The Country of Our Dreams. Mary O'Connell
and the serf –
Rise up! And swear, this day to hold your own green Irish turf;
Rise up! And plant your feet as men, where now you crawl as slaves,
And make your harvest-fields your camps, or make of them your graves.
Hold the Harvest! Fanny Parnell – 1879
New York, 29 July 1880
When Davitt came, with his light hurried step, into the foyer of the New York Hotel in Park St, Fanny stood back from the rush to greet him. She let the rest of the Famine Relief Committee surround him, watched them bow and bob, gather and swirl. Even without his marked affliction, he looked every inch the part – the land agitator, the feared and fearless scourge of landlordism. Tall and thin, his hair beginning to recede, but his beard was dark and full, his brown eyes of striking intensity under a prominent brow. The phrase rose in her mind. ‘yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much; such men are dangerous.’ Caesar would have been right to be afraid of this Cassius.
Her sister Anna had spent a lot of time with Michael Davitt since he had come to New York in May, helping him organise the new American Land League offices at Washington Square. Anna had reported back to Fanny, who was busy with their mother and her family’s estate in New Jersey, that it was a great pleasure to work with a man so intent on accurate records, and most praiseworthy of all, on acknowledging receipt of funds. In this respect he was not like their brother Charlie at all.
Davitt was in fact an unexpected delight to work with. Unlike all the other men sent over so far, he listened to other people’s ideas, he recalled facts and figures as readily as he did faces, and he grasped rapidly what had to be done on a local level. Anna had marvelled at him. Davitt was not just systematic and orderly in his accounts-keeping, he even remembered where he put things.
He was busy planning more tours and lectures, travelling across the country – criss-crossing it, raising awareness and funds and the morale of the Irish in America. ‘You want to be honoured among the elements that constitute this great nation,’ he had said to the crowds in halls and city parks who gathered to hear him, ‘you want to be regarded with the respect due you, so aid us in Ireland to remove the stain of degradation from your birth.’
Now Anna was bringing Davitt over to her, both of them smiling, and Fanny came out from behind her hiding place of the great armchair, suddenly shy. It was always easier to observe than to connect.
The others watched with interest: the celebrated Irish agitator meeting the celebrated Irish poetess. Michael Davitt. Fanny Parnell. A moment for the history books.
‘Your Hold the Harvest,’ Davitt said immediately, grasping Fanny’s outstretched hand in his strong left hand, ‘rings throughout Ireland. It is the Marseillaise of our people ’ he said, ‘and I am so honoured finally to meet its author.’
Fanny blushed. From Anna’s description she had begun to think of Michael Davitt as a tidy clerk, an earnest, obedient revolutionary, but he was almost overpowering in person. She stammered something in response, about being glad to do some good with her little ‘varses’.
‘Ireland has always been remarkably blessed in her poets,’ he continued warmly. ‘And you, Miss Parnell, are one of our greatest blessings.’
Fanny flushed deeper, cast her eyes down a little. Really, she didn’t quite know what to do with him. It just showed how brave – or blind – dear Anna was.
‘My dear sister Anna has been singing your praises.’ she said, trying to recover some dignity. ‘She has met her match in organization, we think.’
‘Your sister far outpaces me in organization and systems. I have learned much from her.’ Davitt said, smiling back and down at Anna, as if to soften any unintended sisterly blow.
Fanny was immediately sorry for her teasing. Sorry for her poor conversational skills. Really she was no good in the public realm, she should stay at home in Bordentown with their mother. Then she recalled that Davitt’s own mother had only very recently died, somewhere in upstate New York. He had vanished for a week, then come back to the work. Anna had been concerned for him.
‘You have had a terrible time, Mr Davitt’, she said, ‘but you still do the work of Ireland.’
He smiled, but said nothing. As if waiting for some real poetry, real pearls of wisdom to drop from her lips. Really her ‘varses’ were becoming a nuisance, a barrier. ‘We hear that the harvest in Ireland will be a good one this year,’ she said, to get his attention off her poetry.
‘Yes, thank God’ he nodded. ‘The best in at least a decade.’
‘So, the Famine is averted.’
‘The landless labourers of Ireland are always starving,’ Davitt reminded her gently, ‘even when the bigger tenant farmers move into safer waters.’ Fanny saw how he was a man who darted and shimmered, both moth and flame. ‘One good harvest does not make a just world. Famine in Ireland can be created and recreated at any time. It has always been a man made catastrophe. ’
‘So you will hold the harvest anyway?’
‘Yes, it is our intention’ he said, looking at her intently, ‘that this year’s harvest will remain with the people.’
She nodded. ‘That seems reasonable. The people will need time to recover.’
‘It is quite reasonable, and reasonable people everywhere will hold it so, for Irish farmers to feed themselves and their children first, and keep seed potatoes for next year. They can sell what they need for renewal of tools and shelter and buy warm clothes for the winter, and keep some aside for the education of their children.’ He smiled again, almost mischievously. ‘I doubt very much there’ll be any funds left over for the landlord.’
‘But the landlords will seize the harvest, won’t they?’ As if Davitt of all people needed to be told. ‘Even the half-decent ones, who didn’t want to see the people die. Even they will claim a good harvest as their rightful rent arrears.’
He nodded. Fanny understood all that he was not saying. It was no longer famine relief. It was now a war for the land.
‘In which case you will still require funds to resist the evictions.’
‘And to support the prisoners and their families,’ he said, softly.
‘So you need even more help from us over here,’ she said, ‘and not less.’
‘Yes,’ he said, smiling, including her and Anna and the entire group of young famine activists standing around them. ‘We will need your American help more than ever.’
They all laughed and clapped, as if he had given them something rather than asked them for more.
‘Then I would like to start a women’s organisation,’ Fanny said suddenly, seizing the opportunity, most unexpectedly arrived right here and now. She had always been the shyest girl and the boldest girl – her family had never quite worked it out. ‘I want us to form a Ladies Land League.’
Davitt wasn’t horrified, or shocked, or ready to laugh. Anna had said he could listen. Fanny saw he was listening now, and with great attention.
‘We would still fund-raise,’ she said to reassure him, if he needed it, ‘but not for charity anymore. It would be for real change. And we would also raise awareness, to work against all the lies in the British press. We would start here in New York, where Anna and I have many contacts,’ Fanny looked over at Anna, who was nodding vigorously. ‘But eventually women could be organised in various cities across this country, across all the Irish dominions.’
‘You might even goad the men on to greater deeds.’ Davitt laughed, his brown eyes warm and alight. ‘Although some of the others may not like it,’ he said, coming down a little, ‘the idea of women so active in the world.’
‘But you would support us.’
‘Yes,