Ireland exhibited to England in a political and moral survey of her population, and in a statistical and scenographic tour of certain districts ... With a letter to the members of His Majesty's Government on the state of Ireland

Front matter

IRELAND EXHIBITED TO ENGLAND, IN A POLITICAL AND MORAL SURVEY OF HER POPULATION. IRELAND EXHIBITED TO ENGLAND, IN A POLITICAL AND MORAL SURVEY OF HER POPULATION, AND IN A STATISTICAL AND SC BHOG R APHIC TOUR OF CERTAIN DISTRICTS; COMPREHENDING SPECIMENS OF HER COLONISATION, NATURAL HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES, ARTS, SCIENCES, AND COMMERCE, CUSTOMS, CHARACTER, AND MANNERS, SEATS, SCENES AND SEA VIEWS. Violent Inequalities in her Political and Social System, THE TRUE SOURCE OF HER DISORDERS. PLAN FOB SOFTENING DOWN THOSE INEQUALITIES, AND FOR UNITING ALL CLASSES OF THE PEOPLE IN ONE CIVIL ASSOCIATION FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THEIR COUNTRY. WITH A LliTTER TO THE MEMBERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. By A. ATKINSON, Esq. LATE OF DUBLIN. Concordia res pan-æ creseunt — discords inaximæ dilabuntur. — Sallust.

VOL. I. LONDON: BALDWIN, CKADOCK, AND JOY, PATERNOSTER-ROW 1823. PRINTED BY A. AITLEGATII, STAMFORD-STREET. CONTENTS. VOL. I. Page. Dedication • iii Preface v Letter to the members of his Majesty's government xi On the middle link in the landed interest xix

Chapter I

Ireland introduced to the notice of the reader. — Author's anxiety for the improvement of his country. — Brief view of her political circumstances. — Remedies for her disorders pointed out. — Political reflections resumed and concluded 1 Supplementary remarks 39

Chapter II

Geographical position and climate of Ireland. — Soil, surface, civil divisions, and bouadaries of Downshire. — Tour through Downshire, by Dundalk, from Dublin. — Description of Dundalk and the seats around it. — Author's letter to the editor of a provincial newspaper. — Genius and disposition of the people. — Description of seats and manufactories in the neighbourhood of Dundalk. — Of the beautiful valley of Ravensdale. — Carlingford. — Observations on the peasantry of Louth. — Parochial societies for the improvement of the poor recommended. — Newry, the principal maritime town of Downshire, noticed. — Seats in its vicinity described. — Loughbrickland, Tanderagee, a CONTENTS. II Page and Portadown. — Objects deserving of notice in their neighbourhood. — Banbridge, Dromore, and Maghe ralin, with specimens of the country around them. — Travelling history of Hillsborough. — Views of its de mesne and schools foreducation. — Village of Warrington.

Description of Downpatrick, the metropolis of Down shire. — Ardglass, with reflections upon its new works. — Castlewellan, with the beautiful scenery around it. — Vil lage of Newcastle. — Splendid seat of Tullamore-park. — Towns of Donaghadee, Portaferry, and Strangford. — Seats. — Villages of Killough, Dundrum, Killileagh, and Bangor. — Beautiful seats of Castle-Ward and Mount Stewart. — Anecdote of the late Lord Londonderry. — Seats in the vicinity of Newtownardes. — Parish of Annehilt 75

Chapter III

Minerals. — Fossils. — Mineral waters. — Rivers. — Estates, tenures, rental. — Downshire farms and farmers. — Tithes. — Meadows, gardens, and orchards. — Timber, plantations, and woodlands. — Wastes and bogs. — Paring, burning, and draining. — Manures, food, and fuel. — Roads. — Agricultural society, countv survey. — Antiquities of Downshire. — Directory to the seats of Downshire, with their respective post towns alphabetically arranged 239

