THE LEGACY OF PAST YEARS
THE LEGACY OF PAST YEARS
A STUDY OF IRISH HISTORY
BY THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN, K.P.
AUTHOR OF "THE OUTLOOK IN IRELAND," ETC.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1911
DK <\\\
628729 X a
PREFACE
MY endeavour in the following pages is to delineate the incidents in Irish history which, if studied in an impartial, candid, and critical spirit, give, as it seems to me, an answer to the perennial question, " Why is it that the Realm is no richer for Ireland ?" My object is that, as the average Englishman and Irishman cannot study for themselves the history of the relations between England, or Great Britain, and Ireland, extending as it does over a period of some 700 years, a short sketch of events taken in relation with the circumstances existing at the time may help to dispel passion and prejudice, and may enable those who desire it to see both sides of the question and to form a sound judgment upon it.
I make no claim to original research nor to the writing of history. I have merely set out the salient facts that have moulded Irish character and have affected the destinies of Ireland, and in doing so I have tried to hold an even balance and to portray them with an impartial pen. Ex- cellent and truth-telling works have been written
vi PREFACE
on the subject of Irish history, but others — and perhaps the most popular on that account — are hopelessly biassed, and some display an ignorance that is mischievous in the extreme. I have before me a book, otherwise valuable, which is thus seriously marred. In writing of the inadequate relief given during the Great Famine of 1846-47, the author states that relief, such as it was, was given by favour, and that Catholics were deliber- ately excluded, and he cites as the authority for so monstrous a charge the accounts he had heard from emigrants to the United States who had gone through the horrors of the Famine. Poor, ignorant, starved, and most miserable peasants, what could they know about, or speak of, except the awful horrors they had undergone; and yet, on such hearsay evidence, and without any further examination, the Government of the time is branded with an iniquity so gross. To heighten the case against the British Government, the same author tells us that — " The cultivation of the Indian corn or maize became, shortly after the Famine, an important industry for the poorer classes of the West Coast of Ireland, with every prospect of becoming as valuable an article of food as the potato, but that, in common with every industry blighted by the English Government, this im- portant staple was lost." To plant the Bog of Allen with pineapples and bananas would be as profitable as to cultivate maize on the western sea-
PREFACE vii
board or in any part of Ireland. The idea is absurd, and to make a charge against the English Government for blighting the industry is much worse than absurd. Manifestly ridiculous accusa- tions tend to deprive well-founded charges of all validity. Gross exaggeration takes away from the strength and justice of the case that can be truth- fully made out. Many excellent works suffer from a similar cause, and perhaps naturally, for it is difficult for an Irishman brooding over the wrongs of his country to attain absolute detachment of mind. It is a pity, for accounts overcoloured fail as a means for opening the eyes of the English people to a true conception of the Irish problem, and serve only to obscure the truth and create misunderstanding.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND IGNORANCE.
On the other hand, the little that the average Englishman gleans from the little that he reads of Irish history from English sources leads him to a still greater misconception of the truth. " Why is it that Irishmen get on so well in the Colonies and in the United States, but are so hopelessly im- possible in their own country ?" is the question for ever on the lips of Englishmen ; and it is passing strange that a people, logical and justly credited with common-sense, invariably attribute the con- dition of Ireland to the contiguity of a melancholy ocean, or to any cause, however recondite, which
viii PREFACE
does not reflect upon themselves. It rarely, if ever, occurs to them to trace effect to its natural and true cause — misgovernment. If Irish history were better known to the English people, I make bold to affirm that their moral sense would be shocked, for they are a just people. They would be driven to the conclusion that the instinct of self-preservation does not justify their conduct in the past, that the crucifixion of Ireland was not necessary for the salvation of England. If they would trace present effects to their causes, they would realize the necessity of exceptional measures for the betterment of Ireland, for they are a practical people. Both moral sense and common sense would combine in urging remedial treatment for Ireland as the first duty of statesmen if the people only understood. Ignorance is what stands in their way, and the same may be said of the people of Ireland and of the Irish throughout the world. If they would not allow traditional ani- mosity to blind their eyes, if they would force themselves to acknowledge that every question has two sides, and that both must be fairly considered, they would come to a better understanding of history and of the English, for the Irish are a just, a kindly, and a forgiving people. For the future of Ireland, and, as 1 think, for the future of Great Britain and the Empire, it is necessary that the English and the Irish should understand each other better, and it is in the hope of dispelling common
PREFACE ix
ignorance, and of creating a better common feeling, that these pages have been compiled.
Nomenclature presents a serious difficulty. How should the inhabitants of Ireland be described ? What is to be understood by " Irish " and " English " ? and how are we to discriminate between them in Elizabethan or Cromwellian days ? Two or three races had occupied Ireland before the invasion of the Milesians, or Gaels. If by "Irish" the "Gaels" are connoted, the term becomes inappropriate after the Scandi- navian settlements, and increases in inapplicability after each wave of Anglo-Norman, Elizabethan, and Puritan Planters. Though the Gaelic strain was so strong, subtle, seductive, and persistent as to colour and absorb all other strains, the term " Gaelic " does not, ethnologically, describe the race during the period under review in the following pages. As a rule, I have applied the term " Irish " to all native born, whether of mixed blood or not, who had come under the influence of Gaelic law, custom, language, and civilization; and the term " English " to those new-comers who had not come under that influence.
IRELAND'S PAST GREATNESS.
Gaelic civilization is, and is likely to remain for some time, a subject of controversy. A critical analysis of culture and civilization in Ireland at various epochs has yet to be undertaken, and much
x PREFACE
spade-work in preparation requires to be done. In ancient Ireland the sense of nationality expressed itself in law, art, literature, and science. The raids of the Scandinavian Vikings, though destructive, were but temporary, and produced no serious effects ; but the deliberate effort to obliterate nationality by the destruction of everything that represented it, persisted in for generations, came near to trampling out all traces of past culture in Ireland. Irish learning, art, and science sought and found asylum on the Continent in Italy and France, and research into the past must be made in localities far removed from the native land of those scholars who, driven from Ireland, carried knowledge and tradition with them. Devoted Irishmen strove, at the risk of their hunted lives, to preserve at home the memory, at any rate, of former greatness, and were assisted by a few enlightened men among the English ; but it was not until the middle of the eighteenth century that serious attempts were made by antiquarians and historians to recover and piece together the scattered fragments of Irish annals written from the Irish point of view. For hundreds of years the only records accessible to the public were written by ministers and agents of Tudor Sovereigns bent on wiping out all signs of Irish nationality, or by " Planters " and " Undertakers " all interested in the fiction that the depth of vice, ignorance, and barbarism in which the Irish wal- lowed placed them outside the canons of humanity
PREFACE xi
of even a rough and cruel age. Such a mass of purely ex-parte statement is difficult to move, and though much good work has been done during the last century, much remains to be done in the way of research, co-ordination, and comparison before the case for native civilization can be authorita- tively proved. Nevertheless, the historical evidence in existence, corroborated as it is by archaeological research, by the rich finds of works of art, and by the persistent recurrence in later days of the early Gaelic type in ornamentation and design, is suf- ficient at least to show that, though the picture of Gaelic civilization may be overcoloured by Irish apologists, it is far truer to life than the present- ment to be derived from the accounts of those English apologists who seek justification for the policy and actions of England in the theory of a hopelessly degraded Celtic race.
Treating the subject, as I have done, in sections — wars, rebellions, destruction of trade, growth of parliamentary institutions, and landlordism — some repetition was inevitable. I trust it may be excused.
CONTENTS
PART I
ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, REBELLIONS
PAOC
THE EARLY CONDITION OF IRELAND - - - 1
INFLUENCE OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION - - -4
IRELAND BEFORE THE CONQUEST - - 6
POPE ADRIAN IV.'s GIFT - - - 9
IRELAND'S REAL CONDITION - -13
ANNIHILATIONS UNDER THE TUDORS - - - 17
IRELAND ON ITS DEFENCE - - - 20
CAUSES OF DISCORD - - - 23
THE ELIZABETHAN PERSECUTIONS - - - 26
A RECORD OF TREACHERY - - - 29
IN THE PATH OF THE " CONQUERORS " - - - 32
IRELAND'S LAND HUNGER - - - 35
"DEFEND ME AND SPEND ME" - - - 38
THE BROKEN FAITH OF THE CROWN - - - 40
CHARLES I. AND THE " GRACES " - - 44
AGRARIAN AND RACIAL TROUBLES - - - 47
ENGLISH AND IRISH CONTRASTED - - - 53
THE ANNIHILATION OF CROMWELL - - - 58
AFTER THE RESTORATION - - - 63
WARS - - - - 66
RISINGS AND REBELLIONS - - - 67
THE REBELLION OF '98 - - - . - 71
WOLFE TONE'S POLICY - - - - 74
THE ORANGE SOCIETY - - - . 77
THE SEEDS OF REBELLION - - - - 84
IRELAND AND INVASION - gg
Xiii
xiv CONTENTS
PAGE
AN HONEST GENERAL^ CONFESSION - 87
PROTESTANT REBELS - 89
STORY OF THE REBELLION OF '98 - 93
FAILURE IN ULSTER - - 94
INCIDENTS IN WICKLOW AND WEXFORD - 96
CLOSE OF THE REBELLION - - 99
CAUSES OF DEFEAT - - 101
LATER SPORADIC RISINGS - - - 105
THE RELIGIOUS WEDGE - - 106
ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION - 109
THE "MERE IRISH" - - - 111
PART II
DESTRUCTION, DEGRADATION, AND REVIVAL
IRELAND'S MISFORTUNES - 114
THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND 115
1 ENGLISH MISCONCEPTIONS - 117
'WAR ON IRISH INDUSTRY -
"CONQUEST" BY THE IRISH - -
IRELAND'S STRUGGLE FOR TRADE -
FAULTS OF THE TIMES - - 127
PENAL LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS - 129
FREEDOM AND A REVIVAL - 134
PART III IRELAND'S PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
THE RULE OF ECCLESIASTICS - - - - 137
NON- REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLIES - 142
FIRST PARLIAMENTARY UNION WITH ENGLAND - 145
THE HEAVY HAND OF IRISH PARLIAMENTS - 147
SWIFT'S PROPAGANDA - - 149
THE VOLUNTEERS AND FREEDOM OF TRADE - 151
GRATTAN'S VICTORY FOR IRELAND - 155
AN ILLUSIVE INDEPENDENCE - - - -157
CONTENTS xv
PAGE
AN " INDEPENDENT " IRELAND - - 161
FRICTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND IRELAND - 164
PITT'S VIEWS ON FEDERATION - - 166
EARLY IRISH PROJECTS FOR UNION - 168
ARGUMENTS FOR THE UNION - - 171
OPPOSITION TO THE UNION - 173
THE UNION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES - 177
THE CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE - 180
POPULAR OPINION AS TO UNION - - 183
THE FINAL ACT - 185
UNREDEEMED PLEDGES - - - - - 189
PART IV
EMIGRATION, CONFISCATION, LAND TENURE, LANDLORDISM
LAND TENURE - - - 196
CONTENTMENT OF THE PEASANTRY - 200
iTHE LONG PARLIAMENT^ CONFISCATIONS - 202
THE ENGLISH AND IRISH LAND SYSTEMS - 204
THE POSITION OF THE LANDOWNERS - 207
AN EIGHTEENTH- CENTURY RECORD - - 208
THE INFLUENCE OF THE " MIDDLEMAN " - - 210
THE TAINT OF ASCENDANCY - - - 213
THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDER - - 215
THE GREAT FAMINE OF 1846-47 ... £18
IRISH RELIEF AND ENGLISH ECONOMICS ... 221
THE RUIN OF THE LANDED GENTRY ... 223
ENGLAND'S FATAL ERROR - - - 225
THE FAMINE AND FREE TRADE - ... 227
HOME RULE AND AGRARIANISM - ... 228
MODERN LAND LEGISLATION ...
WYNDHAM ACT OF 1903 -
THE LANDLORDS : HISTORY*^ VERDICT - 234
POLITICS AND THE LAND - - . 237
xvi CONTENTS
PART V CONCLUSION: IRELAND'S FUTURE
PAOK
ERRORS IN ENGLISH HISTORY - - 243
THE MORAL OF PAST MISTAKES - - 247
THE POLICY OF "CONQUEST" - - - 249
FRUITS OF IRISH UNITY - 251
THE FIRST DUTY : COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE - 254
NECESSITY FOR POLITICAL REFORM ... 256
NO DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE - - 258
IRELAND'S LONG PROTEST AGAINST UNION • 261
REPEAL OF THE UNION IMPOSSIBLE - - 263
IS FEDERATION DESIRABLE ? - 266
BRITAIN'S NEED OF DEVOLUTION - 269
A FEDERATED EMPIRE - - 271
COLONIAL AND AMERICAN SENTIMENT - - 273
THE CINDERELLA OF THE FAMILY - 275
INDEX - - - - - - 279
THE LEGACY OF PAST YEARS
PART I
ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, REBELLIONS
THE EARLY CONDITION OF IRELAND.
" THE Irish Question " is always with us in some form or other, and always will be until the people of Great Britain understand better than they do the responsibility that rests upon them for the condition of Ireland, the people of Ireland realize the extent to which they are responsible, and the people of the United Kingdom as a whole learn to take a wider and juster view of Anglo-Irish history. Knowledge is necessary, and when a consistent constructive policy based upon that knowledge is adopted and pursued, the Irish Question will be set at rest. Time and again the despairing ques- tion has been raised, " Why is the King's realm no richer for Ireland ?" The answer is a simple one. The object of statesmanship has never been to en- courage, or even to permit, Ireland to enrich and develop herself; but has ever been to impoverish
2 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
and, if possible, efface Ireland in the supposed interests of England and Great Britain.
