Pictures from Ireland

Contents

FTER PAGE

I. An Irish Landlord of the Old School i

II. A Land Jobber

Chapter I

To the Irish landlord the year 1879 will present itself in time to come as one of the saddest in his history. In 1848, when famine decimated the people, the bonds of sympathy still existed between them and their landlords. The movement of 1867 was purely " national," and its subsidence restored the friendly feeling that had hardly been interrupted. But the present agitation is different. Led by men who " dare do all that may become " an agitator, but who carefully abstain from the post of danger with the rabble maddened by their teaching, the tenants have themselves cut the cord of sympathy with the landlords, and turned upon them with a savage vituperation as undeserved as it was unexpected.

Mr. Kirkland lives on a property that has been

B in the possession of his family for nearly 300 years. No blight of absenteeism has passed over the place, where the well-trimmed lawns and drives, and carefully tended timber, afford constant work to many labourers. With the inherited instincts of his class, he has a firm belief in the moral inferiority of the Roman Catholic people, yet in years gone by he has acted liberally towards his tenants, who are mainly Roman Catholic. No tenant has ever appealed to him in vain, his purse and his influence being equally at their service. He has even given a site for a new chapel and a subscription towards its erection. In ordinary times things have always gone smoothly enough ; and the new agent who ten years ago suggested an increase of the rental, which he declared could be effected without hardship to the tenants^ was answered so decidedly that he did not again allude to the subject. Feeling himself-bound to stand by his tenants in any strait, and ready to do so against all comers, he has a firm belief that the bounden duty of his tenants is to stand by him, which he interprets by the entire subordination of their social and political ideas to his.

Thus every election before the change effected by the Ballot Act resulted in strained relations that took some time to settle. For weeks before the momentous day the agent or rent-warner was busy among the tenants. Leaseholders were asked to remember how long the family had lived on the estate. That cattle-shed about which there was some difficulty could be built, and timber and slates were readily promised. Tenants at will were more sternly reminded of that fact, and after former elections had learned how bitterly Mr. Kirkland could resent the adverse vote that he looked on as the basest ingratitude.

On the other hand, the popular side had generally a sturdy champion in the parish priest, who is considered by Mr. Kirkland, in his secret heart, as a dangerous viper to whom all the troubles of the country can be traced. Busy as the agent might be with the tenants, Father Pat was not a whit behind, either in the persuasiveness of his canvass or the rigour of his denunciation.

"What am I to do, Father Pat?" said the distraught Tom, who had been visited by the agent. " Sure I cannot see myself turned out on the roadside with my little family, like Will Delany afther the last election."

" Tom, you must be a true man and stand by your country and your Church."

" Troth, I would surely, if I dared ; but your Riverince knows that I cannot go against the masther."

" Very well, Tom, be a renegade at your peril ; but as you have deserted your clergy, so your Church will desert you in your hour of need."

Tom was triumphant at having escaped the danger of opposition to the landlord, and trusted to time to make his peace with the Church. But he miscalculated the power of Father Pat's resources. At home he found his wife in tears. The priest had been with her, and shown her how much better it were for her husband that he had a millstone tied about his neck and were flung into the sea than that he should be a renegade to his religion. His name would be execrated from the steps of the altar, and heaven would be closed against him. Manfully as he might resist, the parish priest was too strong for him. His neighbours looked askance at him. His wife was about to present him with another of those branches that grow so thickly on the Irish family tree ; and who could tell what the consequences might be? He did not quite believe in the power of Father Pat to endow the promised increase with horns like a goat, but his wife did ; and, so implicit was her faith and abject her terror, that he felt he must choose between his promise and her life. Of course he yielded. Probably, if he had any ideas on the subject at issue between the landlord and the priest they coincided with the views of the latter ; but neither his feelings nor the pressure to which he was subjected were accepted by Mr. Kirkland as an excuse for what he called an ingrained baseness, and he sighed with regret that Oliver Cromwell's life had not been prolonged for fifty years.

Sometimes the tenant stood by the landlord, and, having been removed a week before the election to a place where with other " faithful " tenants he was safe from being kidnapped by his neighbours, he was, on the day of the polling, sent to the booth on cars escorted by dragoons or infantry, and ran the gauntlet of jeering crowds who lined the road and flung stones at him, or women who on their knees cursed him with frightful imprecations as a Judas and a renegade.