Chapter IV

Peasantry improvement society. — Tithes. — Ulster provincial dialect. — A specimen of its rural inns. — Influence of the linen manufacture upon the character of the province. — Description of the basaltic area of Antrim, as an introduction to the tour and survey of that county 33 I TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS AUGUSTUS FREDERICK, DUKE OF SUSSEX, &c. &c. Sir, I dedicate this work to your Royal Highness for two reasons : — first, because you are the brother of my sovereign; secondly, because, in the per son of your Royal Highness, your country recog nises a friend to her constitutional freedom. As this feature of your Royal Highness' character, is that which reflects the brightest lustre on your name and high descent; so, in the feeling which dictates this tribute of respect, I offer the purest pledge of my attachment to that au gust house, which was placed upon the throne of this realm by the people ; the maintenance of whose just rights, is equally the immoveable basis of that throne, the prolific source of prosperity to the empire, and the surest pledge of England's ascendancy in the scale of nations. a DEDICATION.

Convinced that he who exerts his influence to support the rights of the subject — to advocate the cause of the poor ancl the oppressed — to render accessible to the hand of industry the plenty of the land — to protect the constitution, and to improve the laws — and to procure for talents that cannot be corrupted their just posi tion in the service ofthe state, is the only true friend of his king and country, I offer to your Royal Highness my humble congratulations, on having selected for your political race this field of glory ; and in your Royal Highness' pursuit of that imperishable fame, which has its origin in a faithful devotion to the public service, I fervently pray, that you may be rendered a pillar in the temple of the constitution, supporting, on one side, the just prerogatives of the Crown, and on the other, the just liberties of the people, I have the honour to be, Your Royal Highness' Obedient humble Servant, A. ATKINSON

Preface

. The Author's object in this publication being an exhibition of the present state of Ireland, every foreign object has been studiously precluded; and even the few facts of her ancient history, and those monuments of her antiquity, which are noticed in the work, have only been introduced to give the reader a more accurate conception of her existing portrait. The descriptions of her seats and scenery were taken on the spot, by the Author and other living writers ; and the specimens of her natural history, antiquities, manufactures, and com merce, have been collected from the purest sources. There is not a garret view in the whole work ; nor is the political and moral portrait of Ireland, with the remedies for her disorders, which this work contains, the discovery of "olden times ;" but the fruit of that experience which the Author acquired by an attentive observation of his country for thirty years, and a long course of travels through it, in the prosecution of his literary pursuits, within the last ten. He hence flatters himself that nothing essential to a true conception of thestate of Ireland has been omitted in th'swork . T'or can VI

PREFACE.

. he recollect a single department of her social history, of which he has not given a sufficient sample to enable the reader to form a tolerably correct outline of the whole. To the measures by which the peace of Ireland, may be established on a durable foundation, and her prosperity progressively advanced, this work has been devoted, as to its first and most worthy object ; and if, in the concise but pregnant view, which the Author has taken of her present politi cal circumstances, he has only touched upon one or two cardinal acts of the Irish administration, it is because that administration, of whatever ele ments composed, cannot, in its executive capacity, lay a lasting foundation for the peace of Ireland ; although for a moment it may appear to tranquil lize a troubled ocean, or, by its terrors, awe it into gloomy silence.

To objects, therefore, of more vital importance to the interests of Ireland, than the acts of its executive government, the Author has directed his inquiries, and now labours to call the attention ofthe British cabinet and senate. It is from these alone, that union of the clergy of the two churches in one political interest, (on wliich the peace of Ireland so materially depends) and other durable foundations of her future prosperity must proceed ; and hence to those paramount sources of authority, he has appealed for the salvation of his country, leaving the government of Ireland to keep the military to its post ; convinced that this will form an essential part of its painful duty, until a solid foundation for the peace of Ireland

PREFACE.

