John Bull and his Other Island

Chapter I

We " cannot rest from travel" — A medical cynic — A dictator wanted — I beard the bearded — The loyal sailors — A dismal daybreak — The L iff ey again 1 — 13

Chapter II

The ride to Rathdrum — The drive to Glendalough — Ideal landlords—Anecdote of the late Earl of Leitrim — Pat Barratt — The Euined City, and the Seven Churches — A couple of rascals — St. Kevin's Lather Box — King OToole's Punch Bowl — Mr. Richardson has a narrow escape — St. Kevin's Bed — Why there are not any larks at Glendalough — Anecdotes of Sir Walter Scott, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, and Mr. Davitt 11—36

Chapter III

The hut beside the road — A Protestant's opinion of the Protestant Home Rule Association — The driver on the Viceroy — A word to Unionists — The Hermit of Avondale — Anecdote of Mr. Gladstone — The Meeting of the Waters — Mr. Richardson has another mishap — A twilight valley — Back to Bray 37—60

Chapter IV

" The Brighton of Ireland '• — The Dargle — Kingstown — Three Irish opinions of Home Rule — Dublin again — The great Irish racecourse — Kildare — Monastereven — Portarlington — Maryborough — We discuss the land question — A chat with a Chamberlainite — We reach Roscrea 61 — Contents. IV •95

Chapter V

The sights of Roscrea— The colleen at the counter— A happy family— Another Unionist— The Abbey of St. Joseph- How the monks received us — The mysterious lady — Father Leo— A solemn service — Night in the Abbey ... 76

Chapter VI

We are conducted over the Abbey — "The happiest of all lives" — The legend of the barberry tree — We are instructed in the faith — The Lady's Retreat — The Convent — A gracious nun — The Ruined Castle — Off to the Shannon — The legend of the Devil's Bit Mountains — Nenagn — Our friend, the vet. — A Reminiscence of Bodyke. ... ... ... ... 96 — 117

Chapter VII

The City of the Violated Treaty — A plague of public -houses — Irish hospitality— On board the "Vandeleur" — A curious acquaintance — The scenery of the Shannon — Foynes — Tarbert — The river by moonlight — A phenomenal Home Ruler — Kilrush — A strange adventure — A dim procession —A lunar rainbow— The lights of Kilkee 118—111

Chapter VIII

I break the law and the Sabbath — We drive to Loop Head — The Cave of Kilkee— Coracles and kelp — The Sailor's Grave— The Bridges of Ross— We dine with some peasants —The driver and " the Lague "—Mr. Davitt and " the Whistler "— " Where is the balance ?"— A tale of oppression —A generous agent— John Bull blown up 112—169

Chapter IX

Loop Head— On the edge of the precipice— The dangerous bridge —Oscar Wilde and the Atlantic— The Hanging Gardens— The estuary of the Shannon— The lighthouse— Celtic im- Contents. V pudence — The return journey — A roadside dance — A battle with a dog — The secret of the Irish difficulty — A Danish fort — What the driver thought of the priest — The story of the nun 170—183

Chapter X

Another Danish fort — Kilrush again — " The placarding of England" — We visit some families at Kilcarrol who are expecting eviction — "The biggest defaulter on the estate" — The Burton dispute — The Vandeleur evictions— Scattery Island — " St.Senanus and the Lady " — The poetry of Moore — "Looking backward." 181 —

Chapter I. We

" CANNOT REST FROM TRAVEL " — A MEDICAL CYNIC — A DICTATOR WANTED I BEARD THE BEARDED — THE LOYAL SAILORS — A DISMAL DAYBREAK — THE LIFFEY AGAIN. At a little before seven o'clock on the morning of the 24th of August, 1887, I was aroused by the discordant blast of the steam-horn aboard the " Longford," which was answered by a still moie discordant blast from another horn ; and, rising hastilv, I went on deck, and found that a dense fog was hanging over land and sea, and a drizzling rain descending ; that we were just entering Dublin Bay and sailing past the Hill of Howth ; and that it was from the Bailey Light house that the answering sound proceeded. Once Hi again Mr. Richardson and I were in sight of John Bull's Other Island ; and once again, with open eyes and ears, and bags and rugs and macintoshes, we had come to wonder at its loveliness, and to ponder the problem of its fate.

