Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule. Buckley Robert John
assistants? What would these men do with their power? Make haste to be rich – nothing more. Patriots are they? Rubbish; they are mere mercenaries. Parnell knew that. He said to me: —
"'Under the circumstances I must use these men, whom I would not otherwise touch with a forty-foot pole. Adversity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows. Any port is good in a storm. These men will fight well – for their pay, and will work the thing up. But when we get the bill, when we come into power, their work is done. They will be dropped at once, or furnished with places where they may get an honest living.'"
Catholic Home Ruler Number Four said: "The Meath election shows the feeling of the priests, and what they would do if they could. They loathed Parnell, but he was too strong for them. And weren't they glad to give him the slip on the ground of morality. Home Rule was comparatively a safe thing while Parnell lived. Now I would not advise it for some years. We must have better men to the fore. We in Limerick are loyal, although Catholics and Home Rulers. Don't laugh at that. It is a fact, though I admit it is hard to believe. Put it down, if you like, to the influence of the Bishop. The young priests I say nothing about. Their loyalty is a negligeable quantity. They do not object to Protestants qua Protestants, but they object to them as representatives of English rule."
This reminded me of Dr. Kane, of Belfast, who said to me, "They hate us, not because we are Protestants, not because we are Orangemen, not because we are strangers in the land, but because we are the hated English garrison."
Here I am bound to interpolate a word of qualification. The Mardyke promenade of Cork, a mile-long avenue of elms, has many comfortable seats, whereon perpetually do sit the "millingtary" of the sacrilegious Saxon, holding sweet converse with the Milesian counterparts of the Saxon Sarah Ann. The road is full of them, Tommy's yellow-striped legs marching with the neat kirtle of Nora, Sheela, or Maureen. As it was in the Isle of Saints, so it was in Ulster, is now in Limerick, and shall be in Hibernia in sæcula sæculorum. A Limerick constable said, "A regiment will come into the city at four o'clock, and at eight they'll every man walk out a girl. The infatuation of the servant-girl class for the military is surprisin'. Only let them walk out with a soldier, and they 'chuck' everything, even Home Rule." The hated garrison are not among the people who never will be missed. Wherever Tommy goes he seems to be able to sample the female population. The soldiers always have a rare good time.
A carman who drove me to Castleconnel proved the most interesting politician since Dennis Mulcahy, of Carrignaheela. He knew all about the average English voter, and resented his superior influence in Irish affairs. "Shure, we're all undher the thumb o' a set o' black men that lives undher the bowils o' the airth. Yer honner must know all about thim miners in the Black Counthry, an' in Wales, an' the Narth o' England? Ye didn't? Ah, now, ye're jokin' me, ye take me for an omadhaun all out. Ye know all about it; ye know that these poor men goes down, an' down, an' down, till ye'd think they'd niver shtop, an' that they stay there a whole week afore they come up agin. An' then they shtand in tubs while their wives an' sweethearts washes an' scrubs thim, an' makes white men out o' the black men that comes up, an' thin walks thim off home. Now, shtandin' in a tub at the mouth o' the pit to be washed by yer wimmenfolks is what we wouldn't do in this counthry – 'tisn't black naygurs we are – an' these men that lives in the dark and have no time to think, an' nothin' to think wid, these are the men ye put to rule this counthry, men that they print sich rubbish as Tit-Bits for, because they couldn't understand sinse. An' the man that first found out that they couldn't understand sinse, an' gave thim somethin' that wanted no brains, they say has made a fortune. Is that thrue, now?
"As for owld Gladstone, I wouldn't trust him out o' me sight. We'll get no Home Rule, the owld thrickster doesn't mane it. 'Tis like a man I knew that was axed to lind a friend £100. He didn't like to lind, an' he was afeared to say No, an' he was in a quondairy intirely. So, says he 'I'll lind ye the money,' says he, 'if ye'll bring the securities down to the bank,' says he, 'an' get the cash off me banker.' Thin he went saycretly to the banker, an' says he, 'This thievin' blayguard,' says he, 'wants the money, and he'll never repay me; I wouldn't thrust him,' says he. 'Now, will ye help me, for I couldn't say No, by raison he's a relative, an' an owld acquaintance,' says he.