. VII shall be laid, by a political reconciliation of the two churches. If, indeed, the period is approaching, in which Ireland is to be governed by a peaceful policy, this union of the clergy ofthe two churches in a constitutional compact for the improvement of their country, is the very first measure to be adopted. There are other measures essential to the prosperity of Ireland, briefly noticed in this work ; but as it is not from the Irish administration, separate from England, that these may be expected to proceed, the Author has directed his attention to objects more deep and vital to the interests of Ireland, than the transitory acts of administration ; and if these acts, in any instance, have shed a ray of light upon the Author's page, it was to exhibit the inadequacy of the existing remedies to the diseases of the country, in the absence of those legislative provisions, for which he strenuously pleads in the political sections of this work : and in a posture of petition prostrates himself at the threshold of the state, that his bleed ing country, if a member of the British family, may no longer be abandoned to her distempers, as an outcast and alien from the English common wealth.

Whether, in reality, the measures by which Ireland can be regenerated without inflicting a wound upon the established institutions of the country ; or, in other words, whether the Author has pointed out the means byr which those institutions may be rescued from the dangers which

PREFACE.

. menace them, and made infinitely stronger pillars ofthe state than they are at present, is the question which he now submits to the British cabinet and senate, and to the consideration of an enlightened public ; and to the arguments and reflections which support it, in the political sections of this work, he refers them. To those persons who have no taste for political discussion, or statistical details, but who should like to make a tour in Ireland by a British fire side, (and these tourists are numerous in England) this work may probably find its recommendations, in the vast variety of scenographic descriptions with which it is blended, — in the great works of art and nature which it describes, and in its amus ing, but harmless delineations of Irish character and misfortune, — <a brogue on every tongue, but not on every foot — beauty in every scene, and wit on every road, from Donaghadee to Dublin.

However, the Author cannot (with those gentlemen who write tours for the trade) appropriate to himself the bookseller's compliment in Syntax : " I know a man who has the skill To write your books of tours at will ; And from his garret in Moorfields, Can see what every country yields." * By no means. The Irishman who here presents to the British public a portrait of his country, cannot boast of those extraordinary powers which would enable him to get to the end of a seven * What an eye this genius must nave had i

PREFACE.

. IX years' tour by a peep from a garret window ! — Many a long ancl painful journey has this deficiency of talent imposed upon him, within the last ten years ; but, in the information which he has collected from the best authorities, in the political and statistical details comprehended in these volumes, and in the history of what he has seen with his own eyes, and of which his hands have handled, some compensation will be given to the British public for this defect of nature. It is, however, only candid to acknowledge, that this is not the only advantage which the tourists ofthe book trade possess over the author of this work : — they may be said to save a moderate for tune, which he has been compelled to expend in travelling — they procure all their materials at the lowest prices — they never render their names responsible for books which they get up — and lastly, they embellish them with pretty pictures, which entertain the eye, without pretending to enrich the understanding.

Here, on the contrary, a large sum has been expended, to combine the living features of Ireland, in a portrait that shall not deceive the nations. Here a stranger, without connections in England, has planted his foot upon the emporium of the world, to spend his last shilling, in calling the attention of England to the distresses of his country ! Here the author publishes his name, and renders himself accountable for his history: and here, if he shall obtain a price pro portioned to the value of his book, in aid of an extensive patronage, with which he was honoured

PREFACE.

. X in his native land, unless the sale shall exceed his most sanguine expectations, it will not repay the fortune which he-has expended in this enterprise, to say nothing of the large proportion of his life wliich it has consumed ! — But, in thus bringing his country before the people of Great Britain, he accomplishes the end which he had in view ; and, without a print to decorate the work, it will stand upon its own legs, and^vindicate his intentions. The statesman, the political economist, the lover of Irish scenes and Irish character, the natu turalist, who studies the history of the earth ; the antiquarian, who broods over the monuments of past ages ; the merchant, who exclusively regards the progress of commerce, in a country connected with his own ; all, it is hoped, will find something in the varied sections of this work, to repay them for the devotion of an hour ; — but, above all, the absent owner of the soil, who has abandoned the vessel of his country to the winds and to the waves, may find warning and information in this work, that may induce him to assist in repairing and piloting the ship, on whosesea-worthiness and safe conduct so materially depends, the pre servation of his own cargo.