Our destination on this, the last of our three journeys, was the Rebel South. We had left Liverpool at about seven o'clock on the previous evening. The night was calm, the sky clear, the moon nearlv full. No foaming billows broke uponthe shiptorob the landsmen of their appetites, and send them down below, and make them feel as if, upon the whole, they would rather like to die. They trod the deckhand watched the lights along the coast of Wales, and chatted pleasantly; and everybody seemed to be of opinion that, whatever might be thought of Ireland, there were worse places than the deck of one of the steamers of the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company. The forecastle was crowded with harvestmen on their way back to their rude little hovels in the Wilds of the West, and they sat, or lolled, or stood about the ship in a variety of picturesque attitudes, smoking, talking, listening, eating or sleeping, in accordance with their respective moods.

We were standing near a group of them, conversing with a Dublin doctor, a cynic who said that he did not take any interest in politics, as they w7ere merely a trade, and a very dishonest one ; that there were scarcely any politicians of real integrity in the United Kingdom, but that he included Mr. Bright among the number ; that he had never, in his life, been to a political meeting, and did not intend to go ; that, personally, he did not concern himself at all about the Irish question, not caring very much how matters went, and thinking, in the present state of the country, that a still tongue made a wise head. But he added that it was quite a mistake to imagine that all the people in Ireland were Nationalists ; that, on the contrary, many, in fact, he might say the whole of the better classes, were either Conservatives or Liberal Unionists ; that the inhabitants of Ulster were, beyond question, a superior race to the inhabitants of the remaining provinces ; that they would certainly fight if Home Rule were granted, and, if they did, would thrash the three without the slightest difficulty ; that Ireland could never, owin"7 to the peculiarities of the national temperament, be satisfactorily governed except by a dictator; and he parenthetically referred to the fact that the whole of the Nationalist members were under the finger and thumb of Mr. Parnell and that he was himself a dictator in deed, if not in name ; and said that, if Lord Dufferin, himself an Irishman, could only be sent out, with absolute power to govern Ireland as he thought best, and with freedom to follow a firm and consistent policy, the Irish difficulty would be settled in the course of a few months.

Speaking of the land question, this medical cynic informed me that he had himself been travelling on a car with a landlord friend, and seen a man leap from behind a wall, glance cautiously up and down the road, and, observing that there was not anvone to report the act, approach and pay his rent ; and that, next morning, the same fellow had appeared at the agent's office with the rest of the tenants, apparently as defiant and determined to withhold his dues as any of them, hoping thus to escape their suspicions and the vengeance which might have been expected had his honesty been discovered. The Proclamation of the League, however, which had taken place five days before we started, mv informant considered a mistake. In the midst of our chat, I observed that some thing was transpiring among a group of harvest men to our left ; and, turning towards them, I discovered an excitable individual with a short black beard, who hailed, it seemed, from Ballina, denouncing the Government in unmeasured terms on account of this Proclamation, and gloating over the great meeting which had been held, on the previous evening, in the Rotunda — a meeting at which English members of Parliament had, for the first time, attended, in order to shew their sympathy with Irish disaffection, and to seek across the Channel for the notoriety which the good sense of their countrymen denied to them at home.

Some ten or a dozen gaping Hibernians were listening to the oracle with apparent approval when one of the number interrupted him, and declared that the meeting was all nonsense, and that its promoters were only stirring up lawlessness and bringing fresh trouble upon the country. " Phat's that ye say ? " suddenly ejaculated the black-bearded gentleman. The interrupter repeated his assertion, but in a mumbling tone which proved that, however logical his ideas might have been, he lacked the power to defend them intelligibly ; and murmurs of disapproval were heard. " Sure, ye'd bether hould your tongue," con tinued his interlocutor, " for ye don't know phat ye're talking about ! " Now, as I admired the man's boldness in giving expression to opinions which were evidently unpopular, this summary method of silencing him was decidedly unpalatable to me ; and so I here ventured to express my entire agreement with what he had said.