Now all this is changed by the Ballot Act, and Mr. Kirkland has thrown up the sponge, leaving Father Pat in full possession ; for what man can conceal from the wife of his bosom how he has voted ? and what woman could hope to hide the knowledge from a questioner so practised as the parish priest ? By removing these periodical strains, the ballot has done something towards reducing the friction between landlord and tenant to more legitimate limits ; and on looking back at the worry, danger, and expense of the open voting, even Mr. Kirkland feels that he can contemplate a coming election with an equanimity that partially repays him for the loss of a power not always exercised with judicious forbearance. Mr. Kirkland liked his tenants, and when no disturbing element has cropped up he has always been fairly popular with them, as in money affairs he is generous. But in the matter of insisting on the annual whitewashing of their houses, and using a gate for the entrance to a field instead of a gap stopped with an easily moved cartwheel or spare plough, they consider him a trifle dictatorial. His rents remain as he found them on coming into possession thirty years ago and average the Government valuation, which is about 35 per cent, under the present fair letting-value ; but he is astonished to find that neither are his tenants more comfortable nor are his rents better paid than on the adjoining property, bought in 1852 for a few years' purchase by a speculating attorney, who has raised his rents 50 per cent, and insists on their being paid up to the day. His tenants' houses are outwardly cleaner, and their fences better made, but money in bank or elsewhere they have not.

An application has been made by one of them for permission to sell his interest to one of the rack-rented over the way ; who has somehow not only contrived to pay the rent, but to lay by a little money, which he will gladly expend in the purchase of another small farm at the other side of his fence, the rent of which is not much more than half the rate at which he pays for his own land. This exercises Mr. Kirkland much, who sometimes has a hazy idea that his tenants take things more easily than their neighbours, upon whom the necessity for making the increased rent has forced habits of industry not natural to the happy-go-lucky Celt. Down to the passing of the Land Act Mr. Kirkland always supplied the timber and slates for any building undertaken by a tenant, whether leaseholder or otherwise;

but since the passing of that Act he has refused to continue the practice, except on condition that 5 per cent, on the cost of materials is added to the rent ; and the not unfrequent declaration by the tenants that they " don't see what use the Land Act is at all at all " is balm to his wounded feelings. Hitherto Mr. Kirkland's life has been fairly worth living, though his neighbour, Mr. Cregan, the successful attorney, has been of late a thorn in his side. Mr. Cregan, having found himself the possessor of a property of some hundreds a year, determined, as soon as the depression following the famine had passed away, to make his purchase a paying speculation. He therefore announced a revaluation, and at a stroke increased his rental 15 per cent. But first he did a politic thing. Mr. Cregan was a Roman Catholic, and he built on his property a new house for the parish priest. This gave him a powerful friend, and the revaluation was acceded to with some grumbling. No person was more irate than Mr. Kirkland, who made no secret of his contempt for the latest addition to the landed gentry of the county, or his displeasure that the people should be oppressed by what he considered an unjustifiable rise of rent. Did he not find that a heavy percentage of his own rent was always unpaid ? And how could any people pay a larger rent for land to which his was not inferior ? However, somehow the rents were paid ; and when again and again Mr. Cregan raised his rents, the tenants still paid with a regularity that puzzled Mr. Kirkland not a little. But Mr. Cregan's revenge had come. With the first wave of the present agitation he saw that it appealed to passions too strong to be allayed without considerable difficulty. That the people had had two bad harvests could not be gainsaid, and yet his rents had been punctually paid. Now, when the demand was announced of a reduction of 25 per cent, or no rent, Mr. Cregan not alone gave a reduction to that amount on the halfyear's rent due — the remainder of which was promptly paid — but was one of the fiercest denouncers of tyrants who refused to grant a similar concession. Bonfires blazed for him. Thousands cheered him when he appeared at the anti-rent meetings, and the tenants of other properties declared that, " Ould or new stock, he was the man for the people."

Mr. Kirkland's tenants ask for a similar reduction, but ask in vain. He says, " Your land is let to you 50 per cent, under the rent that Mr. Cregan has been charging. And even now your ordinary rent is 25 per cent, lower than the reduced amount paid by his tenants." The tenants have come in a body to his office to make their demand, and, being refused, have walked out without paying a penny. In vain he has told them that if they require time to pay their rent they shall have it, as it has always been given. No, they require no time. They cannot and they dare not pay if they do not get an abatement of 25 per cent., no matter what the land is let for. Next day the bailiff came in, and begged respectfully to resign his position.

