In castle and cabin; or, Talks in Ireland in 1887

Front matter

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Part I. In Ieinster

A Meeting of a Club in Dublin « . . . . 19

The Lord Mayor 24

A Dublin Business Man ....... 33

A Catholic Professor ........ 41

A Pessimistic Farmer ........ 44

A Prosperous Farmer ........ 45

Talks in West Meath 50

In a Smoking-Room in County Carlow ..... 56

A County Carlow Landlord ....... 61

A Miller 67

A Nationalist Leader in County Kilkenny .... 68

A Kilkenny Manufacturer 74

Part II. In Munster

A Cork Nationalist 78

A Boycotted Farmer in County Cork . . . . .80

A " Plan of Campaign " Estate ...... 89

A Gentleman Farmer in County Cork ..... 96

An Estate in County Waterford 98

iii

IV CONTENTS.

A Waterford Farmer 105

Tipperary Farmers ........ 106

A Tipperary Land Agent . . . . . . .109

Driving with a Magistrate in Tipperary . . . . .112

A Tipperary Landlord . . . . . . . .117

A Unionist Priest 127

National Leaguers at Killarney . . . . . .132

Kerry Outrages 133

A Nationalist Editor in Kerry ...... 140

A Kerry Land Agent ........ 143

After Eviction — Herbartstown and Bodyke .... 147

Part III. In Connaught

Why Galway Wants Home Rule 155

Walking in Connemara . . . . . . . .158

What They Say at Clifden . . . . . . .175

Jottings in Westport and Sligo 187

Connaught Land-Leaguers ....... 183

Jottings in Westport and Sligo . . . . . .187

A Day with a Popular Land Agent ..... 195

A Day and a Night with Nationalists at Ballinasloe . . 203 A " Plan of Campaign " Town 210

Part IV. In Ulster

Gweedore — an Eviction . . . . . . .219

About Falcarragh . . . . . . . . .228

With a Drummer in Donegal ...... 232

A Manufacturer in County Tyrone ..... 240

Chance Acquaintances at Dungannon ..... 243

Some Belfast Merchants 251

Some Belfast Professional Men ...... 272

Some Country Nationalists ....... 282

Some Orangemen ......... 289

PREFACE.

It is the general belief that a change in the social and political condition of Ireland must soon be accomplished, a change so fundamental as to be properly called a revolution. The system of " landlordism " is to be superseded, we are told, by "peasant proprietorship," the government of Great Britain by Home Rule. Such changes may, perhaps, be effected without bloodshed, but not, certainly, without intense excitement. The excitement that out of the ruins of the old parties has created two new parties, the Home Rulers and the Unionists, and that in Ireland nicknames the Unionists "traitors " and the Home Rulers "rebels," must, to some degree, blind men's eyes and deafen their ears. The questions about to be solved in Ireland, the necessity or the reverse of landlordism, and the proper limitation of local independence, involve principles that are at the root of all society and government, and claim the interest of serious-minded citizens in any country. Especially do these questions deserve the careful attention of the American people, since Irish politics perpetually exercise no indirect influence on our own, and we cannot help being important factors in Irish affairs. Books upon the subject are so numerous that some excuse seems needed for the publication of another, but, as a rule, the books and articles we read are the controversial statements of professed

VI PREFACE.

partisans, so that place may, perhaps, still be found for an uncolored record, however incomplete, of thought and conduct in Ireland at the present time.

Last summer I spent rather over four months in Ireland, from the beginning of July to the early days of November. Letters of introduction were, with the greatest kindness, furnished me by W. E. H. Lecky the Marquis of Sligo, Lady O'Hagan, Mrs: Penrose Fitzgerald, Sir Louis Mallet, Sir James Caird, and Sir George Young, to representative Unionists, and to representative Nationalists by the Hon. W. R. Grace of New York, John E. Ellis, M. P., Mrs. Green, A. P. Graves, and Charles E. Mallet of London. In Ireland, the Honorary Secretary of the Irish National League, Timothy Harrington, M. P., most courteously gave me a circular-letter which secured me the hospitable and serious attention of Nationalists from Kerry to Donegal. Every person I met I tried to draw into conversation upon the condition of the country, and the reasons that made them desire Home Rule, or oppose it. Full notes were taken of every conversation, however apparently unimportant, and, on reading them over, I found that they contained records of talks with over two hundred people, including officials, landlords, land agents, priests, farmers, professional men, merchants, shopkeepers, commercial travellers, and laborers. Four months is, perhaps, not long enough to find out much about a country so variously interesting as Ireland. If I can, however, succeed in making the reader feel as though he had seen and heard what passed in my presence during those four months, this little book may have been worth the reading. It will, at least, suggest some of the difficulties to be met by any statesman and by any nation that proposes finally