Had a thunderbolt fallen among the company they could scarcely have been more astonished. Before they had recovered from the shock which it appeared to give them to learn that there were two sides to the question, I had plunged in medics res, and was doing my best to show them that none of the English members who had attended the meeting were personages of importance, except in their own eyes ; and that, whilst the policy of proclaiming the League might be open to dispute, the Proclamation would only affect the lawless ; and that honest and peaceable citizens would not have anything whatever to fear from it. They listened to me with the greatest politeness, and occasionally an expression of agreement would reach mv ears, or someone would interpose a contradiction ; but my interrupters were quickly silenced, either by the bearded one, who would tell them all alike, with amazing impartiality, " Sure, ye know nothing at all," or else by the remainder of the audience, who would enjoin the ob jectors to " lit him " — the authority from Ballina — " talk to the gintleman, for didn't he know all abootit ?"

I told them that, although I was not, in principle, opposed to Home Rule, if purely municipal in its functions, I was utterly opposed to the scheme of Mr. Gladstone, and thought that it was not just either to Ireland or Great Britain ; and that, to me, the only form of Home Rule which seemed in any way feasible was the federal form, which would involve the creation of separate legislatures for England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales — I was going to add, with strictly limited powers, and subject to the absolute supremacy of the Imperial Parliament, when one of the sailors who had joined the group, which, by this time, had attained considerable dimensions, suddenly exclaimed, with much emphasis : " Well, then, I don't agree with you at all, for you would split the Empire up entirely if you granted that !

" and, before I could explain, he had disappeared down the steerage steps. This incident gave my loquacious Nationalist friend a rare opportunity; and he pitilessly ridiculed the vanished sailor, and kept reverting to him at intervals, and making the kindest enquiries concerning the health and general condition of " the man who didn't wanttobreakupthe Empire," adding that he reminded him of a butcher, " aboot twice the width ow the funnel," with whom he had travelled, in the morning, from Yorkshire, and whom he had informed that he was journeying to " the Island of Saints." On hearing this, the gentleman who was twice the width of the fun nel proceeded to declare that Mr. Parnell and his followers were a set of sedition-mongers, and wanted hanging ; and, when our friend alluded to the fact that they were supported by Mr. Glad stone, exclaimed that Mr. Gladstone was just as bad.

From his own account, he made matters rather lively for the butcher, asking him, among other things, " whether, wid all his knowledge, he had ever read." His wrath against him was unbounded, and he repeatedly referred to his resemblance to the funnel, as if that, of itself, were sufficient to put him outside the pale of civilization, and quite unfit him for arguing with an enlightened Irish Nationalist ; and I did not appease him by tell ing him that it would not be fair to judge Englishmen by the outspoken butcher any more than it would be fair to judge Irishmen by men of the stamp of Mr. Dillon or Dr. Tanner. This led to along discussion concerning those gentlemen ; but I quite failed to convince him that it was just such extremists as these, honest and patriotic as their intentions might be, who excited distrust and apprehension in the British mind, and made John Bull so reluctant to surrender the control of his Other Island into the hands of Irishmen.

I next asked him whether, assuming Mr. Glad stone's Bills had passed, the people of Ireland would really have been prepared to accept them as a full and final settlement of the difficulty ; and he admitted that they would have required amending, but added that the Oppressed would never separate from their Oppressors because of the necessity of their protection against external enemies. " Is it fair, then," I continued, " that Ireland, whilst theoretically united to Great Britain, and compelled to contribute several millions a year to the imperial exchequer, should be shut out from the Imperial Par liament, and debarred from her share in the government of that Empire which her wisdom and her valour have done so much to create ? " and, as I proceeded, I heard sounds of approval from several of the harvest men around me.