''Why, Brady," Mr. Kirkland said, "you have been for twenty years a bailiff on the property, and I think you ought not now to leave me in a difficulty."

" Did your honour hear about last night ? "

"No; what is it?"

" Well, about five shots were fired in through my window, and the bed is riddled ; and only for the mercy of God and the thickness of the feather bed that rose up outside me, I would be a dead man."

" This is horrible, Brady. You must have police protection."

" Faith, I will not have police protection, your honour. I'll rise out of it entirely. Sure life is sweet."

" But your life cannot be in danger if you have police always with you."

" Sure your honour would not have me disgrace my little family by having police with me ? "

" How can that disgrace you ? "

" Would not it be a disgrace to have it said I was such a bad member that the police had to guard me ? No, faith, I won't have anything more to do with it. Would it not be better for your honour to give the five shillings in the pound than to be fighting with the people ? "

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" No, Brady ; I never will give it. I have always acted justly and fairly towards my tenants, and I will not now be dictated to by a lot of scoundrels who have not between them the value at stake of the platform they stand on."

" Well, master, for God's sake take care of yourself, for these are dangerous times ; and I'll tell you the truth, the country is speaking hard about you, so don't put yourself in danger. I'll go now, your honour ; and I am sorry to have to leave you."

Mr. Kirkland is now busily engaged in preparations for a prolonged residence abroad. His servants and labourers are all discharged, and he has appointed an agent with instructions to get the rent, or eject every tenant on the estate. No man touches his hat to him as he passes. Dark hints have been conveyed from various quarters that his life is not safe. Police patrols are never absent from the place ; and he, who has all his life been a thorough Irishman, feeling a personal pride in every honour gained by a countryman, now hates the people with a reciprocity for which they were not prepared. He has learned a lesson from Mr. Cregan. With returning prosperity he will insist on the tenants paying the full value of his land ; and if in future years the tenants determine that a temporary reduction is necessary, he can respond without feeling that his compliance is a weak surrender to an unjust demand.

( II )

Chapter II. A Land Jobber

When, after the crisis of 1848, the grasp of the creditors tightened round the Newbroom Estate, the tenants joined heartily in the determination to prevent the service of documents from the Encumbered Estates Court, necessary as a preliminary to the sale of the property and the removal of a landlord between whom and the tenants no cloud had ever come. Many and crafty, and not always unsuccessful, were the plans of the wily bailiffs to effect " personal service ; " and Colonel Brown gave up the active performance of his magisterial duties after that drunken prisoner, brought before him by two policemen, presented him unexpectedly with a paper, at the same time informing him that it was a correct copy of the original then and there exhibited. Nothing could save the property, which was sold in due course for about fifteen years' purchase, and the hearts of the tenants sank when they heard that their new landlord was Mr. Clancy. Mr. Peter Clancy was not unknown to the people of Newbroom. It was not many years since he worked upon his father's farm in the neighbourhood, and respectfully touched his hat to Colonel Brown whenever they met. But, the clever son of a clever and hard-working father, he soon took a farm for himself. Adding cattle-jobbing to his other pursuits, and taking farm after farm as they fell vacant after '46, he found himself the possessor of many flocks and herds. When the land panic followed the famine, he was not slow to see the facility with which property could be acquired ; and his first venture returned him at the existing rental over 1 1 per cent. To purchase that he had sold his stock and disposed of his farms ; and the property gave him a nucleus by mortgaging which he was enabled to continue his purchases.

Mr. Peter Clancy, J. P., has now been for twentyseven years the owner of Castle Clancy — for so Newbroom has been rechristened, with the Irish love of high-sounding names. In that time he had bought and sold more than double that number of properties, and his enemies are to be counted by the number of people who from time to time have been his tenants. The Narrowmore property, with a rental of £2000 a year, was purchased by him for £32,000. In four years a rearrangement of the rental had been made. The tenants complained loudly. They were reminded that Mr. Clancy was a practical farmer who knew well the real value of the land. They refused to pay. Mr.

Clancy was quite willing to take up the land, and in due course evicted four or five tenants whose farms joined, and placed his own stock upon them. His cattle were killed. He swore informations and recovered the amount, which was levied off the tenants. Ultimately, having inundated him with threatening letters, they gave in, and agreed to the increased rental. Sympathy with the tenants Mr. Clancy never affected, nor did he acknowledge any duties towards them. " You want to live out of a farm, and you pay me the value. You owe me nothing but the rent ; I owe you nothing but the receipt." This has been his creed, and he has always refused to go one step beyond it. Cursed from many an altar in many a county, he has held on the principles thus adopted, and in five years he resold the Narrowmore Estate for ^"60,000, having raised the rental to ^"3000 per annum.