INTRODUCTION.

THE AGRARIAN AGITATION AND THE LAND ACTS.

In the volume of the " State Papers " for 1557, there is a despatch from the Lord Deputy to Queen Elizabeth, recommending the appointment for Ireland of " Commissioners to settle the rent " to be taken by landlords from their tenants, and also of a " Commission to compound for arrears." ' That the legislation of the last few years in regard to the tenure of land in Ireland has been along the lines suggested more than three hundred years ago, proves that special and permanent conditions have isolated the Irish people from the general tendency of civilization, a tendency that has invariably been from " status " to " contract," from perpetual state interference to the greatest possible freedom of individual action.

" That condition of society in which the land suitable for tillage can be regarded as a mere commodity, the subject of trade, and can be let to the highest bidder in an open market, has never, except under special circumstances, existed in Ireland." 2 This fact is the reason for the existence of the "Irish Land Question." Under

1 T. M. Healy : " A Word for Ireland," 1886, p. 7. 8 " Report of the ' Bessborough ' Commission," 1881, p. 4.

I the early tribal system the land was owned by the tribe in common, with the exception of a certain portion that was held by an elective chief for the time being. No permanent interest in the land existed under this system, " tanistry," as it was called, and no people has ever become civilized till it has been discarded. Such indefiniteness of individual rights was abhorrent to English notions of law and order, and wherever the conquering power of England extended, the chiefs or their successors were held to be the owners of the soil, and the people tenants at will or from year to year. This change, if it had come about by imperceptible stages and naturally, as in England, or even if it had been enforced throughout the whole country and at once, would have been acquiesced in and would have made for civilization ; but the conquest of Ireland was an intermittent and piecemeal conquest, that for centuries kept the country in confusion. Within the " pale " English law prevailed ; outside, anarchy mitigated by survivals of tribal customs. Later came the period of " plantations." Under Elizabeth the vast property of the Desmonds was confiscated. In the times of the first Stuarts, Ulster was planted. By the "Act of Settlement," in 1653, Ireland was again distributed among adventurers and soldiers, and the natives were removed beyond the Shannon. Under William III. over a million acres were escheated, and u when he died there did not remain in the hands of Catholics one sixth of the lands which their grandfathers held " after the passing of the Act of Settlement. During all these centuries it is clear that the tenure of land was not regulated by contract. When the original occupiers were allowed to remain, they remained as serfs rather than as tenants, and when they were replaced by others the new settlers were selected for special reasons, military, religious, or political.

To this long continuance of social confusion are due the facts that especially characterize the " Irish Land Question " : the low standard of living among the peasantry ; the absence of improvements by the landlords ; and the limitation of industry to agriculture. The "potato," introduced in the early part of the seventeenth century, soon became the popular crop of the country, for " it was easily raised, the yield was great, and the produce was too bulky to be carried away by plunderers." Improvements by a landlord are the result of agreement or contract, and as the tenants came in only by custom or favor they were naturally neither expected nor demanded. Moreover, in the tribal period the chiefs certainly made no " improvements," building no fences for their people, for the people were too little civilized to need more than they could do themselves ; and in the later period the new landlords made no " improvements," for they were often needy adventurers, and even a rich man would be beggared by building houses and fences for a tenantry so numerous and with such small holdings. Manufactures were naturally slow to arise in such a society. Even in England, manufactures were confined chiefly to the northern counties, to the neighborhood of the large coal fields, and in Ireland coal of a good quality is not to be found. Two manufactures only attained prosperity, those of linen and of wool, for the climate and soil of Ulster were peculiarly suited to the growth of flax, and the wool of the Irish sheep was unusually fine ; but the woollen industry was practically destroyed by Act of Parliament under the influence of the mistaken political economy of the eighteenth century.

