at that rent for sixty years, with six months' free tenancy to start with, and I was also to have a free gift of all machinery and fittings in the place. Here we are going nicely, only in a small way, but we shall do. We make blankets, tweeds for men's suits and ladies' dresses. When the Athlone people saw us knocking about they were surprised they had never thought of it before. There are hundreds of derelict flour mills going to ruin all over the country, and the owners would gladly let anyone have them and grand water power for nothing for two or three years, just to get a chance of obtaining rent at some future day. We work from morning till night, and neither I nor my sons have ever tasted a spot of intoxicating liquor. Now there are many small mills going in the country, the proprietors of which go on the spree three days a week. If they can do, we can do. This is going to be a big thing. The only difficulty I have is to turn out the stuff. Irish tweeds have such a reputation that we simply cannot meet the demand. Mills and water power may be had for next to nothing, but the Irish have no enterprise, and the English are afraid to put any money in the country under present circumstances."

The Lock Mills above mentioned are three or four stories high, with perhaps a hundred yards of front elevation, a grandly built series of stone buildings close to the Shannon, which is here about a hundred and twenty yards wide, and carries tolerably large steamers and lighters. Six months' occupancy for nothing, the old machinery a free gift, water power and buildings for sixty years at £30 a year. I have previously mentioned the twelve big mills abandoned on the Boyne. Twelve openings for small capitalists—but Irishmen put their money in stockings, under the flure, in the thatch. They will not trust Irishmen, although they have no objection to John Bull's doing so. A bank manager of this district said:—

"Poor Connaught, as they call the province, is a great hoarder. And when Irishmen invest they invest outside Ireland. Seventy-eight thousand pounds in the Post Office savings bank in Mayo, the most poverty-stricken district—as they will tell you. There is Connaught money in Australia, in America, in England, and in all kinds of foreign bonds. Irishmen want to keep their hoardings secret. They like to walk about barefoot and have money in their stocking. An old woman who puts on and takes off her shoes outside the town has three sons high up in the Civil Service, and could lend you eight hundred pounds. You would take her for a beggar and might offer her a penny, and she'd take it. Have you noticed the appalling mendicancy of Ireland? Have you reflected on the 'high spirit' of the Irish people? Have you remembered their pride, their repugnance to the Saxon? And have you noticed the everlastingly outstretched hands which meet you at every corner? Beggary, lying, dirt, and laziness invariably accompany priestly rule, and are never seen in Ireland in conjunction with Protestantism? I wish somebody would explain this. The Irish masses are the dirtiest and laziest in the world, but there are no dirty, lazy Protestants. Nobody ever heard of such a thing. And yet because there are more dirty, lazy Catholics than clean, industrious Protestants Mr. Gladstone would give the Catholic party the mastery, and England in future would be ruled from Rome.

"Mr. Gladstone is not responsible for his actions. The Civil Service will not employ a man after sixty-five. The British Government forbids a man to work in its service after that time. The consensus of scientific opinion has fixed sixty-five as the limit at which the control of an office or the execution of routine office work should cease. Slips of memory occur, and the brain has lost its keen edge, its firm grip, its rapid grasp of detail. At sixty-five you are not good enough for the Civil Service, but at eighty-four, when you are nineteen years older, you may govern a vast empire. It is an anomaly. Even the Nationalists think Mr. Gladstone past his work."

This statement was fully borne out by a strong anti-Parnellite of Athlone. He said:—"The bill is a hoax, but it is better than nothing. We'll take what we can get, an' we'll get what we can take—afterwards. Ye wouldn't be surprised that the people's bitter about the bill. Sure, 'tis no Home Rule it is at all, even if we got it as it first stood. 'Tis an insult to offer such a bill to the Irish nation. We want complete independence. We have a sort of a yoke on us, an' we'll never rest till we get it off. Ye say 'This'll happen ye, and That'll happen ye,' an' ye care the divil an' all about it. We don't care what happens, once we get rid of that yoke. A friend of mine said yesterday, 'I never see an Englishman but I think I'd like to have him under my feet, an' meself stickin' somethin' into him.' There's murther in their hearts, an' ye can't wonder at it. An' owld Gladstone's a madman, no less. I'm towld he ordhers a dozen top hats at once, an' his wife gets the shop-keeper to take thim back. An' I'm towld he stales the spoons whin he goes out to dine wid his frinds, an' that his wife takes thim back in a little basket nixt mornin'. And I thought that was all nonsinse till I seen the bill. An' thin I felt I could believe it; for, bedad, nobody but a madman could have drawn up sich a measure, to offind everybody, an' plaze nobody. 'Tis what ye'd expect from a lunatic asylum. But, thin, 'tis Home Rule. 'Tis the principle; an' as the mimber for Roscommon says, ''Tis ourselves will apply it, an' 'tis ourselves will explain it. That's where we'll rape the advantage,' says he."

The Athlone market is "now on," and several hundred cows and calves are lowing in front of the Royal, Mrs. Haire's excellent caravanserai. Sheep are bleating, and excited farmers are yelling like pandemonium or an Irish House of Commons. Athlone is a wonderful place for donkeys, which swell the nine-fold harmony with incessant cacophonous braying, so that the town might fairly claim the distinction of being the chosen home, if not the fons et origo, of Nationalist oratory.

Athlone, June 3rd.