The history of the Narrowmore property is that of every estate that has passed through his hands. Properties have been purchased by him, subdivided into plots so small that the tenants must of necessity be paupers. To tenants of that stamp America was open, and to America they must go. With indomitable determination he cleared them off, and resold a property " pulled together " and revalued, leaving to the new purchaser a number of tenants better in condition than before, but hating the name of landlord, and loathing the man who would not let them follow the same

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system of subdivision that their fathers followed before them. With the tenants on what he intended to retain as the family estate, Mr. Clancy has been a little more cautious, but he now regrets that he has settled in the country in which he was known ; for even if he were generous as he is grasping, he can never hope to taste the sweets of social position in the neighbourhood where he knows that by the tenants he is hated, and has an uncomfortable suspicion that by the gentry he is despised.

Nor in truth is it to be wondered at, for Mr. Clancy is not quite straight in his dealings. Loud in his professions of stern integrity, his bond is much more acceptable than his word, and his performance of magisterial duties is not above suspicion. For Mr. Clancy is a magistrate ; has even been called on the grand-jury. In the days gone by, before fortune had favoured him, he looked upon the commission of the peace as a social guarantee, and the appearance of a name on the grand-jury list is an " open sesame " to every house in the county. So did his wife, worthy woman ; and so did his daughters three ; but in their hands the coveted honours have turned to Dead Sea fruit. The gentlemen of the county will have none of him. His only guests are the parish priest and the dispensary doctor ; and old farmers who knew him before he had set up the carriage, with servants in ill-made liveries, have a way of calling him "Peter" that is to him gall and wormwood : for Mr. Clancy dislikes his countryman's weakness of yielding respect rather to good birth than to prosperity. In politics he declares himself a strong Liberal, with a dash of Nationalism, though the latter is modified, as not being quite genteel — that is, he will go with the parish priest in anything not affecting the rights of property. The Irish Church Act was satisfactory to him. He is prepared to support any education bill advocated by Father Carey, and Home Rule would give the whip hand to Roman Catholics of property. But there he stops. " Property has its rights " is the axiom by which he holds, and in all matters affecting the security of the landlords' position he is a Tory of the Tories. The Land Act has cost him thousands of pounds, and he inveighs against it as subversive of all principles of security.

Previously he had boldly declared the amount of increase he considered the tenants should pay, and offered eviction as the alternative ; but after the passing of that Act some tenants chose the latter, and claimed compensation, which was granted by the chairman of the quarter sessions to such an amount as seriously interfered with Mr. Clancy's plans and profits. Still from time to time as opportunity offered he has increased the rent, now of this farm, now of that ; but never so much at one time as would drive the tenant to id PICTURES FROM IRELAND.

prefer eviction with the chance of compensation ; for once settled in a farm, an Irish tenant will bear much rather than give up the homestead where he has lived for any time. The Castle Clancy Estate now pays 50 per cent, more than when the easy-going Colonel Brown went to the wall.

This agitation affects Mr. Clancy vitally. Owner of several properties, his income is derived from the margin over the interest on mortgages, and on some of his purchases interest or margin there is none. At the meeting held within a mile of Castle Clancy his name was mentioned amid the execrations of hundreds, who groaned as they marched passed the Gate-house, carrying banners, on which the mottoes, " Down with the land robbers," " Death to the tyrants," " Remember '48," are accepted by him as personal threats. To give Mr. Clancy his due, he is not frightened ; were he a coward he had never dared to build a fortune on the outraged prejudices of a revengeful people. The non-payment of his rents for a single year would mean ruin, and the rent or the land he is determined to have. He has rather posed as fighting the battle of the landlords, and accuses his neighbour, Mr. Butler, of pandering to the vices of the rabble because at a magistrates' meeting the latter declared that if any man had raised his rents he ought now to give a substantial reduction.

Mr. Clancy's Castle Clancy tenants have attended the office, where they come determined to pay no rent without receiving a reduction of 30 per cent. Five or six armed policemen are walking about outside, and an inquisitive tenant may see the handle of a revolver in a convenient position on a ledge under the off-side of the desk at which the landlord sits. Mr. Clancy is not prepossessing in appearance. A low, retreating forehead, shaggy grey eyebrows, and deep-set cold blue eyes, are balanced by an ill-cut but broad and powerful nose, square massive chin, and the large mouth with retracted lips exposing the gums, so common among the Irish peasants.