During the French and the Peninsular wars farming became exceptionally profitable, and under the protective tariff the Irish farmers enjoyed almost a monopoly, at artificial prices, in supplying English markets. Between 1780 and 1846 flour mills sprang up like magic wherever there was water-power, and great quantities of wheat and wheaten flour were exported. In the south of Ireland the grass-lands were broken up and planted with this lucrative crop.

In 1795 the franchise was extended to Catholics, with freeholds of the value of forty shillings a year, and as the restrictions on the holding of land by Catholics had been before this time repealed, all restraints on subdivision were cast aside, and an enormous number of small holdings replaced the comparatively large farms of earlier times. For a while all went well. Meadow-land, and even bog moor, was found capable of producing excellent crops of the best wheat and the largest potatoes. " But how were these enormous crops grown ? By precipitating or rendering soluble the phosphates. How was this done ? By skimming off and burning into ashes the whole of the upper two inches of the surface of the ancient grass lands, the very cream and marrow of the land, where for years, and in many cases for centuries, lay the accumulated vegetable matter of the soil." ] Land was let for this purpose for two or three guineas per rood by the season, and at a merely nominal outlay a crop was produced that would realize from ^"8 to ^n per acre. a Mountain bogs were prepared for potato planting with equal simplicity ; the land was limed, ploughed, and sown, and then all covered with guano and clay. The gain was enormous, and the harvest left

1 William Pilkington : " Help for Ireland," 1887, p. 4. 2 Id.

the land, " which had hitherto been scarcely worth one shilling per acre, in excellent order for sowing corn crops or grass seeds, and permanently worth at least £i per acre." ! The practice of land burning extended over Ireland. " Three fourths of the arable land in the provinces of Munster, Leinster, and Connaught have been treated in this destructive manner." Life was easy, and early marriages became the rule. In 1847 the population had risen to nine millions, having more than doubled in fifty years, while at the same time the foodproducing power of the land had decreased. The neglect to use fresh seed predisposed the potatoes to disease. Partial famines occurred every few years during the first half of the century, and in 1847 the potato crop was a total failure. In 1851 the population of Ireland was six millions and a half.

A condition suitable for freedom of contract in respect to land, it was clear, had not yet been reached in Ireland, for the farmers were ignorant and short-sighted, paying fancy prices, fines, and bonuses gladly for the possession of land as for a share in a lottery, and the landlords had complete control of the only means of subsistence.

In 1843 a commission, the " Devon " Commission, was appointed to inquire "into the state of the law and practice in respect to the occupation of land in Ireland," and in 1845 its report was presented to Parliament. The Ulster custom of " Tenant Right " was fully described, by which a tenant is allowed to " obtain from his successor a sum of money, partly in remuneration of his expenditure and partly as a price paid for the possession of land which the new tenant would have no other means of acquiring." On the 9th of June, 1845, Lord 1 Trench : " Realities of Irish Life," London, ch. vii.

b IN CASTLE AND CABIN.

Stanley introduced a bill " for the purpose of providing compensation to tenants in Ireland, in certain cases, on being dispossessed of their holdings, for such improvements as they may have made during their tenancy," and immediately afterwards Mr. Sharman Crawford moved for leave to bring in a " Tenant Right Bill," but both were rejected. The " famine " was followed by a series of evictions on an enormous scale, and in 1850 there was organized " The Tenant League," to establish the principles that " a fair valuation of rent be made between landlord and tenant in Ireland"; that "the tenant should not be disturbed in his possession so long as he paid such rent " ; and that " the tenant should have a right to sell his interest, with all its incidents, at the highest market value." 1