Thus much, without prejudice to our humility, we are perhaps justified in saying, concerning " Ireland exhibited to the View of England." — For the residue of her tale, we refer the British public to her own story. t\ LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT, ON THE STATE OF IRELAND. MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, In presuming to address you upon the state of Ireland, I am neither unmindful of the respect which I owe to your rank and office, nor of the errors which accidentally result from the best intentioned execution ofthe duties of civil government. — My creed teaches me to recognise the first, — my own errors and misfortunes, if I had no better monitor, would instruct me to make due allowance for the latter. But while my breast heaves with compassion for that infirmity of nature, which is doomed to sustain the awful load of being responsible for the happiness or misery of nations, my country steps forth to silence the reasonings of philosophy, by a statement of facts, ancl to present herself covered with wounds at the bar of his Majesty's Govern ment.

LETTER, TO THE MEMBERS OF XII Deem it not arrogant, my Lords and Gentlemen, that a man of humble rank shall become the advo cate of his country on such an occasion. In the proudest days of Greece and Rome, and shall I add, in the proudest days of modern Britain, every citizen was the sentinel of his country's liberties ; and the liberties of that country must soon fall, and with its liberties its glory, when the rights of the people are trodden under foot, and their remonstrances contumeliously rejected. It did not imply a reflection upon the wisdom of the Roman government, that some of its remote provinces were occasionally agitated; nor did the deputies who presented themselves at the bar of the Roman senate to petition for a redress of grievances, uncouthly charge all the members o,f the government with corrupt motives.

The arduous task of conducting the arms of a mighty nation to success, may, for a season, be incompatible with that vigorous attention to the internal policy ofa country, which is necessary to accomplish a reformation of its abuses; but when the period of war has passed over, and the people have returned to the arts of peace, a purification of the internal policy of that nation from every stain of injustice, becomes a sacred duty, and by no other mode can a great nation be prepared for future glorious achievements. You, my Lords and Gentlemen, with your late colleague, had the honour of conducting your country through the late convulsions of Europe to a peaceful close. It is now for you to acquire imperishable fame, bv HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT. XIII purging its internal policy of those corruptions wliich engender strife, and by reducing those burdens, which were unavoidably imposed upon the people, while Britain was engaged in a conflict for her existence as a nation.

I shall now beg to observe, as the advocate of my country's real interests, that I can neither strengthen my cause, by identifying it with that of a party opposed to English religion ancl ascendancy, nor can I approach to procure the favour of that ascendancy, by the suppression of those facts, or the sacrifice of those doctrines, which I conceive to be essential to the salvation of my country. Hence, in the first chapter of this work, I have endeavoured to point out, although in a manner totally inadequte to the importance of the subject, the errors of the people ou the one hand, and those mistakes in the political, ecclesiastical, and domestic management of Ireland on the other, by which the value of that country, as the bright est gem in tbe crown of England, has been diminished ; its unity and prosperity retarded, ancl those discontents, which are the enemies of peace and the parents of convulsion, made the standing donation of the lords of Ireland to their own soil.

Nor do I trace these evils, as has been frequently done by other writers, to this or that administration. They grow out of an impolitic exclusion of the Roman Catholic clergy (the most influential order of men in Ireland) from a participation in the ecclesiastical property ofthe realm, of which they were once the sole possessors: they grow out of LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF an unequal and impolitic mode of maintenance for the established clergy ; a mode at once partial and oppressive, injurious to the moral influence ofthe established church, and productive of numerous vexations to the clergy, and to the peasantry of the land: they grow out of an inflated code of criminal law, which has not charity for its basis : and to these, and many minor causes which might be mentioned, in too many districts of the country, a vicous system of rural government is added, by which the peasantry, on many properties, are stung to madness, or rendered torpid by despair.

To enter into all those errors of antiquity and modern mismanagement, by wliich the natural capabilities of the Irish soil ancl character are para lysed and broken, would be a task too complicated for a letter, and totally incompatible with its limits. So far as I conceived a developement of the po litical and moral state of Ireland essential to a concise portrait of the country, I have given it in the introductory chapter, and in those reflec tions upon the circumstances of the population with which the work is interspersed; and so far, perhaps, I may venture to sayr, (notwithstanding the tale of Irish calamity might be spun out into many volumes) as this developement is likely to answer any useful purpose, it has been faithfully though concisely drawn. Compelled, by the duties of my station, and by the nature of my researches, to mix with the lower classes of my countrymen, (as well as with the higher) and tobe witnesses of their vices and their wrongs, my HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT.