That policy, pursued with unflinching and ruthless perseverance for so many centuries, failed in one respect. The vitality of the native race proved too strong. It could not be obliterated. Ireland has not been converted into so many English counties. She remains, not a geographical expression merely, but the home of a distinct people. But in another direction it merits the crown of unadulterated success. Ireland has been reduced to a condition of unparalleled poverty, not only in material wealth, but in every quality that makes for prosperity and progress, with the inevitable result that she is a misery to herself and a burden instead of a benefit to those who have made her what she is. To the mistaken policy pursued by England is due the fact that the King's realm is no richer for Ireland.
To realize the truth of this thesis, some acquaint- ance with at least the outlines of history is needful. What does the average British elector know about real Irishmen or the real Ireland ? Very little. He probably looks upon Ireland as a distressful country, always a burden to him, and at times a wellnigh intolerable nuisance; and he attributes this condition of things to certain racial character- istics, or to any cause except the true one — the fatal effects of centuries of misrule.
An exhaustive history of Ireland remains to be written. My object in the following pages
EARLY IRISH HISTORY 3
is to present the more prominent episodes in Irish history, culled impartially, to the best of my ability, from standard works, in such a shape as may give the English, Scotch, and Welsh reader some insight into the causes of Irish discon- tent. Such an epitomized presentment of the case may be of service to Irish readers also, for Irish history as read by them, derived as it is from the chronicles of a tortured people, is naturally apt to be overcoloured and unfair. Action is often attri- buted to mere cruelty, which, though we now recognize it as perniciously unwise, was in ac- cordance with the canons of the time and the customary methods employed by rulers in dealing with communities that came under their control.
Of Irish history before the so-called " conquest " I do not propose to speak, except to the extent of a few words on civilization later on ; but certain facts must be mentioned and must be constantly borne in mind if any clue is to be found leading the student through the maze of seeming complexities obscuring Irish history to some understanding of the Irish problem as it now presents itself, and of the Irish character.
During many centuries the development of the Gaels in Ireland was purely internal ; no external forces wrought upon or influenced the civilization that they gradually evolved. Ireland derived nothing from England, and, what is of infinitely more importance, Ireland alone among all Western
4 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
communities never felt the direct influence of Rome. Though Agricola planned an invasion, no Roman soldier set foot on Irish soil, no tinge of Roman jurisprudence or of the Roman conception of society and of the State coloured the civilization of Ireland. The Roman system was highly cen- tralized, practical, material. Nationality was ex- pressed by law emanating from a central authority, sanctioned by a powerful executive residing in the same authority. Religion, learning, science, art — all that may be comprehended in the term " culture " — were matters of comparative indifference to the central authority. Statute law and the executive, so far as its authority extended, constituted the State. To the Irish Gaels the conception of what constitutes a nation was totally different. Nation- ality, according to their ideal, consisted of com- munity of thought developing into common law, custom, religion, learning, science, and art, all resting upon a purely democratic basis. Govern- ment, the central executive authority, was a matter of comparative indifference to them. The Irish system was decentralized to the last degree. It was an eesthetic or spiritualized system — a number of communities executively independent, but knit together by ties of common culture.
INFLUENCE OF ROMAN CIVILIZATION.
Ireland culled from Gaul what she needed of Roman civilization. She took what she required in
CULTURE INDIGENOUS 5
the arts and handicrafts, and improved upon them. They came within the sphere of her natural activi- ties ; but she rejected Roman jurisprudence, Roman centralization, and the whole Roman conception of the State, as utterly repugnant to her ideal of nationality. The feudal system rested on the theory that all land was vested in the Sovereign. The Irish tribal system was based on the assump- tion that all land was vested in the people. If these great central facts — that the Roman Empire left no mark in Ireland, that the waves of Teutonic invasion under which that Empire was submerged never broke over Ireland, that the Irish conception of the State was purely indigenous and the anti- thesis of the Roman conception upon which the feudal systems of the early and middle ages were based — be kept steadily in view, they will account for much that may otherwise seem unaccountable in Irish history. They explain the devotion of the people to learning, art, and all that beautifies life — common culture was the essence and evidence of their nationality ; and they account for the honours accorded to men proficient in all the works of peace, who ranked as the equals of Princes and Kings. The tenacity with which the people clung to their own land tenure, law, and custom is not strange, seeing that the whole system sprung from themselves and was part of themselves ; nor is their devotion to bards and genealogists, who chronicled every trivial event and every circumstance, however
6 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
small, that had to do with almost every plain and mountain, sea and river, tree and rock, over the whole island. It was all intimate to them. In common law, common custom, common language, community of literature, science, and art, all derived from themselves, their nationality found expres- sion. Such an ideal is, it must be admitted, a very noble one. Rooted, deep and broad, in the mental fibre of every man, woman, and child throughout the whole island, it created a sense of nationality absolutely imperishable, and of a char- acter that kept the light of religion and learning burning brightly at home, and rekindled it in Britain and on the Continent after the fall of the Roman Empire. But, on the other hand, a society of confederated communities held together only by such spiritualized ties, and very loosely compacted in all other respects, found itself unable to preserve national independence when subject to attack by a system highly systematized and centralized in all the material aspects of life.
IRELAND BEFORE THE CONQUEST.
Irish chroniclers devoted themselves largely, as was very natural, to recording episodes of tragic importance — wars, raids, and occurrences of that kind — and it has become a vulgar belief that Ireland was the scene of perpetual internecine war. That is a great exaggeration and an obvious one, for no people could have advanced so far as
WAR AND NATIONAL LIFE 7
did the Irish in all the ways of peace if battle, murder, and sudden death had been their daily lot. What sort of conception of modern life would an inhabitant of Mars derive from the perusal of one of our daily papers ? He would see a long catalogue of wars, earthquakes, famines, murders, strikes, riots, crime of all kinds, and he would be over- come with horror at the awful condition of society in which we most precariously live. So it is in refer- ence to the ancient history of Ireland. Not many of those who write about it have critically examined and weighed the facts ; they have been content to take native records of deeds of violence as accu- rately depicting the whole existence of the people. Albeit the picture of national life thus formed is overcoloured and to that extent false, it neverthe- less rests upon a foundation of fact. The tribal system was a federation of communities pre- cariously held together by outward material ties, though indissolubly united by spiritual or aesthetic ties. In one aspect of life the septs were antagonists, but in the other aspect of life con- federates. They were frequently at war, but in the midst of wars the great national assemblies, feasts, and fairs went on uninterrupted.
Kings there were, overlords of the whole island ; but as a rule their authority was more nominal than real. They reigned, but they did not govern. Province fought against province, tribe against tribe, sept against sept, and at the same time
8 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
judges, poets, and learned men were welcome in any part of Ireland, from whatever part of Ireland they came. Out of this chaos Ireland would un- doubtedly have emerged. Some overlord would have arisen sufficiently powerful to subdue internal dissensions, to consolidate his rule and found a lasting dynasty. But no such saviour of society appeared in time, and when Henry II. landed, Ireland was not a community organized for defence. He found a people in the tribal state, with no conception of the unity of a nation for material purposes — a community without an executive centre or cohesion, a people divided among themselves, and consequently an easy prey. All through the wars of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, Ireland suffered under the same inevitable disadvantage of her decentralized tribal system. Allegiance and devo- tion to the nation were allegiance and devotion to a very exalted and noble ideal, but to an abstraction. Allegiance and fidelity to the chief were personal and imperative. The chief was the war leader. It was a question of my chief right or wrong, not of my country right or wrong. The chieftainship was elective. It tended, it is true, to become hereditary, but nevertheless deposition in the event of inca- pacity was easy. Freedom from personal blemishes was essential ; and personal courage and capacity to maintain and improve the position of the clan were, to say the least of it, desirable qualities which could only be demonstrated by actual experience in
HENRY II.'S CLAIM 9
the conduct of war. Such a condition of society did not tend to national solidarity, and the spiritual- ized ideal of nationality, though imperishable, failed as an effective element in overcoming the centrifugal results of tribalism, and in uniting the people in common resistance to a common foe.
POPE ADRIAN IV.'s GIFT. Henry claimed the sovereignty of Ireland by virtue of a deed of gift from the Pope, Adrian IV. Some writers have questioned the issue of that Bull; but the evidence on the other side is so strong that the authenticity of the document is, I think, generally admitted.* Whether the Bull was genuine or a forgery is, in one sense, a matter of no importance. Before the days of Henry covetous glances had been thrown towards Ireland, " a land very rich in plunder and famed for the good tem- perature of the air, the fruitfulness of the soil, the pleasant and commodious seats for habitation, and safe and large ports and havens lying open for traffic," and invasion would certainly have taken place with or without the sanction of the Pope. But in another sense the authenticity of the Bull is important, both on account of the reasons given
* H. W. C. Davis decides in favour of the genuineness of the Bull of Adrian IV., and points out that three letters of his successor, Alexander III., written in 1172, show that Rome approved of the invasion of Ireland ("England under the Normans and Angevins ").
10 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
for its issue and of the question of title involved. On the supposition that Henry's object was to exterminate vice and explain true Christianity to uncivilized and ignorant tribes, a note was struck that has been continuously sounded in justifica- tion of England's action towards Ireland. The sovereignty conferred by the assumption by Henry VIII. of the title of " King " instead of Lord," with the consent of a Parliament con- vened for the purpose, was of a purely nominal char- acter ; and if Ireland was not deeded to Henry II. by the Pope, or if the Pope was not competent to make the gift, no justification can be found for describing the Tudor wars as " rebellions," and no excuse offered for the barbarity with which they were waged. As the Bull of Adrian IV. is, if genuine, a turning-point in Irish history, and as the evidence is at any rate sufficient to warrant the assumption of genuineness, the text of the Bull may be given in full.
Bull of Pope Adrian IV. to King Henry II. of England, granting him liberty to take pos- session of Ireland.
" Adrian, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to our well- beloved son in Christ, the illustrious King of the English, health and apostolical bene- diction.
"Your Highness is contemplating the laudable and profitable work of gaining a glorious fame on
A GIFT FROM ROME II
earth, and augmenting the recompense of bliss that awaits you in heaven, by turning your thoughts, in the proper spirit of a Catholic Prince, to the object of widening the boundaries of the Church, explaining the true Christian faith to those ignorant and uncivilized tribes, and exterminating the nurseries of vices from the Lord's inheritance. In which matter, observing as we do the maturity of deliberation and the soundness of judgment exhibited in your mode of proceeding, we cannot but hope that proportionate success will, with the Divine permission, attend your exertions.
" Certainly there is no doubt but that Ireland and all the islands upon which Christ, the Son of Righteousness, hath shined, and which have received instruction in the Christian faith, do belong of right to St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church, as Your Grace also admits. For which reason we are the more disposed to introduce into them a faithful plantation, and to engraft among them a stock acceptable in the sight of God, in proportion as we are convinced from conscientious motives that such efforts are made incumbent on us by the urgent claims of duty.
" You have signified to us, son well beloved in Christ, your desire to enter the island of Ireland in order to bring that people into subjection to laws, and to exterminate the nurseries of vices from the country ; and that you are willing to pay to St. Peter an annual tribute of one penny for every
12 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
house there, and to preserve the ecclesiastical rights of that land uninjured and inviolate. We there- fore, meeting your pious and laudable desire with the favour which it deserves, and graciously according to your petition, express our will and pleasure that, in order to widen the bounds of the Church, to check the spread of vice, to reform the state of morals and promote the inculcation of virtuous dispositions, you shall enter that island and execute therein what shall be for the honour of God and the welfare of the country. And let the people of that land receive you in honourable style and respect you as their Lord. Provided always that ecclesiastical rights be uninjured and inviolate, and the annual payment of one penny for every house be secured for St. Peter and the Holy Roman Church.
" If, then, you shall be minded to carry into execution the plan which you have devised in your mind, use your endeavour diligently to improve that nation by the inculcation of good morals ; and exert yourself, both personally and by means of such agents as you employ (whose faith, life, and conversation you have found suitable for such an undertaking), that the Church may be adorned there, that the religious influence of the Christian faith may be planted and grow there, and that all that pertains to the honour of God and the salva- tion of souls may, by you, be ordered in such a way as that you may be counted worthy to obtain
IRISH CULTURE 13
from God a higher degree of recompense in eternity, and at the same time succeed in gaining upon earth a name of glory thoughout all generations."
IRELAND'S REAL CONDITION.
It is impossible to accept for a moment the description of Ireland as portrayed in this famous Bull. Conquerors, colonists, planters, whether Danes, Anglo-Normans, Elizabethan or Crom- wellian English, conformed in an incredibly short time to the habits of the native Irish, adopting their language, dress, pastimes, system of law and land tenure, methods of warfare, manners and customs in trade, commerce, and all the phases of social life. The new-comers became more Irish than the Irish. Had the people been mere ignorant savages, sunk in sloth, irreligion, and vice, such a change could not by any possibility have taken place. Moreover, it is well known that from the fifth to the tenth century Ireland excelled in piety and learning. Her missionaries spread all over Britain, Gaul, and Northern Europe. She had developed an architecture of her own ; relatively to many other nations she was far advanced in learning and in the arts, and she had a considerable trade. Civilization and progress were checked for a time by the Scandinavian raids, but for a time only. The Danes, like everybody else, became incorporated with the nation, settling in seaport towns, paying tribute to, or exacting tribute from,
14 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
the native chiefs. A great revival took place in the twelfth century. Trade and commerce flourished exceedingly. With the exception of such necessaries of life and manufacture as salt and Spanish iron ore, nearly the whole of a large import trade consisted of luxuries for the consump- tion of the rich, testifying to the volume, nature, and variety of the home manufactures and raw produce exported in exchange. The trade was carried in native ships. It was the actual and potential wealth of a fairly civilized people, not the poverty of naked savages, that attracted the Plan- tagenet Sovereigns and the hosts of adventurers that flocked to Ireland.