In 1848 the "Encumbered Estates Act" was passed to facilitate the sale of estates heavily charged with indebtedness on the petition of owner or creditor, giving the purchaser a simple and indefeasible form of title. The properties of many old Irish families were sacrificed under the Act, and purchased by business men, for the most part Irish men, as an investment, who for the first time dealt with the tenants upon principles of rigid contract. " Although not blind to the hardships which often attend this greater strictness," wrote Mr. Sullivan, " I consider the new system has introduced few more valuable reforms than this, which enforces method, punctuality, and precision in the half-yearly settlements between landlord and tenant in Ireland."8

In 1870 an Act was passed giving tenants, in case of capricious eviction, compensation for the disturbance, and on leaving their holdings voluntarily or upon notice

1 A. M. Sullivan: " New Ireland," ch. xiii. 2 Id., ch. xii.

INTRODUCTION. J

from the landlord, compensation for improvements. By the so-called " Bright clauses " the creation of a peasant proprietary was encouraged by the loan of the Board of Works of two thirds of the purchase money. For the next five or six years the price of cattle was high, and the competition for farms so great that rents rose enormously, but were paid generally without complaint. In 1877 a series of bad seasons began, culminating with a partial famine in 1879. The farmers were impoverished by forced sales upon a falling market, and in the autumn the Land League was formed by Michael Davitt. The Land Act had given the tenants compensation on eviction, but what they wanted was " fixity of tenure " at a " fair rent." The Land Act provided for " the conversion of occupiers into owners by the slow process of individual agreement " with the landlord, but the occupiers wanted to become owners at once. The League then proposed the compulsory sale to the tenants of any estate upon the tender of a sum equal to twenty years' purchase of its " Poor Law " valuation, and meantime urged every member to take no farm from which a tenant had been evicted, to offer to pay a "fair rent" only, equal to the " Poor Law " valuation, and if that was refused, to pay no rent at all. The " valuation " referred to was begun in 1858 by Mr. Richard Griffith, as a basis for the assessment of local rates. It varied greatly in different parts of the country, and was considered at the time to be, except in Ulster, twenty-five per cent, below a fair letting value.

In 1881 the " Bessborough " Commission reported to Parliament these important conclusions : " The farmer bargains with his landlord, under sentence of losing his living if the bargain goes off. . . . We grant that it would be inexpedient to interfere with freedom of contract between landlord and tenant, if freedom of contract reallyexisted, but freedom of contract, in the case of the majority of Irish tenants, large or small, does not really exist.1 . . . The farmer should no longer be liable to the displacement of his interest in his holding, either directly by ejectment, or indirectly by the raising of his rent at the discretion of the landlord. The landlord's right to eject should, we think, be limited to certain stated cases, and some way should be provided for the determination of the fair amount of rent to be paid in cases of dispute."2 A Land Act was at once passed in accordance with these views. "A great and noble measure," said Mr. Sullivan, " a charter of freedom for the long-oppressed tenantry of Ireland." 3

The Act created a Board of Land Commissioners with power to fix a fair rent in the case of agricultural tenancies, with certain exceptions, on the application of either landlord or tenant, the rent then to remain unchanged for a period of fifteen years. So long as the tenant paid his rent and observed the covenants of his lease he was not to be evicted, and he was allowed to sell his tenant right, subject to the option of the landlord to buy it at a price to be decided by the commissioners. Still larger advances than before were also allowed to tenants purchasing their holdings. These provisions involved, in the words of the " Bessborough " Commission, " a certain loss to the landlord, namely, that of his legal reversion, considered as a piece of substantial property. His greatest loss, however," is "that of sentiment — of the sentiment of ownership." 4 This beneficent measure got

1 Report, p. 21. 2 Id., p. 19. 3 " New Ireland : A Sequel " ch. iv. 4 Report, p. 20.

IN TROD UCTION. g

no fair play from the Land League. " Not merely was it decried, denounced, and scorned, but its contents or provisions were shamefully misrepresented. To say a good word for it was rank heresy in the popular ranks. To call it a mockery and a fraud was the orthodox profession of faith." ] Yet, " as a rule, the reductions given under the Act averaged twenty per cent." a

At Tyrone Mr. Parnell announced the doctrine that the landlords were justly entitled only to the "prairie value " of the land, its value as it was in an uncultivated condition, as the logical deduction from the " Land Act," founding himself on a declaration by John Bright that "if the land of Ireland were stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier, the face of the country would be as bare and naked as an American prairie."