But he rejoined that he did not think Mr. Gladstone had proposed anything of the sort. I tried co make it clear that, although he had since hinted that he was willing to leave the question open, this was certainly a part of the original scheme, a scheme which Mr. Parnell, in the name of the Irish nation, had undertaken to accept ; and I was surprised and pleased to hear several voices corroborating my assertion. I now pressed him as to the annual tribute itself, and elicited the remark that he did not see why a poor country like Ireland should be called upon to pay any thing to the imperial revenue, although she expected to benefit from our protection. I also asked him what he thought about giving the Irish landlords twenty years' purchase of the original judicial rental for their property, which was likewise a portion of Mr. Gladstone's sagacious plan ; and he said that from seven to ten years' purchase was ample.

Next I enquired whether he expected to obtain such legislation as he deemed necessary to meet the wants of the peasantry from a chamber which contained a First Order composed of peers, landlords and plutocrats ; and, as the net result of my queries, I found that the principal con ditions which Mr. Parnell and his party had, in the name of the people of Ireland, agreed to accept as a final settlement, he, as one of them, altogether repudiated. When I asked what he thought of Mr. Gladstone's suggestion that Ulster might be treated separately, and whether she would have fought in the event of the passing of the Bill, he answered that the idea of ex cluding that province from its operation would not hold water for a moment ; and that, if Ulster ventured to object to any scheme of Home Rule to which the majority of the Irish representatives might assent, they would drive the Ulstermen, whom he characterised as foreign intruders, " into the say."

As an example of his opinion of the Loyal North, I may men tion that he asserted that "ye might as well go to the divil for jushtice as to a Belsasht magistrate." This conversation lasted a long time, and I was exceedingly gratified to notice that many of the points which I advanced were quite new to these humble harvesters ; and that the facts of the case onlv needed stating to show them that the Bill for the Better Government of Ireland was a pitiable blunder. Before the dis cussion was over we were off the coast of Anglesea. Our audience had gradually de creased, and only two or three remained when, at last, we parted for the night. Before retiring, however, I had a chat with one of the sailors — an Irishman— while the lights of Holyhead were flashing on our lee. He told me that the Queen had not a more loyal subject than himself; but, in spite of his loyalty, he felt strongly in reference to many of the features of the present government of Ireland, and was especially bitter against " landlord oppression ; " and he declared that he was in favour of Home Rule, subject to the control of the Imperial Parliament.

Such were some of the incidents which en livened our evening sail along the coast of Cheshire, and Flint, and Denbigh, and Carnarvon, and Anglesea, with the silver moon above us, and the foaming sea around, and the dim land beyond, and, here and there, the lights upon the ships and rocks we passed ; and now, as we sailed under the shadow of the Hill of Howth, and by the Bailey Lighthouse, with its howling horn, and then past the Poolbeg, where yet another horn was making morning hideous with its intermittent din, and saw the Pigeon House Fort again, and resumed in the fogs of the early day, our acquaintance with the places which, three years before, we had seen amid the darkness of the night, I stood conversing with a young Irish gentleman, and asked him whether he thought it the wron«* thing to have proclaimed the League.

He replied that it was " very much the right thing, if only the Proclamation were properly carried out." Like the doctor, he was of opinion that, if Home Rule were granted, the people of the North would rise and simply " smash the rest of Ireland " — so he graphically expressed it — unless Mr. Gladstone, as a crowning favour to the loyal, should send over an English armv to " smash " them, a contingency which he appeared to regard as almost inevitable, notwithstanding Mr. Gladstone's passionate hatred of coercion, except when practised bv himself, or employed by the enemies of England against her friends. The rain and fog diminished as we were talk ing, and, by the time we reached the basin which opens from the river in the direction of Clontarf, and got amid the shipping, and the steamers moored on either side the stream, and passed the Custom House, and saw the bridges ahead, and the towers, and spires, and wharves, and ware houses, and streets, and shops, and public buildings, the sun began to peer from behind the clouds in a manner which gave promise of a fine day.