XV attention was necessarily directed to the character and operations of that machine, by which such a motley mass of good ancl evil was produced and propagated. I found this machine to be com posed of two parts, the political and the do mestic ; and although die first, (in which I include not only the administration of the laws, but the laws themselves) appeared to me, in some instances, to have overacted its part, and in others, to have been sadly defective, yet to the degraded state of the peasantry of the land ; the absence of the proprietors of the soil ; the oppressions and extortions of middle men and under agents, to which that absence gave birth ; the enforcement of ecclesiastical dues,, by tithe farmers and jobbers; the non-existence of parochial societies, for hearr ing the complaints of the poor, and for bettering their condition ; and lastly, to the want of profitable employment, in the languishing state of our manufactures and agriculture, might be mainly at tributed, the discontents and distresses of the nation.

To these discontents ancl distresses, it was impossible for a heart to be insensible, that was so frequently brought into contact with them, unless it were dead to the common feelings of hu manity. To remove the causes which produced them I had no power ; but to contribute the humble mite of my testimony to their existence, and to the means by which they might be mitigated or removed, was not so difficult a task, when holding up my country, in the mirror ofthe press, to the observation and sympathy of the English nation. LETTER TO THE MEMBERS OF XVI Accustomed from early youth to consider England, not only as the land of my ancestors, and the parent of the state, but as the country from which I derived my love of liberty, ancl which had given to these islands the inestimable jewel of libertyof conscience, , whatever tended to promote her prosperity, I regarded as a personal benefit ; whatever approached to impair her influence, as an enemy to the public welfare.

From the plots and conspiracies, which were formed to rescue Ireland from her dominion, my Christian politics preserved me ; and to the same pilot I stand indebted for the safe conduct of my bark through rocks of faction, whirlpools of deceit, ancl sharks watching for the destruction of the innocent. I am still sailing with my country over this dangerous element; ancl shall not deny, but I tremble for our safety, since the winds are still whistling around us, and the sea trembling even to its base. The methods by which those winds should be composed, and this sea tranquillized, I submit to the consideration of his Majesty's Ministers, in whose hand is the helm of the state. But in my humble opinion, until the cause is removed, or materially corrected, the effects cannot be controlled by a mere system of coercion.

If the evil be produced by an imperfect system of civil policy and rural government, it is human, ancl may be corrected by a human hand ; but mere coercion cannot do this; for although crops may be moiued doicn, seeds will propagate, and it is only a summer sun that can supersede the storms and the gloom of winter. HIS MAJESTY'S GOVERNMENT. XVII The British statesman who is truly alive to the best interests of the empire, cannot but find motives of sufficient strength, to induce him to achieve such an improvement of the political and social fabric of Ireland, as may promise to render its union with England prosperous and perpetual. He cannot but suspect, on a cool and impartial view of the discontents which prevail in Ireland, that the weakness and divisions of that country, are more directly the cords by which England holds her in subjection, than a mutual identification of interests, or any of those kindly feelings, which result from a recollection of benefits received.

In such a state of affairs, a crisis might possibly arrive, even in England itself, when neither the power nor the policy of a British minister, would be able to preserve the subserviency of Ireland to his views. At present that country may be governed by a strong military force, and by a judicious management of its leading men ; but in the progress of events, the latter may lose their influence with the people, as some of them have done already, and the former may be called off to attend to business more immediately at home ; and in such a critical conjuncture, (which heaven avert by a timely reformation of our system) of how much importance might it prove to the interests of the British crown, to have secured the affections of the Roman Catholic clergy, by a parental consideration of their title to a proportion of that property, which was once all their own ; and those of the people, by the enjoyment b LETTER TO THE MEMBERS, &c. of that peace, plenty, and constitutional liberty, which is the end of all good government, and which would be of infinitely more value to the population of Ireland, than the elevation of its leaders to posts of authority in the state.