The smallness of the reductions at first given by the Land Commissioners and the frequent appeals made by the landlords, grievously disappointed the hopes of the farmers. The creation of a new salable interest in the " tenant right " was soon found to be a mixed blessing. The " tenant right " was at once used as a convenient method for raising money, and this money was spent not so much in " improvements " as in more expensive living. The combination of " free sale " with " fair rent " was found to be impracticable. The " land hunger " was given freer play than ever before, with the difference that the competitive price for a farm was given to the out-going tenant instead of to the landlord, and the only persons benefited were the tenants in occupation when the Act was passed. Enormous prices were often paid for the

1 A. M. Sullivan: "New Ireland : A Sequel," ch. iii., p. 458.

2 T. P. O'Connor : " The Parnell Movement," p. 135.

IO IN CASTLE AND CABIN.

tenant right. On the property of Captain Hill in Donegal, in 1883, £60 were paid for the tenant right of a farm rented for ten shillings a year, 120 times the rent — or, as the phrase is, 120 years' purchase of the rent. Out of a hundred cases of such sales that have been tabulated, in forty-six, over twenty years' purchase was paid ; in thirteen, over thirty years' ; in ten, over forty years' ; and in six, over fifty years' purchase was paid. In all cases where over twenty-five years' purchase is paid for the " tenant right," the practical result is more than to double the rent of the new tenant, if the money could have been invested at 4 per cent. Sales of tenant right were accordingly promptly denounced by the League as " land-grabbing." Boycotting and outrages prevailed throughout the country, and in October after the passing of the Land Act the Land League was suppressed, and was at once succeeded by the " Irish National League."

In 1882, by the " Arrears Act," any tenant whose rent did not exceed ^30 a year was allowed to appeal to the Land Commissioners for an extension of the time within which to pay the arrears, and in hard cases the landlord was compelled to wipe out the arrears upon payment of one year's rent by the tenant and of another by the government.

Since 1881 the prices of agricultural produce have fallen continuously, with the exception of a sudden but short-lived rise in cattle in 1883, in consequence of the increasing severity of American competition. The Land Commissioners gave larger and larger reductions in the rent as time went by, but failed to satisfy the farmers. "There was an average fall of 22.3 per cent, in the prices of the nine chief articles of produce in 1885, compared with the prices of the same articles in the six years ending 1878, while the judicial rents fixed up to August, 1885, are only 19.4 percent, lower than the old rents."1 Leaseholders who were not entitled to go into the land courts, and farmers whose rents were fixed in the early days of the Act, when prices were high, were bitterly discontented when they noticed the reductions awarded to their luckier neighbors. By the end of August, 1886, 176,800 "fair rents " had been fixed by the Land Commissioners, but by that time there was open rebellion against the rents fixed prior to 1885. In October of 1886 the " Plan of Campaign," so called, was formulated by Mr. Dillon at Woodford, on the property of Lord Clanricarde. The " plan " itself was widely circulated in the form of a broadside, and was briefly described in United Ireland for October 23d as follows : " The tenantry on any one estate were advised to assemble under the presidency either of the priest or any intelligent and sturdy member of their body, in order to consult, and, after consulting, decide by resolution on the amount of abatement they would demand. Every one present was to pledge himself to abide by the decision of the majority, to hold no communication with the landlord or any of his agents, except in presence of the body of the tenantry, and to accept no settlement for himself which was not given to every tenant on the estate. Should the agent decline the abated rent offered, it was to be deposited with a managing committee, to be placed by them with a secretary, trustee, or trustees. This money was then called the Estate Fund, and was ' absolutely at the disposal of the managing committee for the purpose of the fight.' The employment of the

fierce Mahony, M. P., and John J. Clancy, M. P.: "The Land Crisis," London, 1886.

fund was to depend on the course the landlord would pursue, but it was recommended that it should in general be devoted to the support of the tenants who were dispossessed either by sale or ejectment. Dependence was placed on the National League to take care, in the event of loss of any deposited money through individual dishonesty, or in the event of the demands upon it outrunning the fund, the grants would be continued to struggling tenants from funds otherwise obtained. There were other details as to procedure in case of ejectment, sale, distress, or bankruptcy proceedings of less interest, and one paragraph stated 'that no landlord should get one penny rent anywhere on any part of his estate, wherever situated, so long as he has one tenant unjustly evicted.'"