Chapter II. The Ride To Rathdrum The Drive To Glen- Dalough Ideal

LANDLORDS — ANECDOTE OF THE LATE EARL OF LEITRIM— PAT BARRATT— - THE RUINED CITY, AND THE SEVEN CHURCHES —A COUPLE OF RASCALS— ST. KEVINS LATHER BOX— KING o'TOOLE's PUNCH BOWL MR. RICHARDSON HAS A NARROW ESCAPE — ST. kevin's bed — why there are not any LARKS AT GLENDALOUGH ANECDOTES OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, MR. T. P. OCONNOR AND ME. DAVITT. The first item in our programme was a visit to County Wicklow. Accordingly, as soon as the " Longford " drew up beside the quay, we hastened ashore, and, crossing the river, made for the Harcourt Street Station. The way led us through Stephen's Green, the largest square in Dublin. It is nearly twenty acres in area, is adorned with trees and gardens, and has a statue of the late Earl of Eglinton on the north side, and an equestrian statue of George the Second in the centre.

Around it lie the Royal College of Surgeons, the Catholic University, the Museum of Irish Industry and other fine buildings ; and the entire neighbourhood is occupied by public institutions and the mansions of the great. At eight we left for Rathdrum. Gliding by some beautiful suburban residences, and on through spreading fields and rustling branches, we passed Killiney Hill, where the sweetest of villas clustered in the pleasantest of situations, and saw the Sugar Loaves, the sister cones whose Irish name is said to signify " the gilt spears," because upon their lofty points the sunlight lingers when the world below is growing dark. A glimpse of Bray, and then we rode beneath the Head, and on along the very brink of the sea; until, through Delganv, from whence the Devil's Glen is visited, and then Kilcoole, at which, in 1798, a force of rebels was defeated, we came to Wicklow.

This ancient town is the capital of the county, and derives its name from its situation at the extremity of the estuary of the Vartry, which is separated from the sea by the low and sandy peninsula known as the Murragh, where, to-day, a number of soldiers were grouped in picturesque encampment. The town, though pretty, is of small importance; and, beyond, the line, which terminates at Wexford, runs inland, having followed the yellow sands and the curling waters all the way from Bray. But Rathdrum was our destination, and, dismounting there, we entered the hotel which adjoins the station, and made it our first business to look after some breakfast. In the meantime, a car was secured bv an intelligent waiter to convev us to the Seven Churches, and, afterwards, through Avondale, the residence of Mr. Parnell, to the famous Vale of Avoca.

Passing through the village, a portion of which nestled in a deep hollow to the right, and the main street of which reminded me of Letterkennv, we drove some miles along the Vale of Clara, a wide valley in whose green recesses flowed the river Avonmore, completely hidden, save at intervals, by thick plantations rich with sombre firs and pines, and giant oaks, and silvery birches, and the graceful mountain ash, the latter ablaze with yellow berries, like vegetable candelabra kindled for some mighty wood-god's festival. And in the gloomy forest halls they lighted there was laid a velvet carpet, interspersed with flowers ; and through the branches here and there the mellow sunlight stole ; and everywhere the hawthorn boughs were drooping with the ruddy food the robin loves ; and along our path luxuriant briars held their prickly arms aloft to offer us amazing clusters of delicious blackberries, that shone like emeralds, or glowed like rubies, or glistened like black diamonds.

Between the woods were many fertile fields, and, in their midst, such farms and houses as disposed us both to doubt if this were verily a land that groaned beneath the oppressor's yoke ; for they were large and substantial, and singularly pleasing in appearance, with their white walls, and their roofs of red tile, and their genuine chimneys, and their real windows, and tfieir doors that actually kept the cold out ; in fact, they were farms which many an Englishman mightenvy ; andallthis, weheard,wasowingto the wisdom of the Earl of Meath, who did not abuse the privileges, ana was mindful of the duties of a landlord, and who owned an estate which -was kept in better order than any we had seen in Ireland. Our driver gave him a very high character, and told us, amongst other things, that he offered prizes to his tenantry to encourage them to take a pride in their homesteads ; and endeavoured, by every means in his power, to assist them to make the property a credit bath to him and to themselves.