"'An' how'll I do that?' says the banker.
"'Ye can tur-rn up yer nose at the securities.'
"'Ha, Ha,' says the banker, 'is it there ye are? Ye're a deep one; begorra ye are. Nabocklish,' says he, 'I'll do it for ye,' says he.
"So whin the borrower wint for the money, the banker sent out word that the securities wor not good enough, an' that he wouldn't advance a farden.
"Then the borrower goes to his frind an' complains, an' thin the frind acts all out the way Gladstone'll act when the bill's refused at the Lords, or may be at the Commons. 'Hell to him,' he roars, 'the blayguard thief iv a thievin' banker. I'll tache him to refuse a frind, says he. 'Sarve him right,' says he, 'av I bate his head into a turnip-mash an' poolverise him into Lundy Foot snuff. May be I won't, whin I meet him, thrash him till the blood pours down his heels,' says he. That'll be the way iv it. That's what Gladstone will say whin the bill's lost, which he manes it to be, the conthrivin' owld son o' a schamer.
"A gintleman axed me which o' them I like best o' the two Home Rule Bills, an' I towld him that whin I lived at Ennis, an' drove a car at the station there, the visithors, Americans an' English, would be axin' me whin they lepped on the car which was the best hotel in Ennis. Now, whiniver I gave them my advice they would be cur-rsin' an' sinkin' at me whin they met me aftherwards in the sthreet, be raison that there was only two hotels in the place, an' nayther o' thim was at all aiqual to what they wor used to in their own counthries. So I got to know this, an' iver afther, whin they would be sayin' to me,
"'Which is the best hotel in Ennis?' says they, an' I would answer,
"'Faix, there's only two o' thim, an' to whichiver one ye go ye will be sorrowin' that ye didn't go to the other,' says I.
"An' that's my reply as to which of the two Home Rule Bills I like best."
In the city of Limerick itself all is quiet and orderly. Outside, things are different. Disturbed parts of the County Clare are dangerous to strangers, and, what is more to the point, somewhat difficult of access. The country is not criss-crossed with railways as in England, and vehicles for long journeys are rather hard to get. However, I have chartered a car for a three-day trip into what may be called the interior, have fired several hundred cartridges from a Winchester repeating rifle, and written letters to my dearest friends. I start to-morrow, and if I do not succeed in bottoming the recent outrages – which are hushed up as much as possible, and of which the local newspaper-men, both Nationalist and Conservative, together with Head-Constable MacBrinn, declare they cannot get at the precise particulars – if I cannot get to the root of the matter, I shall in my next letter have the honour of stating the reason why.
Limerick, April 22nd.
No. 13. – THE CURSE OF COUNTY CLARE
Once again the difference between Ireland and England is forcibly exemplified. It was certain that several moonlighting expeditions had recently been perpetrated in the neighbourhood of Limerick, which is only divided by the Shannon from the County Clare. You walk over a bridge in the centre of the city and you change your county, but nobody in Limerick seems to know anything about the matter. The local papers hush up the outrages when they hear of them, which is seldom or never. The people who know anything will not, dare not tell, and even the police have the utmost difficulty in establishing the bare facts of any given case. English publicity is entirely unknown. Local correspondents do not always exist in country towns, and the distances are so great, in comparison with the facilities for travel, that newspaper-men seldom or never visit the scene of the occurrence. And besides the awkward and remote position of the country hamlets and mountain farms, there are other excellent reasons for journalistic reticence. The people do not wish to read such news, the editors do not wish to print these discreditable records, and the police, although eminently and invariably civil and obliging, are debarred by their official position from disclosing what they know. The very victims themselves are often silent, refusing to give details, and almost always declining to give evidence. That the sufferers usually know and could easily identify the cowardly ruffians who so cruelly maltreat them is a well-ascertained