It is inconceivable that a country which had attained to such a height of prosperity could have sunk to the lowest depths of barbarism at the time Adrian IV.'s Bull was issued. The fact probably is that it was framed on insufficient and faulty evi- dence. The Pope was an Englishman, and may have been prejudiced in favour of the King of England. It was not an easy matter in those days to ex- amine into allegations concerning the spiritual, moral, and material welfare of a people situated so far from Rome. Doubtless many garbled state- ments and untruthful accounts were submitted to the Pope, and accepted without critical examination on the spot. Moreover, substantial reasons for the interference of Rome must have existed. Ireland was to acknowledge financial obligations to the
ECCLESIASTICAL CUSTOM 15
Holy See, and a tribute to St. Peter of one penny annually for every house in Ireland is twice stipu- lated in the Bull. How far Ireland had differed in matters theological or in Church discipline is a matter apart from my purpose ; but I may point out that Ireland's first conflict with the outside world was in connection with ecclesiastical custom. Ireland received with Christianity the Eastern tradition and custom. Two great Apostles and great men — St. Columcille, who converted Scot- land and England, and who came within measur- able distance of founding a peaceful federation of Scots, Picts, and Saxons ; and Columbanus, who laboured so successfully in Gaul — used the Eastern tonsure and observed the Eastern date of Easter. In the matter of custom Ireland was with difficulty brought into line. The dead temporal Empire of Rome had bequeathed to its spiritual successor the old Imperial idea that everything outside the Empire was remote, barbarous, and savage. During the national revival that took place after the over- throw of Scandinavian power in 1015, the Church in Ireland threw off the authority of Canterbury. The Church in England was directly under the authority of Rome, and the Church in Ireland had been under the authority of Canterbury. It is probable that the difficulty experienced in inducing the Church in Ireland to adopt Western custom and dates, and the independence of England claimed by the Primate of Armagh, account fully
16 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
for the desire of successive Popes to see Ireland brought under English rule. Be that as it may, it would appear that when Henry invaded Ireland under sanction of the Papal Bull his commission was recognized by the Church. He was welcomed by the hierarchy, though not by the people, and the native chiefs who resisted him found themselves arrayed against the forces of his knights and men- at-arms, supported by the moral influence of the Church.
Henry did not effect the conquest of Ireland, He received the homage of filibustering Barons who had preceded him, and of a few native chiefs ; and if wise methods had been pursued, it is likely enough that the overlordship of the King of England would have been gradually and quietly acquiesced in. Henry was a far-sighted man, and with sufficient opportunity he might, on the sub- stratum of the existing land tenure, law, and custom, have laid a foundation on which Ireland could have built herself up in amity with England ; but time was lacking to him. Very shortly after the inva- sion of Ireland "in the proper spirit of a Catholic Prince " by this " son well beloved in Christ " " the illustrious King of the English " was ordered to France to make expiation for the murder of Thomas a Becket.
The expedition of Henry II. has been styled a conquest ; as a matter of fact, he did not effect a permanent occupation or settlement of any kind.
A NOMINAL CONQUEST 17
and the purely nominal character of the con- quest may be gathered from the fact that three centuries later English rule was confined to Dublin and a little district not thirty miles broad surrounding it.
ANNIHILATIONS UNDER THE TUDORS. Though Ireland had reached a comparatively high level of civilization in culture, recognized law and custom, trade, manufacturing and commerce, she had not, at the time of the Anglo-Norman settle- ments, emerged from the tribal state. No man had arisen of sufficient strength to found and perpetuate a lasting dynasty, and weld the people into a nation acting under one head ; nor did the Anglo-Norman invasion alter this primitive condition of affairs. The principal men among them acquired vast territories by marriage or by the sword, and by the sword they held them, adopting Irish law and custom and becoming more Irish than the Irish themselves. They fought each other, they fought the native chiefs ; and the native chiefs fought each other and fought the Anglo-Normans.
The fact that the King of England became the overlord of Ireland made but little difference. His authority was for a long time confined to the Pale in theory, and in practice was not very definitely asserted even there. It was slowly shrinking up to the time of Henry VIII., and it was not until the reign of that monarch that a determined effort was
2
18 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
made to subdue the country by means of a settled policy, which was carried out with ruthless vigour by his great successor, Queen Elizabeth. The object was the introduction of "shiring " —to substitute the ownership of the Crown for the ownership of the people in the land and the imposition of feudal taxes at the will of the Sovereign in lieu of tribal dues at the will of the people ; and the policy pursued was to achieve this end gradually and cautiously by dealing with Ireland piecemeal and by stirring up strife among native chiefs and Anglo- Norman lords. In pursuance of this policy the Earl of Kildare was declared attainted in 1536, and the greater part of Leinster was confiscated. In 1570 Shane O'Neill was declared an outlaw, and the greater part of Ulster was forfeited, and in 1586 the same fate befell the greater part of Munster— the territory of the Earl of Desmond. The method employed was the extermination of the native race by the sword and by the destruction of all means of subsistence, and the ruin of all commerce and trade. There was no war in the modern sense of the term. It was not a struggle between England and Ireland, or between rival Sovereigns. There was no Ireland to struggle against, and no Irish King, though two great native leaders might, under more favourable circumstances, have aspired to that dignity, and might have secured it.
These wars are usually styled rebellions. I know not why, for in truth there is little justification for
EXTERMINATION NOT WAR 19
the term. Rebellion is an attempt to overthrow some ruler, or dynasty, or definite form of actual government. English rule in Ireland was little more than nominal. The claim of the Sovereign of England to the sovereignty of Ireland rested upon a Papal Bull not accepted by the people of Ireland. It was not justified by effective posses- sion, and in resisting it the native chiefs were not acting in rebellion. They were endeavouring to preserve an independence that had not been wrested from them. The wars of Elizabeth, and those of preceding reigns, consisted of a series of campaigns against native chiefs in various parts of the country —campaigns in which native chiefs and the great Anglo-Norman families freely participated, aiding the forces of the Queen or those of the so-called rebellious chiefs, with a strict impartiality founded upon their conception of the course which was most likely to be advantageous to themselves. The rebellion of Tyrone may be cited as an example. Shane O'Neill, in his struggle for supremacy in Ulster, which he actually acquired, had arrayed against him the English forces of the Deputy (Lord-Lieutenant), the great Anglo-Norman lords Clanricarde, Desmond and others, his neighbours the O'Reillys, O'Donnells, Maguires, and his own brother. And the same may be said of the re- bellion of Desmond, when fertile Munster was depopulated and utterly laid waste. Ormond was opposing Desmond, Clanricarde assisting him ;
20 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
native chiefs were arrayed on either side, fighting sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. The Elizabethan wars were not dynastic or racial in the sense of being waged by England against Ireland ; but they were racial in their main object, the destruction of the Irish race, an end which, it was craftily thought, could be best attained by encouraging the Irish to destroy each other. Nor were they wars of religion. Queen Mary, a zealous Catholic, took care to keep the Church lands in her hands, and showed little consideration for the "mere Irish," carving two counties out of the territories of native chiefs. Besides, it is admitted by Roman Catholic historians that Elizabethan persecutions were directed against enemies to her sovereignty and not against Roman Catholics as such. Many Irish Catholics served with her forces.
IRELAND ON ITS DEFENCE.
The real cause of war was twofold. Ireland was looked upon as a menace to England, not on account of danger to be apprehended from the Irish, but because Ireland offered splendid strate- gical advantages to France and Spain, and in order to ensure against a foreign lodgment in Ireland the complete subjugation of the country was determined upon. The wars may be deemed of a religious character in that they were waged for the purpose of preventing Catholic Ireland being invaded by Catholic Spain and France. It cannot be pre-
ENGLISH MOTIVES 21
tended that the necessity felt by England to protect herself by the complete subjugation of Ireland, and her desire to bring that island under English law, tenure, and custom, was unnatural or illegitimate, when judged by the moral standards which then prevailed and the possible dangers which confronted English rulers. England, a com- paratively small and weak kingdom, was entering upon a titanic struggle with the greatest Empire of the day. The Reformed Religion was struggling for its life. English Catholics had been absolved from their allegiance to a heretic Sovereign.* Self- preservation is the first of all laws, and England felt herself justified in acting upon it.
But self-preservation was not the only, nor even the principal, motive for the wars. Cupidity, the lust for land, " land-grabbing " on a gigantic scale, actuated both the Sovereign and the thousands of armed adventurers who flocked to Ireland. The Sovereign, coveting the dues receivable under the feudal despotic theory that the land belonged to the Crown, desired to substitute that system for the Irish democratic theory that the land belonged to the people. The outburst of the spirit of adventure which, reaching its zenith during the reign of Eliza- beth, urged English captains across the ocean into
* The Bull of Pius V. recites : " We do declare her to be deprived of her pretended title to the kingdom aforesaid . . . and also the nobility, subjects, and people of the said kingdom, and all others which have in any way sworn to her to be for ever absolved from any such oath."
22 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
conflict with the greatest naval power in the world, found a nearer and more profitable field in Ireland.
It is a curious commentary upon human inexacti- tude that at a time when English writers described Ireland as a miserable island inhabited by half- naked savages, the potential wealth of the country attracted English adventurers more powerfully than did the untold riches of the New World. To take the spoils, to hold the land, and to substitute English for Irish tenure, were active motives of aggression — to keep the land and to retain the native tenure were the motives of defence.
The substitution of English for Irish tenure was viewed with mixed feelings by those interested in the land. To the Chief Paramount the change presented certain advantages. He surrendered the tribal territory, in which he had but a limited interest, and that for life only, and received it back from the Crown as a feudal lord, absolute owner of the soil under the Crown, and with descent to his heirs, which to many was a great consideration. Some of the principal Irish chiefs showed but little reluctance in handing over the lands of their sept, and with them their position and names as native chiefs, and in receiving the land back as a titled feudatory of the Crown. But the subordinate chiefs and people took a very different view. The petty chief found his dignity lowered, his indepen- dence curtailed, and his material welfare diminished. The position of the tribesmen under native law and
LOSS OF TRIBAL TENURE 23
custom was infinitely superior to that offered them under English tenure, and the tribesmen and lesser chiefs were, as a rule, bitterly opposed to the action of the superior chief in surrendering their territories to the Crown. This was the cause of the rebellion of Tyrone. Conn O'Neill surrendered his vast terri- tories and received them back as Earl of Tyrone. Shane O'Neill protested against action taken without the consent of the minor chiefs and people. The people and subordinate chiefs supported him, and in the long struggle Ulster was wasted and stripped to the bone.
CAUSES OF DISCORD.
Speaking broadly, and taking a general view of the situation, the elements of discord were three- fold. The natural desire of England to secure her- self against foreign enemies by holding complete control over Ireland ; the greed of English adven- turers seeking for confiscated land ; the determina- tion to make shire land of tribal land and obtain feudal taxes by converting Irish tenure into English tenure, and the vehement resistance of the people, who were much better off under the Irish system.
Throughout all these hideous times, during which the fairest provinces were wrecked and ruined by war, pestilence and famine, to such an extent that the survival of the Irish race seems miraculous, there was no question of a struggle
24 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
between England and Ireland as between two embattled nations. Native Irish chiefs and the great Anglo-Norman lords gave their aid to the foreigner when it served their own territorial aggrandizement or enabled them to pay off old scores against their neighbours. Ireland had no identity as a nation. There was no national re- sistance ; it was a case of dog eating dog, and the lion devouring both.
This matter has been gone into with some little detail, because the causes that made resistance so desperate and so futile then may be traced in operation all through Irish history up to the present day. Landownership has ever been the main cause of trouble in Ireland, and disunion her greatest curse.
The wars of Elizabeth, and those immediately preceding her reign, were conducted with revolt- ing atrocity. But in common justice the circum- stances in which Elizabeth found herself placed must be taken into account.
The history of England in Ireland has been characterized by two periods of exceptionally violent persecution, first under Elizabeth and later under Charles I. and Cromwell — persecution so horrible and so unjustifiable except by fraud as to have left almost indelible marks upon both the English and the Irish character. Inherited contempt for the Irish born of arrogant ignorance, and inherited hatred due in part to too narrow a view
CONDITIONS IN EUROPE 25
of history, stand in the way of that mutual respect that must be antecedent to complete reconciliation of the two peoples. It is very necessary, therefore, to cast a glance at the conditions in which England was placed before sketching out the Elizabethan wars and those of the Commonwealth.
It is usual to look at the Elizabethan wars as isolated historical incidents in the struggle between England and Ireland, but they really form a portion of the story of Europe during the centuries when the whole continent was convulsed by religious war. In the thirteenth century the Albigenses were obliterated. A war, described by Macaulay as "distinguished even among wars of religion by merciless atrocity, destroyed the Albigensian heresy, and with that heresy the prosperity, the civilization, the literature, the national existence of what was once the most opulent and enlightened part of the great European family." Hundreds were burned alive, while thousands perished by the sword or the rope. In Spain (Andalusia), in 1481, 3,000 persons were burnt alive, and 17,000 suffered other penalties. In 1546 Protestants were bitterly persecuted in Scotland and Germany. All these facts were fresh in men's memories when in 1553 Mary, who sub- sequently married Philip of Spain, ascended the throne, and England came under the sway of a Sovereign who signalized her ascension by reversing all the Acts of Edward VI. and inaugurating a
26 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
period of Protestant persecution. During her reign Protestantism was banned. One Archbishop, four Bishops, and some 300 humbler believers in the Reformed Religion were burned, and many others died in prison.
THE ELIZABETHAN PERSECUTIONS.