But he gave us a curious illustration of the spirit which prevails among the population. He pointed out to us, quite close to the road, a comfortable house in which there lived an old woman who had formerly occupied a wretched tenement of the usual type ; and who, on having the existing premises erected for her use in place of it, querulously wanted to know "pwhy the landlord must be afther disthurbing her in this manner ! " We also rode through a portion of the estate of Earl Fitzwilliam, and here likewise the land was well cultivated, and the farmers apparently prosperous. As we were chatting with the driver concerning the soil and its owners, he told us how, a short time before the murder of the late Earl of Leitrim, he had driven him to Glendalough ; and how the Earl had scrutinized every bush and wall and tree, as if he dreaded to discover some assassin lurking behind it, eager for his blood ; how he carried a revolver in his pocket, and, when he arrived at the hotel at Glendalough, he passed inside, but, in a few moments,came to the door, put his hands in his pockets, and gazed vacantlv at the peaceful hills surrounding him, repeating the action twice, and then calling him and exclaiming : "This is a quiet place you've brought me to, driver !

I don't think I'll stay here ! Drive me back again ! " apparently imagining that murderers were dogging his footsteps even here, and that only in the life and bustle of the town, and among his own friends, was he safe against the doom that was so speedily to fall upon him in the shadow of the woods of Donegal. We had passed through the Vale of Clara now, and were riding through the Vale of Laragh, which matches it in loveliness of hills and trees and rippling waters ; and, emerging from the latter, we rode through the village of the same name, with its church, and school, and police barracks, and the vacant cottages of the men who had formerly been employed in a lead mine up a valley to the right of Glendalough. This mine, the driver said, had been abandoned because of the lowness of prices, and the difficulty ot transit. , Beyond the village, the Priory of St. Saviour, the first of the Seven Churches which have made the fame of Glendalough, was pointed out to us across the stream which ran to our left from the two lakes which nestled in the bosom of the gloomy valley which we were about to visit, and which was just ahead ; and, a little further, we saw, beside the road, the Trinity Church, the second of the seven ; and, further yet, a crowd of ruins in the rear of an hotel ; and here we left the car.

Straightway we were pounced upon by a short, broad-shouldered, well-built and active individual in knickerbockers, with a dark moustache, who promptly introduced himself as Pat Barratt, " known to all the celebrities of the day, and mentioned in a score of guide books " ; and who, from the moment we met him until the moment we left him, kept up a string of legends, and witticisms, and rhymes, and philosophical reflections on things in general with all the fluency of a genius, and whose capacity for alternately amusing, instructing and deluding the astonished traveller I have never seen excelled. " What is your charge ? " we enquired. " Phatever yer honour likes to give," said he — an artful way of answering you which is very common in Ireland, and which usually draws from the generous tourist a fee about double that which any guide with any sense of shame would ever venture to ask.

Following this worthy, we found ourselves, in another moment, among the ruins of the city which St. Kevin is said to have founded, and prepared to examine the Seven Churches which are commonly attributed to him. The facts, however, are disputed, some maintaining that he merely lived as a hermit here, having charge of an abbey which he established ; and that the city was founded by Dymnach, " one of the lordsof the surrounding territory," or by St. Mocorog,a Briton who, fired by the fame of St. Kevin, crossed the Channel, and took up his abode in a cell on the eastern side of the valley, erecting a seminary within the walls of which arose a band of men renowned for religion and the love of learning, and who spread abroad in " the Island of Saints " that knowledge and piety which have made its earlier history a record of peaceful industry and beautiful devotion, and have flung a halo round it in the age when round the neighbouring realms the heavy darkness hung for centuries.

But strange disasters came upon the holy city. Ravaged twice by fire and once by water, a few scattered ruins alone remain to attest its former greatness. Our talkative conductor first directed our atten tion to the Cathedral Church, of which a consider ableportionremained,the whole ofthe ruins, which were for a long time neglected, having been carefully restored some time ago. But none ofthe churches was anythinglike complete, and the next we saw — St. Kevin's Kitchen — was the only one which had a roof. Within the walls of the Cathedral were the tombs of two old abbots ; and, in the burial ground outside, were many other ancient tombs and crosses. It is popularly believed that this resting-place is so peculiarly hallowed that " the body which is buried here is sure to rise again with its spiritual companion in happiness " ; and one of the crosses was pointed out to us as St. Kevin's Monument, and reported to stand upon the spot where the saint had ex pressed a desire to be buried.