" Well, boys ; I hope you come to pay the rent like honest men," is Mr. Clancy's greeting, as the tenants file into the office one by one until the room is nearly full.

All eyes turn on John HefTernan, who is evidently the spokesman of the tenants. He clears his throat, and answers —

" Well, you see, Mr. Clancy, these are very hard times entirely."

" I don't see that at all, John. Except the loss on the potatoes, there is nothing to complain of."

" The Lord save us, sir ! How can you say that ? Isn't the turf as wet as dung on us ? and aren't the cattle down to nothing ? and don't you know well that there is no return in the oats at all ? And, sure, there's no use talking of the potatoes ; we could not get as much out of an acre as would feed the pigs."

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"Go and tell that to Mr. Butler or to Lord Noodleton, John Heffernan ; it won't do for me. I know exactly what you have and what it is worth. Go out to the yard, and you will see my turf that was cut by alongside yours. How comes it that my turf is dry if yours is wet ? Have you dug your potatoes yet ? "

" Troth, I have not. How could I get time ? "

"Why, you have had fine weather for three months ; but I suppose you did not like to dig them until they got frost-bitten. You say they are worth nothing ? "

" Bedad, the acre that I have is not worth a pound."

"Very well ; I will give you four pounds for the acre. So you can deduct that from your rent, and the potatoes are mine."

"There's no use beating about the bush, Mr. Clancy ; we cannot pay our rent unless we get the reduction."

A loud murmur of assent runs round the room.

" I will give no reduction," Mr. Clancy says determinedly. " You have all taken your land and undertaken to pay the rent, and I must have either the rent or the land."

" Well, now, sir, the truth must be spoken. Don't you know that the rent is too high ? Sure it's twice the valuation, and no person could pay that rent in times like these. Besides, you gave us a rise of rent in 1855 and again in '64 and again in '72, and we think now that you ought to give the reduction as well as every one else."

" I cannot listen to you. I must pay my debts, and you must pay yours."

" Sure, I would pay if I could," exclaims the Widow Henahan; "but you know that you doubled the rent on me since the first rise."

" Well, why did you not give up the farm if you thought it too dear ? "

"Arrah, Mr. Clancy, how could I give up my little farm with my children growing up about me ? What could I do ? Sure, if you said I was to pay twice as much more I must strive to pay it or go into the poorhouse, and all I ask now is just to get the abatement."

" Yes," all exclaim ; " all we want is the abatement ; you rose the rent on us when the times were good, and we want you to give us justice now that the bad year has come."

" Does not every one know, your honour, that the land is not worth more than the valuation ? " resumed John Hefifernan.

The word valuation arouses the ire of Mr. Clancy. "Valuation!" he shouts. "Don't talk to me of the valuation. Do you know the Government valuation was three-quarters of the real value of land in 1852, when the market prices were — I'll tell you what they were per hundredweight Wheat, Js. 6d. ; oats, 4$-. lod. ; barley, 5^. 6d. butter, 6 5 J. 4d. ; beef, 35^. 6d. ; mutton, 41J. pork, 32^. ? Do you know that the average value of these things for the last four years is 45 per cent, greater than when the land was valued? And you complain of an increased rent!"

" We do, sir ; we don't know much about what you are talking of; but the rent is more than doubled on some of us ; and we think, and Father Greaney thinks, we ought to get the reduction."

"All right ; you owe me a year's rent, and I will eject every one of you. I was prepared for this," Mr. Clancy says, as his bailiff, who has been standing at the door of the office, hands an ejectment process to the first man who turns to leave. This is a fatal blow. Ready as are the tenants to resist within certain limits, and to trust to the chapter of accidents during the months, possibly, before the processes could be served, they feel that here they are in a trap, and know that Mr. Clancy will carry out his threat of having the land or the rent.

Once get the better of an Irishman, and for the time hels cowed utterly ; so John Heffernan turns sullenly and without a word produces the full amount of his rent, for which he receives a receipt duly. One after another every one has paid ; and while they wend their way homeward, bitterly and fiercely cursing the man whom they acknowledge their master in cunning as he is in determination, Mr. Clancy sits writing a letter to a friend, in which he says : — " This agitation is certainly most dangerous, and some people have had a great deal of trouble ; but I must say that my Castle Clancy tenants came in and paid up the full amount without a murmur."