The ashes of Smithfield were scarcely cold when, in 1558, Elizabeth ascended the throne determined to uphold the Reformed Religion. Her motives, however interesting in historical research, need not be investigated here. The persecutions of Protestants by Mary and of Catholics by Elizabeth were, it is safe to say, not solely or principally directed by religious zeal. The fact of value, however, remains that Elizabeth, in identifying herself and England with the cause of Protestant- ism, sympathized strongly with the sufferings of Protestants in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Southern and Central Germany ; and that in championing Protestantism she incurred the bitter enmity of all the great powers, and especially of Spain, the greatest world-empire of those days. The Duke of Alva, Lieutenant of King Philip of Spain, was carrying red ruin through the Low Countries, and the appeals of the Dutch for aid rang in English ears. Admiral Coligny, together with about 500 noblemen and gentlemen, and nearly 10,000 persons of inferior rank, lured to destruction by promise of safety shamefully vio-
FEAR OF CATHOLICISM 27
lated, perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris alone ; many thousands more were mas- sacred in other parts of the country, and the bitter cry of the remnant was borne across the narrow seas. English sea-captains waged a sort of private war against Spain, and brought back tales of the horrors of the Inquisition. Catholic Queen Mary of Scotland harassed England in the north. English Catholics were absolved from their allegiance to the heretic Elizabeth. England, a little power, insignificant as compared with Spain or France, was fighting desperately for her independence, her religion, and her life. She stood alone among a host of enemies struggling against overwhelming odds, and rising to the occasion, she held her own. In spite of the honourable fact that some of Elizabeth's most gallant and successful leaders against the power of Spain were Catholics, it is not surprising that under such circumstances Catholicism became synonymous with enemy, nor is it strange that the success of a feeble folk against tremendous odds should have raised natural pride to unnatural arrogance, and should have engendered inordinate contempt for peoples whose manners, customs, race, language, and religion differed from their own.
Such were the political conditions actively operating during the reign of Elizabeth, and they did not greatly vary during the Commonwealth. Religious warfare continued during the reign
28 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
of James I., "the wisest fool in Christendom," when Catholic Spain continued her machinations against England. Protestantism in Europe during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. was still fighting for its life. After the execution of Charles I., his eldest son, a Catholic at heart, though nominally a Protestant, was proclaimed King of Scotland and afterwards of Ireland, where the sympathies of the people were strongly set against the Puritan regime. Protestantism was still in danger, and Catholic Ireland had thrown in her lot with the Royalists. It was in these circum- stances, at a moment when England was still the object of Spanish intrigue and attack, when a life and death struggle with the Dutch was imminent, and she could not afford to have enemies on her own hearth, that Cromwell set out with his army to Ireland, and it must not be forgotten — though it usually is — that he afterwards devoted his atten- tion with equal severity to Scotland also.
Albeit the Reformed Religion was struggling against tremendous odds ; although England was menaced by the most powerful Empire of those days, and the Protestant Queen of England had good cause to dread Catholicism in arms, and although war was then customarily conducted with a savage cruelty repugnant to our modern ideas, still no excuse can be offered for the treachery and brutality employed in the effort to extirpate the Irish people.
Deliberate murder under the pretence of hospital-
TREACHERY AND BRUTALITY 29
ity, the wholesale slaughter of defenceless, unarmed men, women and children, the universal destruction of cattle, sheep, crops and all means of subsistence, were the methods deliberately employed.
A RECORD OF TREACHERY.
A few instances must suffice. After many years of struggle peace was made in 1563 between Shane O'Neill and the Viceroy. Ancient feuds were to be forgotten, and all enmity was to be laid aside. As a token of goodwill the Viceroy sent a present of wine to O'Neill. The wine was poisoned, and a dastardly and very nearly successful attempt was made to murder one of the greatest Irish leaders under the guise of friendship and in time of peace.
Another Viceroy, Essex, accepted the hospitality of Sir Brian O'Neill. After the banquet the house was surrounded by soldiers, O'Neill and his wife and brother were sent to Dublin, where they were subsequently executed, and all their friends and retainers were massacred in cold blood.
Seventeen prominent Irish gentlemen were invited to supper by a personal friend of the Viceroy, and every one of them stabbed to death on rising from the table.
Over and over again Viceroys or their lieu- tenants broke faith with the native chiefs who made their submission. Conditions of peace were not observed. Such violations of the commonest canons of humanity and civilization cannot under
30 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
stress of any circumstances be condoned ; but they fulfilled their purpose. Men who would have been only too glad to sit quietly at home in peace were driven into desperate rebellion, and hungry adven- turers were accommodated with confiscated land.
The wars against the Irish, as conducted by Pelham, Carew, Gilbert, Mountjoy and others, were wars of extermination. The slaughter of Irishmen was looked upon as the slaughter of noxious wild beasts, and neither honour nor humanity was allowed to interfere with the pro- ject of destroying the native race. Women and children were deliberately butchered. No quarter was granted, and crops, cattle and all means of human subsistence were destroyed in order that starvation should account for the few who escaped the sword or the flames.
Spenser, the gentle poet, writing of the wretched remnants of the inhabitants of Munster, describes how — " Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs would not bear them ; they looked like anatomies of death ; they spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them ; yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves."
Holinshed speaks of the land as being " Populous, well inhabited, rich in all the good blessings of God, being plenteous of corn, full of cattle, well
A RAVENING REMNANT 31
stored with fish and other commodities," before the wars. " Now," he says, " it has become so barren that whoever did travel even from Waterford to the head of Smerwick, which is about six score miles, he would not meet any man, woman or child, saving in towns or cities, nor yet see any beasts but the very wolves, foxes and other like ravening beasts." "The people," he adds, "were not only driven to eat horses, dogs, and dead carrion, but also did devour the carcasses of dead men." Arch- bishop Usher declares that women were accus- tomed to lie in wait for a passing rider and to rush out like famished wolves to kill and devour his horse.
From "Dingle to the rock of Cashel not the lowing of a cow nor the voice of the ploughman was," according to the annals of the Four Masters, " to be heard." The troops of Sir Richard Percie "left neither corn nor barn nor house unburnt between Kinsale and Ross. The troops of Captain Harvie did the like between Ross and Bantry." The troops of Sir Charles Wilmot, entering without resistance a camp containing only wounded and sick men, killed them all.
The Lord President speaks with much satisfac- tion of diverting his forces to a part of Munster where fugitives were harbouring, and of harassing the country, killing all mankind, burning houses and corn, and leaving neither man, beast, corn nor cattle behind him.
32 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
The bands of Pelham and Ormond " killed blind and feeble men, women, boys and girls, sick persons, idiots and old people."
IN THE PATH OF THE " CONQUERORS."
In Desmond's country, after all resistance had ceased, the Irish Annalists describe how men and women were forced into old barns and burnt ; how soldiers were used "to take up infants on the points of their spears and to whirl them about in their agony "; and how women were found " hang- ing on trees with their children at their breasts, strangled with their mothers' hair." It was boasted that in all the wide territories of Desmond not a town, castle, village or farmhouse was unburnt, and an English official computed that in six months more than 30,000 persons had been starved to death, without counting those who had been hanged or burnt, or who had perished by the sword.
Fain would one accuse the Irish annalists of exaggeration, but the charge cannot honestly be made, for their accounts, horrible as they are, have been fully borne out by Spenser, Holinshed and other English authorities.
Such was the condition to which the fairest province of Ireland was reduced by the English, aided by Irish hands.
The process of annihilation was not confined to Munster. Ulster suffered in much the same way. Men, women and children, the young, the old, the
THE SWORD AND FAMINE 33
strong, the feeble, the armed and the unarmed, were given to the sword, the rope, or the flames. Cattle, crops and all means of subsistence were destroyed. We have the same ghastly tales to read of children seen eating their dead mothers' flesh, or women lighting fires to attract children whom they murdered and devoured ; of " thousands of poor dead filling the ditches and waste places, their mouths all green from eating nettles and docks and all such things as they could rend above ground." Those who escaped the sword succumbed to famine, and Ulster was subdued. Elizabeth was, with perfect truthfulness, assured that she had little left to reign over in Ireland but ashes and carcasses. It cannot be wondered at that such awful visitations left behind them a legacy of bitter hatred and revenge. But in justice it must be admitted that England was not alone to blame. Red ruin followed on the footsteps of the native chiefs. Elizabeth's armies were largely composed of Irish serving in the ranks, and Irish chiefs in all these wars fought in alliance with her against their own countrymen and the independence of their native land. If Ireland has much to forgive England, as in sooth she has, Irishmen have also much to forgive each other.
The strange thing about these wars of annihila- tion is their transitory physical, and enduring moral effect. It seems incredible that a race so utterly destroyed by sword, fire and famine did not abso-
34 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
lutely perish, and that provinces so devastated could have ever recovered. But the race did not perish. In spite of all, the native Irish survived, gathered strength again and retilled their wasted lands. The vitality and persistence of the people is little short of miraculous. Annihilation was tried, God only knows with what desperate thoroughness, but it failed.
Though the wars of Munster and Ulster did not produce enduring physical results, their moral effects have lasted to this day. This fact, though at first sight it may seem surprising, in view of the com- parative ease with which similar outrages in other countries have been forgotten, is, I think, easy to account for. The confiscations which followed upon them, concerning which more will be said later on, must be taken into consideration. Other countries — Scotland, for instance — have suffered as much and in a similar way, though not for so long. England has been burnt and wasted, and land has been confiscated, but not the whole soil of the country ; and the confiscated lands were not granted to people alien in race and religion, and to mere adventurers, as was the case in Ireland. In Ireland, submission involved the conversion of tribal territory to shire land — the substitution of the ownership of the Crown for the ownership of the people ; the in- troduction of the sheriff and the collector of feudal dues and taxes ; the abolition of Brehon law, tanistry, and all the tribal customs and privileges
PHYSICAL AND MORAL EFFECTS 35
to which the people were deeply attached, and to which they tenaciously clung. Sentiment was outraged, and in wrenching asunder sentimental ties, the material prosperity of the people received a double blow. The change of tenure substituted the sovereignty of an unknown personage, with un- known and unknowable powers of taxation, for that of the familiar head of the clan with powers strict]y defined by universally acknowledged common law and custom ; it deprived the clansmen of valu- able rights and privileges secured to them under native laws.
IRELAND'S LAND HUNGER.
Land has ever been the passion of the Irish, and when confiscation took place, all but a few natives, retained for menial purposes, were driven off the soil, and their places taken by strangers in law, customs, race, language, and religion. The ex- tirpation of the race, the assertion of sovereignty, and the acquisition of land, were the objectives 01 these wars. The suppression of religion had really little to do with them, but the feeling was wide- spread that Elizabeth aimed at destroying both religion and race. The people felt themselves ruthlessly crushed in a struggle for race, land, and faith — for everything dear to them in connection with this world and the next.
But what seems to have rankled deeper than all else in the minds of generations of men was the
36 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
scorn and contempt in which the Irish were held. They were in truth looked upon as mere savages, if indeed superior to brute beasts. The phrase, " To kill an Irishman is no felony," may have had, as Lecky points out, its origin in the native Brehon law, under which manslaughter \vas purged by money payment, but it had a deep and horrible significance. The estimation in which the Irish were held may be gathered from the conduct of those martial English monks who held it to be no more sin to kill an Irishman than to kill a dog, and who would not refrain from celebrating Mass red- handed from the slaughter of a native.* To be styled " mere Irish " conveyed supreme contempt. It was a taunt, and a taunt without a shade of justification in the facts. The false estimate made of the " wild Irish " was partly due to ignorance, prejudice, and narrow-minded views. Current accounts in Eng- land were largely derived from the descriptions of ignorant persons travelling through large districts in which every growing thing, and nearly every living creature, had been destroyed. The picture
* See " Lecky," vol. i., p. 4, n. 3. Quoting from Richey's " Lectures on Irish History," second series, p. 69, Richey declares that the distinction between English and Irish infected even the monasteries. He describes the abbeys along the marches of the Pale as being more useful as block-houses than for any other purpose, and wonders how " English monks could be found to assert that even if it should happen to them, as it often did happen, to kill an Irishman, they would not for that refrain from the celebration of the Mass even for a single day."
NATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS 37
was a false presentment of the country as a whole, for during all these miserable times agriculture flourished wherever it was safe from the wanton scythe and torch, and trade and commerce pros- pered wherever free from pillage and the sword. The arrogance of a strong and conquering race displayed itself in contempt for language, dress, and customs that differed from their own, and, more- over, justification for spoliation was needed. To dispossess and slaughter mere savages seemed a comparatively pardonable offence. Certainly the Irish were infinitely inferior to the English in many of the qualities making for success, in common obedience to a central authority, in cohesion, in armament, in the art of war, and in definite purpose and discipline. It is true also that art and learning had declined and languished during years of per- petual strife. But in natural characteristics, physical and moral, in courage, fortitude, endurance, fidelity, and intelligence, in toleration, fair dealing and the sense of justice, the Irish were, to say the very least of it, not inferior to their enemies ; and many of their leaders, notably Hugh O'Neill and Shane O'Neill, showed the highest military capacity and statesmanship.
From some English writers a true account of the Irish people may be gathered. An English " under- taker," or planter, describing the people, wrote: " The better sorte are very civil and honestly given, the most of them greatly inclined to husbandry,
38 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC,
hospitable also. Although they will never see you before, they will make you the best cheer their country yeildeth for two or three days and take not anything therefore — they keep their promises faithfully — they are quick witted and of good constitution of bodie — they are obedient to the laws." And this description was given of the people only four years after the wasting of Des- mond and the confiscation and granting of land, amounting to nearly 600,000 acres, to English settlers.
"DEFEND ME AND SPEND ME."
According to the authority of Sir John Davies, there was " No nation or people under the sun that doth love equal or indifferent justice better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof although it be against themselves, so as they may have the protection and benefit of law when upon just cause they may desire it.' " Defend me and spend me " was, according to the English " undertaker " mentioned above, a common phrase among the Irish. What might not have been done with such people had they been pro- perly treated ? Had English sovereignty asserted itself in consonance with the Irish conception of the rights of free men and with even an elementary regard for justice, fair play, honest dealing and humanity, the ravages of war would soon have been obliterated. What a different spectacle would
A CREED OF DEFIANCE 39
the pages of history, and the present condition of Ireland, present ! But English policy ran on very different lines. Contempt of the "mere Irish" coloured it throughout, and it may perhaps be somewhat rash to say that that uncharitable and unjustifiable sentiment has entirely died out among the ignorant in England, and even among some who ought to know better in Ireland itself.