Nor was a " Purchase Act," generally known as Lord Ashbourne's Act, given a fair trial, though it provided for the advance of purchase money to tenants on easier terms than ever before. The " Plan of Campaign " was conducted by Mr. Dillon and Mr. O'Brien, M. P., on their personal responsibility, but the opposition to " purchase " was warmly instigated by the National League. "The National League," said Mr. Dillon to the Ballyhaunis tenantry, " intended to lay down a law, wherever it had power, that no estate shall be bought on which tenants have been evicted, until every tenant evicted since 1879 had been put back again in his holding. . . . On estates where the rents were rack-rents, they should allow no man to sell his interest ; for the man who sold his interest on a rack-rented estate, and allowed a man of means, a man of trade, to come in, was one of the tenants' greatest enemies. The man of means would be the first to go in by the back door and betray his fellow-tenants whenever they stood out for a reduction in their rents." '

The " Plan of Campaign " was at once adopted on the properties of Lord Clanricarde in County Galway, of the Marquis of Lansdowne at Luggacurran, in County Meath ; of Mr. Brooke at Coolgreany, in County Wexford ; of Colonel O'Callaghan at Bodyke, in County Clare ; of Mr. Ponsonby at Youghal, and Lady Kingston at Mitchelstown, in County Cork ; and of the O'Grady at Herbartstown in County Limerick. The landlords generally felt themselves aggrieved by the compulsory reductions of their rent, and held the more firmly by the rights they thought still left to them. An all-round reduction, even in the case of non-judicial rents — rents not fixed by the courts, — seemed to them unjust, and often ruinous. The result of the " Plan " was a series of attempts at eviction, more or less successful, by the landlords, and a cessation of all payment of rent by the tenants on the estates involved.

The " National League " itself disclaimed any responsibility for the " Plan," but adopted practically the agrarian theories of the " Land League." The Land Law Reform it proposed was thus stated in its Constitution :

" The creation of an occupying ownership or Peasant Proprietary by an amendment of the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act of 1881, so as to secure the advance by the State of the whole of the purchase money, and the extension of the period of repayment over sixty-three years.

" The transfer, by compulsory purchase, to county boards, of the land not cultivated by the owners, and not in the occupation of tenants, for re-sale or re-letting to 1 Freeman's Journal, Nov 15, 1886.

laborers and small farmers in plots of grazing commonages.

"The protection from the imposition of rent on improvements made by the tenant or his predecessors in title, to be effected by an amendment of the Healy clause of the Land Act of 1881.

u The admission of leaseholders and other excluded classes to all the benefits of the Land Act. . . .

" The levying of taxes (now raised off all farming lands) upon grass lands, and the graduation of such taxes, so as to place the greater part of the burden on large farms.

" The breaking of all covenants compelling tenants not to till their holdings."

In the meantime fresh interest was added to the discussion of the " Land Question " by a letter by Sir James Caird to the Times? "The land in Ireland," he said, " is held by two distinct classes of tenants : the small farmers who pay rent from ^1 to ^20, and the comparatively large farmers who pay rent from ^20 upwards. Of the first class there are 538,000 holdings, averaging £6 each ; of the second class, 121,000 holdings, averaging ^56 each. ... If the present price of agricultural produce continue, I should fear that from the land held by the large body of poor farmers in Ireland any economical rent has for the present disappeared." In the autumn Sir James Caird was appointed a member of the " Cowper " Commission, to inquire into the reason for the failure of the Land Acts, and its report the following year was immediately followed by a new Act, under which, throughout Ireland, the "judicial rents" that were to remain untouched for fifteen years have been 1 March, 1886.