And if to these important considerations, Irish ministers at least, will add the consideration of their own happiness, as private men, when, by age, or by a change of circumstances, they shall be under the necessity of once more blending with the people. When they reflect on the possibility of a day approaching, when they shall return to their paternal soil, covered with the gratitude or with the hatred of their country, and that the security of Ireland, the fertility of her resources to the British crown, and even the security of their own estates to their posterity, may depend on the stability of the sys tem which they shall bequeath to their country ; and that this stability cannot possibly be erected on any other foundation than that of justice ; very strong motives indeed, in our humble opinion, present themselves to the minds of those members ofthe ministry, who have a stake in Ireland, to undertake, while life and health shall last, a regeneration of that system, by which their country is now torn and convulsed.

I have the honour to be, MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN, Your obedient humble servant, A. ATKINSON. IN THE LANDED INTEREST. Having alluded to the abuses of middle occupation in the landed interest of Ireland, in the foregoing letter, and accidentally omitted, in the body of the work, to distinguish the mode by which these abuses might be safely abolished ; we feel it expedient, from the importance of this subject to the peace and welfare of our country, to supply this deficiency by a few supplementary reflections ; more particularly, as we have not seen a safe practical remedy for these abuses, exhibited to the view of the govermnent and landed interest in any other publication. And that these are deeply concerned in the correction of an evil, which has contributed, with others, to produce numerous breaches of the peace, to render property insecure, and a residence in certain districts of Ireland, dangerous, is a proposition thai rests upon its own evidence, and needs no argument to conduct the mind, of a reasonable man, to its just conclusion.

The use, however, and the abuse of this link (like that of every other link in our blessed b2 XX chain) are two things : and it shall be the business of this essay to touch them both, in a brief exa mination of their connection (to shift our meta phor) with other musidal chords, in the ravishing harmony of our Irish institutions. The middle link, in the landed interest of Ire land, however mischievous its abuses, as a bar to the ascendancy of the peasantry in the scale of civilisation, (to which property and education, to a certain extent, are indispensable) is, nevertheless, the offspring of a constitution, which throws open the channels of industry and wealth, like jus tice, with a blind and undistinguishing generosity, to all classes of the people. With the abolition of feudal institutions this bird of freedom grew up.

With a diminution of those penal statutes, which chained down the industry of the land, it sprung into activity. The war in the Peninsula, and the commerce of England, contributed to its corpulence ; and if with those wings, by which it overspread the land, ancl touched the ocean upon both sides, it absorbed and concentred within itself that light, and heat, and moisture, which (as a medium of communication between the sun and soil) it should have distributed with a liberal hand among the labouring classes, the same charge stands good against all mercantile monopolists of food ; eminently so against all those Irishmen who (in 1822) had a surplus both of property and corn, and in a land flowing with milk and honey, saw their fellow countrymen who had no money, and who could get no food without it, perishing in multitudes by famine, and by the plague which it produced.

The same may be said of every individual who buries his talent of knowledge or property in the earth; or who perverts it into an instrument of oppression, in stead of rendering it as diffusive as the light of God for the universal benefit of man. But for these accidental abuses of freedom, a sudden and violent expulsion of the middle link from the chain of the landed interest, is no more the remedy, than a sudden and violent expulsion of all misers and monopolists from the country; or a sudden and violent expulsion of the church from the con stitution of England, on account of the abuses of the tithe system. If the government, after laying the foundation of the peace of Ireland, (by legislative enactments, calculated to establish a good understanding be tween the two churches) would co-operate with the leading interests of that country in the formation of a national society, for the correction of the abuses of this link, and of every other link in the chain of society in Ireland, we have no doubt but a gradual reform of all public abuses would be effected : (for a union of the churches would be half the work) but we deny that these abuses, which are the accidental evils of a state of freedom, should be touched by the coercive hand of law (as the outcry against the middle men of Ireland, from certain quarters, would appear to indicate.)