Land hunger was the curse of English rule. The deprivation by any means, fair or foul, by force or fraud, of native owners, and the planting in their places of Scotch or English, many of them " the scum of both countries," was its object, and it succeeded, with the result that the nobles and all others that were able to do so fled the country, carrying with them education, culture and leader- ship ; but leaving behind them and bequeathing to their children the seeds of bitter hate.
Such of the people as survived were driven to adopt the life of marauders and rapparees, and, while adhering to their own native law and custom, brought up their children in the creed of defiance of all the authority and law substituted for them. Extirpation of the Irish, not their conduct into acknowledgment of English authority, was the motive ; and the means adopted were indiscriminate slaughter, the wasting of all substance, the con- fiscation of land, the destruction of industries and trade. By these means it was hoped to exterminate the race ; and, lest any source of contamination
40 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
should remain, stringent penalties and savage laws were passed against intermarriage, fosterage, the use of Irish names, language, customs and law.
" It was manifest," says Sir John Davies, the Attorney-General of King James, "that such as had the government of Ireland under the Crown of England did intend to make a perpetual separa- tion and enmity between the English and Irish, pretending no doubt that the English should in the end root out the Irish." They failed signally in the latter pretence ; but, alas, in creating enmity their efforts were crowned with unqualified success.
THE BROKEN FAITH OF THE CROWN.
The next annihilation took place during the Commonwealth. It must not, however, be sup- posed that Ireland enjoyed in the interval any period of repose. " Land-grabbing," as it would now be called, was carried on with the same rapacity and by the same unrighteous means. The country was overrun with greedy adventurers. The in- famous trade of " Discoverers " prospered greatly.*
* Goldwin Smith writes : " The disinheritance of the ancient race was carried on not only by high-handed violence, but by a system which became a trade of the meanest, most infamous chicane. A set of miscreants called ' Discoverers ' made it their business to spy out technical flaws in titles to land, in order that the estates might be judged to escheat to the Crown, from which grants of them were afterwards obtained, in many instances by the informers or their employers."
« LAND-GRABBING " 41
During the years and generations of confiscations, deprivations, conquests, re - conquests, reprisals, restorations, burnings and general destruction, title to land had become inextricably confused. The business of the " Discoverer " was to discover, or invent, some flaw in title, and to hale up un- fortunate proprietors to prove their rights — in the vast majority of cases an absolute impossibility, however valid the title might really be. Docu- ments, charters and rolls, dated so far back as the reign of Henry II., were ransacked, and trumped- up charges derived from them. A sub-trade of perjury developed, and where danger of the truth appearing was feared, witnesses were tortured into giving false evidence. Contracts and the plain word of the Sovereign were broken. The most notable instance, both on account of its magnitude and inequity, occurred in Connaught, and must suffice as an example. In 1585 Sir John Perrot, one of the ablest, and, according to his lights, one of the very few just and honourable men who presided over Irish affairs, carried out a measure for the settlement of the Province known as "The Composition of Connaught." The main features of the arrangement were that the chiefs and Lords, "the nobility spiritual and temporal," were to surrender their titles and hold their estates direct from the Crown in consideration of dis- charging certain military duties and paying certain stipulated Crown rents ; that the people, " the
42 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
mean freeholders and tenants," were to be freed from pecuniary and other obligations to the chiefs, and were to hold also directly from the Crown, on payment of a Crown rent fixed at 10 shillings a quarter of land that bore " corn or horn"; that common land was to remain common land, and was to be used in common and not subdivided. The settlement was in fact a compromise between the Irish tribal and the English feudal systems. It deprived the sept of the right of election of the chief. It introduced the hereditary system, and confirmed chiefs in the absolute possession of the lands allotted to them. But it also confirmed the people in the ownership of their tenancies, and relieved them from all exactions on the part of the chiefs. It secured the people in the common use of the common land of the sept. It was, therefore, as has been stated, a compromise between the Irish and the Norman systems. Under the former, the territory belonged to the tribe and was periodically apportioned between the chiefs and notables and the tribesmen, and the tribesmen elected their head. The latter system, as applied to Ireland, vested the whole of the tribal land in the chief under the Crown, made the office hereditary and reduced the tribesmen to the condition of "villains," or serfs.
The Composition of Connaught was satisfac- tory to the people, and generally so to the chiefs. The De Burgos alone resisted it by force ; but they eventually came in. It was a just settlement. It
THE COMPOSITION 43
did not interfere inequitably with the substances of the chiefs and Lords. It created a peasant pro- prietary. It was the prototype of the Land Act of 1903. It was a wise settlement. Had the con- version of Irish tenure into the English tenure, and the transfer of allegiance from the tribal chief to the English Crown, been universally conducted on these lines, the history of Ireland would have been very different, for land tenure, including the whole of Irish law and custom, has ever been the cause of Irish wars, Irish rebellion, Irish unrest, and Irish discontent.
The settlement gave peace to Connaught while it lasted ; but it did not last long. The Crown, as usual, broke faith. The lords and gentry of Con- naught may be blamed for carelessness, in that, trusting in the settlement, they were content with punctual payment of their dues to the Crown, and were neglectful of the costly and dilatory process of enrolling their surrenders and taking out their patents. Be that as it may, the defect was remedied by King James, who issued a commission which legalized the surrenders and enrolled the patents, on payment of fees amounting to the then con- siderable sum of £3,000.
Nevertheless, to gratify the lust for confiscation and to raise money, a Plantation of Connaught similar to that of Ulster was determined upon. It was discovered that, by pure neglect of the officials of the Court of Chancery, the patents had not been
44 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
duly enrolled in that Court, and on this technical flaw the titles to the whole land of the Province, though guaranteed under the King's Seal, were declared to be invalid and the land to be vested in the Crown. The King, however, was to be bribed. The proprietors offered to pay double their annual compositions, and a sum of £10,000 down, for a new confirmation of title ; and as those payments were calculated to be as much as the plantation of the Province would have yielded, the money was accepted. The confirmation was not granted, but doubtless it would have been but for the death of the King.
CHARLES I. AND THE "GRACES."
One last effort was made by the gentry of Ire- land to purchase justice. One hundred and twenty thousand pounds — an enormous sum in those days, and considering the impoverished condition of the country — was offered in consideration of certain terms, called " Graces." The most important of these "Graces" were : That sixty years' undisputed possession should be good title against older claims on the part of the Crown ; that the Composition of Connaught should hold good ; that " Popish recusants " should, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, be permitted to sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches* and to practise in
* Livery is confirmation of title by the Crown as overlord, the same to be sued out in the Court of Arches, now confined to dealing with ecclesiastical cases.
THE KING AND THE GENTRY 45
the courts of law. The terms of the landed gentry were accepted. The promise of King Charles I. was given. The " Graces " were transmitted as instructions to the Deputy (the Lord-Lieutenant) and the Council ; and the Government engaged that the estates of all landed proprietors would be formally conveyed to them by the Irish Parliament. After the subsidies had been paid, Went worth (afterwards Lord Strafford),in absolute violation of the King's word and of instructions to his Deputy and Council, and without the faintest shadow of excuse, deliberately withdrew the principal articles of the "Graces," viz., the limitation of Crown claims by sixty years' undisputed possession, and the legality of the Composition of Connaught.
Thus by this act of perfidy the last hope of the landed gentry was destroyed. It may be added that Wentworth and the King were at least im- partial in their iniquity and lust for gold. The Plantation of Connaught was to be undertaken to the ruin of the Irish proprietors and in violation of a sacred pledge, and at the same time the London companies to whom the county of Londonderry had been granted were sued for some purely technical breach of their charter and fined £70,000.
It would be difficult under any circumstances, and it is impossible in a sketch such as this, to unravel and analyze the passions and motives underlying the struggles of the next few years, and
46 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
the various influences at work. The actions of the Earl of Cork and of his relatives and friends are instructive. Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork, was the most successful of all the Elizabethan " Undertakers." He owned and developed the greater part of Munster. With his military tenants he fought the Irish insurgents with con- spicuous courage and ability. He was guardian of the young Earl of Kildare, had him educated in England, and married him to one of his daughters, and Kildare, the head of the great Geraldine family, remained staunch to the English cause. It speaks volumes for the traditional fidelity of the Irish that though Kildare refused to join them, they would not plunder him. Lady Kildare describes how, when they occupied his town of Maynooth, " they used my lord with all the civility in the world, and would say if his provisions were all gold nobody should touch it." The head of the Barry clan, Lord Barrymore, also married a daughter of Lord Cork, and held throughout with the English. On the other hand, many of the Earl's intimate friends, Lord Muskerry, Lord Mountgarret, and others, espoused the Irish cause. What we should now style a Low Churchman, the Earl was inclined to Puritanism, but at the same time he was intensely loyal to the King. To uphold the planters — the work of his life — against the dispossessed Irish was the mainspring of his action, and when the King made peace with the Irish the old man sickened
WAR ON CATHOLICISM 47
and died. His son, Lord Ossory, became recon- ciled with Cromwell, and supported Richard Cromwell in the government of Ireland as long as he could. Finding Cromwell's position hope- less, he wrote inviting Charles II. to land in Cork. The vicissitudes of this one family may serve to give some idea of the confusion existing in Ireland.
AGRARIAN AND RACIAL TROUBLES.
As had been almost invariably the case in Ire- land, the main causes of trouble were agrarian and racial. The Irish, whether of native or Anglo- Norman extraction, had learned by bitter experi- ence that no reliance could be placed upon the covenants of Kings. They saw that another determined effort was to be made to deprive them of their lands, even if held under good title from the Crown, and thus to root out the Irish race ; and as the objects of Parliament became clearly defined, they realized that Catholicism was also to be de- stroyed. Submission, good behaviour, legal title, bribery, had availed them nothing, and recourse to arms seemed the only course to pursue. But they embarked upon it with great reluctance. They were Royalists, and in most instances devotedly attached to the Crown; but the policy of Charles I. — carried out with such determination by his deputy, Wentworth — to make himself the abso- lute ruler of Ireland as a step to establishing a
48 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
despotism in England and enabling him to defy Parliament, and the determination to obtain money by any means, however nefarious, for the accom- plishment of that purpose, eventually drove loyal men into rebellion.
On October 22, 1641, Ulster broke out into a war of reprisals, into a desperate attempt on the part of the people to regain the lands from which they had been expelled.
The struggle was agrarian there, and took on a religious appearance solely because the ousted were of the Catholic and the planters of the Protestant faith. Panic, consequent upon a conspiracy to massacre all the Protestants, has been alleged in extenuation of the savage brutality of the soldiers and of the inhuman orders issued by their com- manders. Such was not the object of the rebellion, and the accounts of massacres were grossly ex- aggerated.
It has been asserted by historians, so-called, that in two years 300,000 Protestants were murdered in cold blood or destroyed in some other way, or expelled from their houses. No murders or mas- sacres are even alleged to have taken place in walled towns. Three hundred thousand is ten times the number of Protestants living outside of walled towns, and exceeds by one-third the total number of Protestants living in all Ireland.
According to the very best authorities, the total number of murders was about 8,000. No reason
AGRARIANISM IN ULSTER 49
whatever exists for supposing that the destruction of Protestantism was the objective of the Ulster rising. It was purely agrarian. Religion had nothing to do with it. It was a desperate attempt on the part of landless, starving people to repossess themselves of their lands, and as the planters on those lands were Protestants, Protestants suffered. It was to some extent racial also. The Scotch planters were not at first molested. Speaking of the whole insurrection, Clogy says : " The Irish hatred was greater against the English nation than against their religion. The English and Scotch Papists suffered with the others. The Irish sword knew no difference between a Catholic and a heretic."
If ever people had a just cause of quarrel it was the people of Connaught, for they fought for the Composition solemnly guaranteed to them, and for their titles in which they were legally secured.
Munster very reluctantly drew the sword, as the only possible means of avoiding confiscation of the soil and the extirpation of religion and race, and it was not until some time later that the nobility and gentry of the Pale were forced for religious freedom's sake to adopt the same course.
Amid this tumultuous sea of trouble, curious cross-currents made themselves felt. The Catholics of the Pale were devotedly loyal to the King, against whose forces they fought ; so were many in Connaught, and among them the most powerful
50 ANNIHILATIONS, AVARS, ETC.
noble, Clanricarde. And the same may be said of Munster.
Speaking broadly, in Munster the struggle was racial and agrarian. Men strove to keep their land and thereby to preserve their existence. In Ulster it was agrarian and racial also, but with this differ- ence : men fought to repossess themselves of con- fiscated lands. In Connaught it was agrarian and legal : men sought to regain the Composition they had bought and paid for. In Leinster it was agrarian and racial, but within the Pale religious.
As the power of the King waned and the power of Parliament waxed, religion entered more into the struggle. Lands in Ireland, which had been by fraud and legal fiction declared forfeited by the King, were put up and sold, by public auction, by the Parliament to speculators and adventurers in London. The design to destroy the race by con- fiscation and plantation was evident to all, and that it was the fixed intention of Parliament to destroy Catholicism became also plain. Thus race, religion, and land were all involved, and every element that can add bitterness to human strife was brought into play. Into the harrowing details of the struggle it is unnecessary to go at length. Atrocities were committed on both sides, but both sides were not equally guilty. Slaughter was the rule on one side ; it was the exception on the other. The English troops were disciplined men under control,
THE IRISH "REBELS" 51
and when massacres were committed by them it was in accordance with orders. The Irish "Rebels," though comprising some disbanded soldiers, were on the whole little better than an undisciplined, ill-armed, half-starved rabble, suffer- ing under intolerable injustice, and when outrages were committed by them it was contrary to orders.
Ormond burnt a great tract of the Pale, 17 miles long by 25 miles broad, and because he would have saved the houses of those gentlemen who made their submission, was rebuked and peremptorily ordered to make no exceptions. Sir William Cole reports the exploits of his regiment in Ulster in the pithy sentence — " Starved and famished of the vulgar sort, whose goods were seized on by this regiment, 7,000."
Munster was perfectly quiet until driven into rebellion by savage and promiscuous slaughter under St. Leger, who boasted that he would revenge in Munster the crimes that had been committed in Ulster. A great number of people, the inhabitants of several villages, who had taken refuge on a hill covered with thick furze, were surrounded by Sir Arthur Loftus, who had the furze fired on all sides, and the whole of the people — men, women, and children — were burnt or killed.
Genera] Preston speaks of the soldiers — "De- stroying by fire and sword men, women, and children, without regard to age or sex." "The
52 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
soldiers," says Carte, " in executing the orders of the Justices, murdered all persons promiscuously."
By Acts of Parliament passed in England and in Scotland no quarter was to be given to the Irish who came to England to the King's aid. Great numbers of Irish soldiers were, in consequence, butchered on the field or in prisons. Those taken at sea were tied back to back and flung into the waves. Eighty women and children were in one day thrown over a bridge and drowned in Scotland, their sole offence being that they were the wives and children of Irish soldiers. The same, and more, inhuman orders were ruthlessly carried out in Ireland.
Even in Leinster, where assuredly no massacre of Protestants had taken place, the orders issued to the soldiers were not only to — "kill and destroy rebels and their adherents and relievers, but to burn, waste, consume, and demolish all the places, towns, and houses where they had been relieved and harboured, with all the corn and hay therein, and also to destroy all the men there inhabiting capable of bearing arms."
Would to Heaven the actualities of war had been confined even to those brutal instructions that ordered the destruction of all human sustenance and of men unarmed but capable of bearing arms, but they were not. Women were not spared, nor small children, and the saying in justification, " that nits will make lice," came into use.
IRISH ATROCITIES 53
ENGLISH AND IRISH CONTRASTED. That the Irish were guilty of excesses is un- doubtedly true ; but there is this to be said — the murders and horrible atrocities attributable to them were the acts of undisciplined, frantic men, and were almost invariably contrary to, and not, as was the case with the English troops, in accordance with the orders of their leaders. Exceptions occurred. Sir Phelim O'Neill, though at first humane, was guilty at last of acts of barbarous cruelty. After an unsuccessful attempt on the castle of Augher, he ordered all the English and Scotch in three parishes to be killed, and in breach of the terms of the Capitulation of Armagh, killed 100 persons, burnt the town and cathedral, fired the villages and houses in the neighbourhood, and mur- dered many of all ages and both sexes. Lecky, it is true, considers these statements to be exag- gerated, and advances in evidence the fact that English prisoners were found alive in the Irish camp when Owen Roe O'Neill assumed command of it. But be that as it may, terrible atrocities were committed. We hear of forty or fifty Protes- tants in Fermanagh being persuaded to apostatize, and then murdered ; of two houses crammed with English and Scotch being burnt, and all within them ; of eighty persons of both sexes being thrown over the bridge of Portadown, and as many more at Corbridge ; and other and similarly ghastly stories might be told.
54 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
On the other hand, the action of the Irish leaders contrasts, to their infinite honour, with that of the captains of the English forces. Even Sir Phelim O'Neill, whose crimes are mentioned above, was at the outset actuated by humanity. He did not rise, as he declared by a Proclamation, against the King, " or for the hurt of any of his subjects, either of the English or Scotch nation, but only for the defence and liberty of ourselves and the Irish natives of this kingdom," and he pronounced the penalty of death to any of his followers who committed outrages.
O'Reilly showed humanity and good faith throughout. When Belturbet surrendered to him, he sent 1,500 persons out of the town under escort to Dublin. Such of the English as placed them- selves under his protection were conveyed into safe quarters, and those who were in necessity were fed and clothed. The castle of Cloghoughter sur- rendered to him on honourable terms, which were scrupulously observed. The Protestant Bishop Bedell was allowed to succour and shelter numbers of poor Protestants at a time when the whole country was in the hands of the rebels, and even- tually he and his family and about 1,200 Protes- tants were sent under escort to the English garrison at Drogheda. "The rebels," says Bedell's biog- rapher, who was with him, " were very civil to us all the way."
Numbers of Protestants were sheltered by the mother of Sir Phelim O'Neill. The distressed and
OUTRAGE DENOUNCED 55
plundered English were sent in great numbers under convoy to Dublin, Belfast, and other walled towns. Owen Roe O'Neill, who superseded Sir Phelim O'Neill, expressed the utmost horror of the outrages his predecessor had permitted. He sent all the English prisoners in safety to Dundalk ; he enforced discipline, promptly punished outrage, and openly declared he would sooner join the English than allow outrages to go unpunished.
In Connaught, Clanricarde and the leading gentry, whether of English or Irish origin, strove strenuously to prevent devastation, not always suc- cessfully, for 100 English were brutally murdered at Shrule Bridge. When Galway fell into the hands of the rebels, two Protestant Bishops and about 400 English were allowed to depart with their effects — " The great care taken for the security thereof, as well as of their persons, being acknow- ledged by them."
When Waterford, Clonmel, Carrick Magryffid were taken, there was neither massacre nor plunder. When Birr fell, the garrison and others, 800 in all, were suffered to leave in perfect safety.
In Munster, when Lord Mountgarret, driven by the cruelties and excesses of St. Leger, eventually took up arms, he used every effort to prevent outrage, and successfully so far as bloodshed was concerned, though not as regards plunder ; for, as Carte relates, "it was not possible for him to pre- vent the vulgar sort, who flocked after him, from
56 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
plundering both English and Irish, Papist and Protestant, without distinction." " The gentlemen of Munster," says the same historian, "were exceed- ingly careful to prevent bloodshed and to preserve the English from being plundered." And that they were in earnest there can be no doubt. Four officers were hanged for not having prevented some murders, and a gentleman found plundering was shot dead by Lord Mountgarret.
Lord Clanricarde speaks of the crime committed in Ulster with the utmost abhorence. " I believe it is the desire of the whole nation," he says, " that the actors of those crying sins should, in the highest degree, be made examples of to all posterity." Emphatic language for a Roman Catholic in re- bellion against the English Parliament to use. But perhaps the case of Irish humanity is best summed up in the action taken by a synod of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Clergy held at Kilkenny in May, 1642, some time after the English Parliament had decreed the extirpation of Cathol- icism in Ireland. They declared war against the English Parliament for the defence of the Catholic religion and for the maintenance of the Royal prerogative to be just and lawful. They directed a well-authenticated inventory to be made of the murders, burnings and other cruelties committed by their Puritan enemies, and solemnly excommuni- cated all Catholics who should be guilty of such acts. They ordered that the whole army should
THE TRUCE OF 1643 57
take the sacrament once a month and always before battle. In the instructions they issued to General Preston it was ordered that strict martial law should prevail, that rapes and insults should be promptly punished, that special care should be taken in camp and on the march, " to preserve the husbandmen, victuallers, and all others of His Majesty's subjects from the extortions, pressures, violences, and abuses " of the soldiers.
Such was the spirit displayed, and such were the orders issued on the one side. In contrast with the spirit and instructions animating and emanating from the other, they form a more than sufficient rebuke to the ignorant insolence that stigmatized the Irish as an inferior race.
The war was not, as I have endeavoured to show, of a religious character in its inception. Doubtless, fear of the extirpation of Catholicism affected the whole country to some extent, and was the sole cause of the rising within the Pale ; but the main causes were national, racial and agrarian at first. After the declaration of the English Parliament decreeing the extirpation of Catholicism, religion naturally became a more serious factor, increasing in importance as the Parliament gained strength.
A truce was signed between the King and the confederated Catholics in 1643, but complete recon- ciliation between the Irish and the Loyalists was not effected until 1649. It was a barren peace, for
58 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
Irish and English Loyalists alike went down under the iron determination and military genius of Cromwell.
THE ANNIHILATION OF CROMWELL.
Cromwell landed in Ireland on August 15, 1649,* and in three years he and his successors in command brought this disastrous war to a close. The task was not a difficult one, and it was pur- sued with vigour. The settlement with the King, protracted over many years by the mistaken action of the Papal envoy, had been too long delayed to allow of much concentration among Loyalists. Ireland was split into innumerable fac- tions. There was no cohesion among leaders, nor did any settled principle animate them or their troops.
Ormond and the Confederate Catholics were at loggerheads. He was for the King, but was more in sympathy with the Puritans than with the Catholics in the matter of toleration for their religion. O'Neill was in command of the Con- federate forces in Ulster and Connaught, Preston in Leinster, Lord Muskerry, after superseding Glamorgan, in Munster. Lord Inchiquin with a strong Parliamentarian force ravaged Munster almost at will. Fierce animosities arose be- tween Munster and Ulster, the Munster officers
* Cromwell left Ireland in May, 1650, and from that date responsibility rests upon his successors in command.
" THE PESTILENTIAL PEACE " 59
declaring that they would sooner join Inchiquin or Ormond or the Turks, than be enslaved by O'Neill.
The Parliamentarian General Jones disastrously defeated Preston in Leinster ; and Inchiquin was equally successful in Munster. In the north O'Neill held his own, but the Ormond faction, jealous of him, joined hands with Inchiquin and made a " cessation," or peace, with him. O'Neill published a proclamation against the cessation, and the Papal Nuncio also denounced it, and, summoning such Bishops as he could, issued a decree of excom- munication against the "framers and abettors of the pestilential peace." Other Catholics, Lord Castlehaven, Fennell — a member of the supreme Council — and eight Bishops declared the decree of the Nuncio null and void, and proclaimed O'Neill a rebel.
In 1649 five armies, some Loyalists, some Parlia- mentarians, under Inchiquin, Claiiricarde, Preston, Jones and Munroe, advanced against O'Neill, who, however, held his own.
The General Assembly declared O'Neill to be beyond the reach of pardon, and O'Neill replied by a declaration that the General Assembly no longer represented the Catholic Confederates. Ormond, who had returned to Ireland as Lord-Lieutenant, and the General Assembly, declared the Papal Nuncio a rebel. Such was the chaotic condition of Ireland. Violent animosities between what may
60 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
be termed the old Irish in the North and the new Irish in the South broke out.
Men were fighting, some for the King, some for Parliament, some for religion, some to hold their lands, some to get the land of others, and, in pur- suance of whatever sentiment predominated, were perfectly ready at any time to change sides. Inchiquin, a Parliamentarian, and Ormond, a King's man, pushed Monk, the General of the Parliament, hard in the North. Monk begged for, and received, aid from O'Neill. Many of the walled towns refused to admit Loyalist garrisons.
Of this medley Cromwell and his successors in command made short work.
It is certainly not within my province to attempt to analyze the character of this extraordinary man. His objects in Ireland were practically the same as those of his predecessors, and his methods were the same. In some respects, indeed, he contrasts favourably with the Captains who served under Queen Elizabeth and Charles L, for he was humane where humanity did not conflict with his religious convictions ; and he was a strict disciplinarian. His first action in Ireland was to prohibit all plundering and outrages on the part of the soldiers ; but if he discountenanced outrage and cruelty in detail, he practised them wholesale with a vengeance.
He was a fanatic like Philip of Spain, and, like him, he pursued what he deemed his mission with ruthless ferocity. Philip thought himself appointed
PROTESTANT FANATICISM 61
to stamp out Protestantism, and, through his agent, the Duke of Alva, waded through the Netherlands up to his neck in blood. Cromwell thought him- self appointed to stamp out Roman Catholicism, and shrank from nothing to accomplish that end. Nothing in history can exceed in horror the sieges, captures, and massacres of Drogheda, Wexford, and other places. Nothing can excel in thorough- ness the manner in which the land was wasted by famine, fire, and sword.
By the close of the war in 1652, between one- third and one-half of the population had perished. Famine was universal. The stock, which had been valued at four millions, had sunk to half a million. Corn had risen in price from twelve to fifty shillings a bushel. Travellers might ride twenty or thirty miles without seeing a trace of human life ; and wolves, rendered ferocious by feeding on human flesh, prowled in numbers close to the walls of Dublin. There was no food wherewith to feed the remnant of the population, and leave was granted to able-bodied men to quit the country, and some thirty or forty thousand expatriated themselves. Destitute men, boys, girls, and young women were shipped off to the West Indies and sold, such as survived the voyage, to planters for a term of years.
CROMWELL'S RECORD.
The devastations of war and of religious per- secution, however cruel, might in time have been
62 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
forgotten. It is the wholesale confiscations follow- ing upon the war that has placed an indelible brand upon the name of Cromwell in Irish hearts.
Apart from religion, the war was a speculation. Money was supplied by adventurers for the conduct of the war, for which value was to be received in land. The Roman Catholic religion and the minis- trations of the Church were absolutely prohibited, and in that respect Catholics alone suffered ; but the confiscations were carried out with strict im- partiality. Native Irish, Anglo-Norman Irish, Anglo-Saxon Irish, Catholic and Protestant, were all deprived of their land. Practically the whole of the soil of Leinster, Munster, and Ulster was con- fiscated and planted with adventurers and with Puritan soldiers, who were given land in lieu of pay.
The remnant of the Irish people, rich and poor, high and low, Protestant and Catholic, without reference to race, origin or religion, and without considering whether they had or had not been in arms, were driven into Connaught as a " reserve." One hundred of the nobility, including Ormond, were condemned to death and the forfeiture of the whole of their estates. Other landowners who had at any time, in any way, aided the King or rebels against the Parliament, were deprived of their estates, but were promised land to the value of one- third of them in Connaught; but if they had served above the rank of Major they were banished.
Those " Papists " who, during the whole of the
CROMWELL'S SETTLEMENT 63
long war, had manifested " constant good affection towards the Parliament" — they must have been very few — were deprived of their estates, but were promised land in Connaught to the value of two- thirds of them. The confiscation was practically universal. A few harmless necessary ploughmen were suffered to remain upon the forfeited lands ; the rest of the population were herded into Con- naught or driven oversea.
AFTER THE RESTORATION.
The Restoration did little to restore the rightful owners to the soil. The Cromwellian settlement was too complete. England would not have tolerated the forcible expulsion of vast numbers of English planters, and, moreover, the King would have suffered pecuniarily from the loss of crown rents. Some futile attempts at justice were made ; but, to use the words of Ormond — " If the adven- turers and soldiers must be satisfied . . . and if all that accepted and constantly adhered to the Peace of 1648 be restored . . . there must be new discoveries made of a new Ireland, for the old will not serve to satisfy these engagements." It is perhaps needless to say that the Irish Loyalists went to the wall
Thus ended the second and last campaign of annihilation. In objects, character, and results it resembled the first, which took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The intention in both cases was to root out the native race and their re-
64 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
ligion. The methods employed — battle, murder and sudden death, plague, pestilence and famine — were identical, and the results were the same — failure.
The race survived the wars of Elizabeth and it survived the wars of Cromwell, but as an enfeebled race. Those who could do so settled in foreign countries. The bulk of them sought refuge in unfamiliar corners of their native land. A few remained upon the soil they had once owned, little better than mere serfs tilling the ground. And religion and love of learning survived. The only consolations left to the unfortunate people — their religion, their traditions, their culture — were rigidly proscribed ; but of those consolations they were not entirely deprived. With magnificent self- devotion, and to their eternal credit, bishops, priests, and schoolmasters continued their ministra- tions. Hunted like foxes among the rocks, ban- ished, killed, and tortured, they gave their lives for their flocks, and kept alive the flickering flame of their religion. Nor was the undying spark of nationality ever quite extinguished.
Nothing in history is more marvellous than the vitality and assimilative power of the Irish. The few that remained among the planters speedily captured their captors ; the newcomers invariably, and in a very short space of time, became indis- tinguishably Irish. The rich lands in Munster especially were thickly settled with Puritan soldiers, and yet within a very few years the descendants of
IRISH VITALITY 65
these men were up in arms fighting for the Catholic King James.
The danger of English planters becoming Irish- ized was early foreseen. In the reign of Ed- ward III. it was enacted that any Englishman marrying an Irishwoman should forfeit his estates and be disembowelled while alive and hanged ; but even so bloodthirsty a law was of no avail. The most stringent laws against intermarriage and fosterage proved useless. A petition of Crom- wellian officers complained that many thousands of the descendants of the English who came over under Elizabeth "had become one with the Irish as well in affinity as idolatry," and stated that many of them " had a deep hand " in the rising of 1641. The poet Spenser advocated the destruction of the Irish by a process of systematic starvation. His grandson was expelled from house and property by Cromwell as an Irish Papist. Forty years after the settlement of Cromwell's Puritans it was re- ported that "many of the children of Oliver's soldiers in Ireland cannot speak one word of Eng- lish." It was noticed that only seven years after the Battle of the Boyne many of William's soldiers had lapsed into Catholicism.
The absorbing qualities of Ireland were in- vincible. The native Irish proved indestructible, and in their main object — the obliteration of the race — the wars of annihilation failed.
66 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
WARS.
The Civil War was a civil war pure and simple, and was practically identical in character and results in Ireland and in England. It was remark- able in Ireland mainly for the heroic defence of Londonderry in the north by the Williamites, the equally heroic, but unsuccessful, defence of Ath- lone in the centre, and of Limerick in the south by the Jacobites, by the ignoble treachery displayed by Parliament in violating the Treaty of Limerick, and by the gallantry of the troops and the want of gallantry on the part of King James at the decisive battle of the Boyne. The surrender of Limerick in 1691 brought the war practically to an end.
It was, as was perfectly natural, followed by forfeitures and attainders, and by a further volun- tary exodus of the best Irish blood. Twelve thousand troops, officers and men, followed Sars- field abroad after the Capitulation of Limerick, and served with the greatest distinction in Russia, Austria, Spain, and France, but principally in France, where they formed the famous " Irish Brigade." It is computed that something like 100,000 of the best of the Irish left their native land at the conclusion of the war and in the years following, and generally adopted a military career in foreign lands. The military history of Irishmen — and it is a glorious one — must be sought far from their native land. It is a curious fact that
PEACE IN IRELAND 67
the Irish Brigade, which for generations fought so gallantly against the forces of England abroad whenever occasion offered, eventually became in- corporated in the English army. True to the principles and traditions of their Jacobite fore- fathers, who for King and conscience' sake left their native land for ever to serve in France, the Irish Brigade had no sympathy with the French Revolution. With very few exceptions they ranged themselves against it ; and when in 1794 the Duke of Portland invited the Duke of Fitz- james, with the Regiment of the Marshal de Ber- wick and the Irish Brigade to join the British forces on the same footing as they had held in the service of the King of France, the offer was ac- cepted. Thus, after a most honourable and glorious career of 103 years, the separate existence of the Irish Brigade was brought to a close.
RISINGS AND REBELLIONS.
For a century or more after the Civil War Ireland enjoyed comparative peace, but a peace that was not due to prosperity and content. Ireland slept from sheer exhaustion, and her slumbers were broken by many fitful dreams. Bands of landless, homeless, broken men — rap- parees and tories — infested the country, preying upon the descendants of the planters, with the connivance and sympathy of those of the old stock who remained in menial capacities upon the soil.
68 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
The penal laws were in full force. These dis- abling enactments were not exceptional. They were, in fact, quite consistent with the customary attitude of dominant towards subjugated races ; but in the case of Ireland they were unjustifiable, odious, and utterly unwise. Unjustifiable, because no attempt was made in Ireland to disturb the new dynasty ; odious, because they were aimed at completing the material, intellectual, and moral degradation of the Irish people ; unwise, because the degradation of Ireland was bound to react prejudicially upon England. They were not entirely successful in accomplishing material ruin. Social disabilities did not very grievously affect the masses of the people, and their action upon the upper classes was mitigated by the connivance of those for whose supposed benefit they were enacted. The Protestant gentry were better than their laws, and Catholic landowners frequently retained their properties, and Catholic parents often secured the education of their children by friendly agreement with their Protestant neigh- bours, who privately held the land in trust for them, and assisted them in evading the cruel educa- tional laws. And the penal laws as a proselytizing agent were a failure. In one respect only were they successful. They depraved the nation, and vitiated all the springs of public life. They degraded the Catholic gentry. Many of them emigrated. Those that remained fell into apathy
THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER 69
and despair. The people were deprived of their natural leaders. The systematic oppression of Catholicism and encouragement of Protestantism embittered differences of class and creed. Catholics, reduced to a servile submission, and forced to rely upon fraud and deceit, lost their self-respect and independence. Protestants were taught to look upon themselves as a superior and justly favoured class, rightly entitled to ascendancy. The penal laws demoralized the whole people.
The condition of the country was deplorable. The confiscations had produced a class of great absentee owners, who let their lands to middle- men, who sublet them to other middlemen, until frequently four or five profits were made out of the land before the miserable cottier who tilled it could derive any benefit.
The suffering was not confined to the original expropriated owners and tillers of the soil ; it was universal. The Plantation of Ulster was thoroughly accomplished. The province became " shire" land. The Crown granted large tracts to " Undertakers," who undertook to divide them into farms, to build houses, drain, provide schools and arms, and let the holdings on suitable leases and at reasonable rents. The tenants held them under a sort of military tenure. As the necessity for armed defence diminished and leases fell in, a tendency to ignore the original tenure, and to treat the descendants of the original planters as tenants at will, manifested
70 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
itself. Rents were raised, farms were let to the highest bidder, and the highest bidder was a poor " Papist " descendant of the original occupier of the land. The expropriating planter became expro- priated in his turn, and in his turn resorted to burning the goods and driving the cattle of those who supplanted him. Through the folly, greed, or iniquity of some of the representatives of the original " Undertakers," a land war set in that lasted a considerable time. The circumstances of the peasantry all over Ireland were wretched. Many died of starvation, many emigrated.
The destruction of the trades of the country, for the supposed benefit of British manufacturers, ruined great numbers of fairly well-to-do people ; and a strong stream of emigration of Ulster Presbyterians set in to North America, and lasted for many years.
Pasture was rapidly taking the place of tillage, to the displacement of labour. Common lands were enclosed and taken from the people. Tithes were a universal grievance. The rich men — the great graziers and cowkeepers, the only occupiers in the kingdom, according to Arthur Young, who had any considerable substance — were exempt from tithes, which fell exclusively and with crushing weight upon the poor cottier struggling to make a bare living out of a wretched potato-patch. Where tithes were not appropriated to laymen they were paid to, in many cases, non-resident clergy. In
SECRET SOCIETIES 71
either event, the poor Catholic peasant, starving on his little holding, paid compulsorily for the support of the religion in which he did not believe, and contributed voluntarily out of his poverty to the support of the religion in which he did believe. The whole state of society was rotten to the core, and the condition of the people miserable in the extreme.
Such circumstances produced their inevitable re- sults. Where desperate men can get no redress for legitimate grievances they resort to illegitimate com- bination and outrage. Secret societies, " White- boys," " Oakboys," « Hearts of Steel," and many others sprang up all over the country. Some were directed mainly towards securing " tenant right " in Ulster, others against the enclosure of commons and the conversion of tillage into pasture ; others, again, against tithes and other wrongs. The secret societies became very formidable, and committed many atrocities of a brutal kind. The Whiteboys became for a time a power over large districts in the South. They marched about like small armies, sometimes so many as 500 foot and 200 horse, level- ling fences, mutilating cattle, issuing orders, and en- forcing obedience by brutal punishment. The Hearts of Steel became equally formidable in the North.
THE REBELLION OF '98.
Such was the general condition of the country when the faint rumblings of the storm that burst and spent itself in 1798 might have been heard.
72 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
The rising of 1798 was a rebellion. I have demurred to the use of that term in reference to the wars of Elizabeth, as inapplicable to resistance to authority endeavouring to assert itself; but it is applicable to '98, for whatever may be thought of the equities and wisdom of that rising, it was un- questionably an attempt to overthrow constituted authority. It is very difficult in a short sketch to analyze the causes which led to, and the conse- quences produced by, the rebellion of '98. Even Lecky, that most painstaking of historical explorers, fails to trace a definite thread through the tangle of those times, and an outline of predominant tendencies is all that can be attempted here.
During the ten or fifteen years preceding the rebellion the condition of the country had vastly improved. Whiteboyism was suppressed. Pros- perity was rapidly advancing under the guidance of a native Parliament, wise and strong ; but, never- theless, the misery which I have sketched out pre- disposed the people to discontent. This feeling of discontent, unrest, and vague desire for change was greatly stimulated by two causes, which must never be lost sight of in considering the predis- posing factors of the case — namely, the American War of Independence and the French Revolu- tion. Neither revolution nor republicanism are naturally congenial to the Irish character, which revolts against violent measures, and inclines to monarchical or some individualized form of rule.
IRELAND AND AMERICA 73
But the War of Independence and the French Revolution appealed to Irish imagination under peculiar circumstances. Owing to the suicidal folly of Great Britain in destroying Irish industries and persecuting Nonconformists, an emigration, very large in proportion to population, had set in from Protestant Ulster. Many thousands of sturdy and intelligent Presbyterians had settled in the North American Colonies, and many Irish had found a new home in the West India Islands. The Declaratory Act relating to the American Colonies, which was passed after the repeal of the Stamp Act, and which was objected to by the Colonies, was practically the same as the Declaratory Act, asserting the right of the British Parliament to legislate for Ireland, to which Ireland objected.
The publications of Molyneux hi defence of Irish liberty became the text-book of American freedom. Chatham declared that on the colonial question Ireland to a man was with America, and he might have added, that in America every Irishman was with the revolting Colonies. Irishmen from north and south, Protestant and Catholic, flocked to the standard of Washington, raised troops, held high command, fought gallantly, and gave freely of their lives and substance. Eight Irishmen signed the Declaration of Independence.
Catholic Ireland had long looked to France as a possible deliverer from the house of bondage, and the achievements of the French Revolution as the
74 ANNIHILATIONS, AVARS, ETC.
lighter of human wrongs and the champion of the poor and oppressed against caste and privilege, appealed so strongly to the imagination of the populace as to outweigh, for a time, their horror at the outrages accompanying the Revolution, and their racial dislike of republicanism.
Thus events in North America and in Europe operated strongly upon the mind of Ireland. Nor were other elements of disturbance wanting. The rival factions of " Peep-of-Day Boys " and " Defenders " in Ulster originated in some private quarrels, but speedily took on a religious character, and spread over the whole country. The Peep- of-Day Boys, all Protestants, and mainly Presby- terians, professed merely to enforce the law for the disarmament of Catholics, but used this profession as a pretext for violence and aggression of all kinds. The Defenders were exclusively Catholics, and their profession was merely self-defence ; but in this case also the profession led to a sort of religious war. The Peep-of-Day Boys were eventually ab- sorbed by the Orangemen, and the Defenders became merged in the ranks of the United Irish- men.
WOLFE TONE'S POLICY.
In 1791 the famous society of " United Irish- men " was founded in Belfast by Wolfe Tone. Wolfe Tone was in religion a Protestant, in politics an ardent democrat saturated with the principles of the French Revolution. He was a man of con-
THE "UNITED IRISHMEN' 75
siderable ability, but with a judgment warped by a hatred of England so bitter and so deep-rooted as to be, to use his own words, "rather an instinct than a principle." His avowed object was reform, but it is probable that, from the first, he had complete separation in view. He came to loathe the Irish Parliament, deeming it incapable of reform, unnational, under English influence, and favourable to the connection with Great Britain. He believed Ireland to be capable of existence as an absolutely independent republic, and he sought to achieve that independence by means of a coalition of Presbyterians and Catholics. In despite of his democratic principles, he does not appear to have been quite able to divest him- self of Protestant ascendancy, for he proposed means whereby a possible majority of Catholics in a reformed House of Commons was to be avoided.
The aims of the Society were more moderate than those of its founder. They may be gathered from a memoir drawn up after the rebellion by Thomas Emmet and others, in which they posi- tively stated that the question of separation was not at first so much as agitated among them ; that a considerable period elapsed before a conviction that parliamentary reform could not be attained without a revolution led them timidly and reluc- tantly to republicanism ; and that even after many of the members had become republicans the whole
76 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
body would have stopped short and would have been satisfied with reform.
The growth of the Society, consisting at first of 36 members in Belfast, was rapid. A branch was immediately formed in Dublin, with Simon Butler, a brother of Lord Mountgarret, as chairman, and Napper Tandy as secretary ; and the Society speedily spread over the whole country, absorbing other and minor associations in its course. But the stronghold of the Society always remained in Belfast, and all the leaders and principal men were Protestants.
The " United Irish " movement, originally purely political, organized and controlled by educated men for political objects, underwent a great change through its absorption of Defenderism. How two elements so essentially antagonistic ever became amalgamated is one of many insoluble mysteries of Irish history. Defenderism, originally a society for mutual protection, developed into a sort of religious anti-Protestant association, and finally into a secret organization bound by secret oath, working under hidden direction, and attracting to itself some of the worst elements in Irish society. It was composed exclusively of the lower and more ignorant Catholic peasantry, and became the organ and exponent of discontent.
United Irelandism was, on the contrary, mainly Protestant, and was led by educated men to achieve a political object, namely, parliamentary reform. It
A COUNTER MOVEMENT 77
desired above all things to put an end to dissension between Catholic and Protestant, and the leaders, Wolfe Tone and Napper Tandy, did their utmost to control the religious element in Defenderism, but without much success. The pledge taken by United Irishmen was merely — "To obtain an impartial and adequate representation of the Irish nation in Parliament."* Yet, in spite of these radical differ- ences, the United Irishmen absorbed Defender- ism, admitted Defenders within their ranks, and became polluted, with the inevitable disastrous
results.
THE ORANGE SOCIETY.
In 1795 the Orange Society was founded. The ground had been prepared for it by the conflicts between Peep-of-Day Boys and Defenders which constantly took place, in spite of the strenu- ous efforts of Lord Charlemont and the gentry to prevent them. A quarrel arose about some Pro- testant school near Dundalk, in connection with which a ghastly crime, which exasperated men to madness, was committed. The residence of the Protestant schoolmaster, a man named Berkeley,
* The conclusion of the text ran as follows : " And as a means of absolute and immediate necessity in the establishment of this chief good of Ireland, I will endeavour as much as lies in my ability to forward a brotherhood of affection and identity of interests, a communion of rights and an union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions, without which every reform in Parliament must be partial, not national, inadequate to the wants, delusive to the wishes, and insufficient for the freedom and happiness of this country."
78 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC,
was broken into by forty or fifty men. They cut out his tongue, cut off his fingers and stabbed him ; mangled his wife in the same way and horribly mutilated a boy of thirteen, and marched tri- umphantly away with lighted torches.
Reprisals and outrages on either side culminated in a riot that might be almost dignified by the name of battle, at a place called the Diamond, near Armagh, where the Catholic Defenders were defeated with the loss of twenty or thirty men. Immediately after this the Orange Society was formed. *The Society was created for mutual de- fence, for the maintenance of the laws and peace of the country, and for the defence of the King and his heirs — " so long as he or they support the Pro- testant ascendancy." Such objects would not at that time have been deemed unusual. Societies for the commemoration of William of Orange and of his achievements were common in England, Scotland and Ireland. Celebrations of the Battles of the Boyne and Aughrim and of the Defence of Londonderry were held without provoking ani- mosity. The volunteers, during the short period when in that national movement sectarian strife was obliterated, held their principal annual assembly round the statue of King William in Dublin on the anniversary of his birthday, decked with Orange emblems. But the Orange Society very soon changed its aspect and became an engine of active aggression. The Peep-of-Day Boys joined it and
THE WHIG CLUB 79
captured it ; and just as the spirit of Defenderism poisoned United Ireland, so did the venom of Peep- of-Day Boyism inoculate and pollute the Orange Society.
Within three months after the Battle of the Diamond, Lord Gosford and the principal magis- trates of the county, with one exception all Pro- testants, met at Armagh to consider the state of the country. They found that the Catholics of Armagh were "grievously oppressed by lawless persons unknown, who attack and plunder their houses by night unless they immediately abandon their lands and habitations," and they did their best to put a stop to such an intolerable state of things. But neither the law nor the efforts of the gentry were of much avail. Outrages continued, and some thousands of poor Catholics were driven to take refuge in Connaught.
The feeling on both sides was very bitter, and it is to the transference of that bitterness to the Orange and United Irishmen Societies, by their absorption of the Peep-of-Day Boys and Defenders, that the violence displayed in the rebellion is to be attributed to some extent.
In the Irish Parliament the independent members were mainly Whig. In 1789 the Whig Club was formed, including the Duke of Leinster, Lord Charlemont, Lord Shannon, and some ten other peers, and a large number of the principal county gentlemen, among them Grattan and Ponsonby.
80 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
Their object, as Grattan afterwards explained, was — " To obtain an internal reform in Parliament, in which they partly succeeded, and to prevent the Union, in which they failed." The club was Whig in that it advocated certain cautious moves towards reform, but essentially Conservative in that it was opposed to anything like rapid change. Grattan especially loathed the levelling theories of the French Revolution. He held consistently through- out his career that Ireland was, of all countries, the most unfit for democratic principles, and that the safety and welfare of the country depended upon the control and direction of its affairs resting in the hands of Irish property — that is, in the hands of the country gentry. His mental attitude is difficult to define. The great majority of the landed class, in whose governing qualities he implicitly believed, being Protestant, he was naturally inclined towards Protestant ascendancy. But his opinions under- went some change. He desired to remove all dis- qualifications affecting Catholics. He strongly maintained that religious belief should not form the dividing line of politics or exclusion, and even- tually championed the cause of complete Catholic emancipation. * The Whig Club was the antithesis of the United Ireland men.
* In a speech of February 20, 1782, he says: "We cannot give the people of Ireland a common faith, but we can give them a common interest. . . . The question is whether we shall grant Roman Catholics the power of enjoying estates, whether
INDEPENDENT CATHOLICS 81
During the first half of the eighteenth century the Catholics became dumb under the laws and proscrip- tions that oppressed them. The better-off and more energetic among them emigrated and settled abroad, to the great loss of their native land ; those who remained at home fell into a somnolent state of hopeless apathy ; but in the latter half of the cen- tury they began to pluck up courage, and in 1759 the Catholic Association was formed, and a Com- mittee appointed in Dublin to create an indepen- dent Catholic opinion and to watch over the interests of the whole body. After the failure of reform in 1783, the Committee became quite in- active, and finally broke up in 1791, when Lord Kenmare and some sixty of the principal gentry formally seceded from it. The cause of the split was political and tactical. The seceders, who may be termed the Conservative element, con- sisting of the prelates and Catholic nobility and gentry, headed by Lord Kenmare, were content to move slowly, and desired to leave the removal of disabilities to the Legislature. But the majority
we shall be a Protestant settlement or an Irish nation, whether we shall throw open the gates of the temple of liberty to all our countrymen, or whether we shall confine them in bondage by penal laws. ... So long as we exclude Catholics from natural liberty and the common rights of men we are not a people. We may triumph over them, but other nations will triumph over us. ... As the mover of the Declaration of Rights, I would be ashamed of giving freedom to but six hundred thousand of my countrymen, when I could extend it to two millions more."
6
82 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
were for more strenuous action. The Catholic commercial interest had of late years greatly in- creased ; it preponderated on the Committee. Large numbers of the Committee were employed in trade. They were strongly imbued with the democratic spirit ; they urged more active measures, and they were supported by the Roman Catholic population generally.
In 1794 the coalition between Pitt and the Duke of Portland's section of the Whigs took place, and Lord Fitzwilliam was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The whole general policy of concilia- tion, including Catholic emancipation, was ap- proved of by the Cabinet, but for various reasons the Government desired to go slow. Fitz William's instructions were to the effect that it was undesir- able that emancipation should be immediately put forward as a Government measure, but that if he found the Catholics determined to press the matter, he was to give it cordial support on behalf of the Government. The Lord - Lieutenant found the country in a deplorable condition, and came to the conclusion that a full measure of reform was both just and necessary. He wrote of the "shameful want of protection " afforded to the poorer classes and of their disaffection, owing to grievances that could be, and ought to be, redressed. He reported — " That not to grant cheerfully on the part of the Government all the Catholics wish will not only be exceedingly impolitic, but perhaps dangerous " ; and
FITZWILLIAM'S POLICY 83
he was right. All classes of Catholics were united in pressing for relief, and the Protestants as a body were perfectly ready to concede all that was asked. But Fitzwilliam found himself blocked by that solid mass of officialdom and vested interest that has ever opposed — and, alas ! successfully — wise efforts for reform. " The Castle " hated him with a bitter hatred. He was forbidden by his instruc- tions to remove the Chancellor (Lord Clare). He did remove John Beresford, and incurred the wrath of a family and faction that had obtained a prac- tical monopoly of Government offices and patron- age. To make head against the iron will of the Chancellor and the machinations of men monopo- lizing all places of profit and having enormous influence in England, Fitzwilliam required the whole-hearted and active support of the Govern- ment. He did not get it. To inquire whether the Government had any real intention of granting reforms, or whether they reversed their policy, being actuated by the belief that a separation between Catholics and Protestants must be main- tained and promoted in order to bring about the legislative union they already contemplated, or influenced by the intrigues of the place-holding faction, or by other causes, would be out of place in this essay. It is immaterial also to consider the ostensible reasons given for Fitzwilliam's recall, The lamentable facts are that the Government deceived the Viceroy and the people about emanci-
84 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
pation, and that Fitzwilliam was recalled. With Lord Fitzwilliam went Ireland's last chance of weathering the storm ; the high hopes of all classes, legitimately entertained, were dashed to the ground. The people were goaded into desperation by despair of obtaining reform by constitutional means. Civil war became inevitable, and on the heads of the British Government the responsibility must rest, for by cheerful, timely concession of reforms they knew to be just they could have con- ciliated the people, and have taught them to rely upon constitutional methods of seeking redress. The postponement for thirty-five years of emancipa- tion, granted then in deference to violence, taught the people to believe that in violence alone could a remedy for legitimate grievances be found.
THE SEEDS OF REBELLION.
To sum up as well as may be. What was the situation ? A country denuded of the best blood, brain, bone and muscle. A peasantry starving in extreme misery, ground to powder by extortionate rents under an abominable middleman system. Roman Catholics labouring under social, political, civil, and religious disabilities, and in despair of obtaining relief by constitutional methods. The whole population, Protestant as well as Catholic, clamouring against tithes. The Presbyterian North resenting the persecution of Nonconformists, and deeply impressed by the War of American Inde-
CONDITIONS OF SOCIETY 85
pendence. The principles of the French Revolution permeating the whole country. A Conservative spirit dominating the Parliament while a demo- cratic principle operated among the people. The United Ireland Society striving to get Catholic and Protestant to join in favour of reform, but, when that failed, with the object, on the part of the leaders, at any rate, to achieve independence as a republic ; the Orange Society, formed for the purpose of maintaining the monarchy and the Constitution ; and both these societies permeated and poisoned by the crude religious animosities of Defenders and Peep-of-Day Boys.
Such were the unstable conditions of society- conditions lending themselves to an outbreak which was, I think it must be admitted, looked upon with a favourable eye by the British Government. Whether the Government deliberately provoked the Rebellion is a matter which it does not con- cern me to discuss ; but of this there can be no doubt : the change of policy in respect of emanci- pation and reform made the rising inevitable. The Government had all the strings within their hands. Informers kept them accurately posted as to every move. Affairs had arrived at a state that made an explosion inevitable. It was thought better that it should occur and clear the air. There is little doubt, I think, that the Government was desirous that matters should come to a head.
86 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
IRELAND AND INVASION.
As usual in Irish affairs, many cross-currents of miscalculated strength, and running in unforeseen directions, existed. Rebellion without external help would have been futile. France was ready enough to help ; she naturally coveted the strategical advantages of a foothold in Ireland, and an independent Ireland would have deprived Britain of the Irish soldiers and sailors she so largely relied upon. But France doubted the genuineness of the intended rebellion, and pro- posed rebellion first and assistance afterwards. On the other hand, Wolfe Tone thought French invasion a necessary preliminary to successful rebel- lion. " I will stake my head," he wrote, " there are 500,000 men who would fly to the standard of the republic. The whole Catholic peasantry of Ireland, above three millions of people, are to a man eager to throw off the English yoke."
He seems to have been much mistaken in this estimate of the temper of the people. Though willing enough to rebel, they had no great fancy for invasion. To join an invading force would be fighting against Ireland, a very different thing from fighting against English misrule in Ireland. The ill-fated expedition to Bantry Bay under Hoche accomplished nothing, but it demonstrated two facts. Scarcely any French naturalized Irishmen formed part of it, and the gentry and
A MOCK REBELLION 87
peasantry showed themselves patriotic in resist- ing it.
Though the Rebellion is usually described as '98, it might be more correctly spoken of as '97, for in that year Ireland was considered to be in a state of insurrection, and the process of disarmament commenced.
AN HONEST GENERAL'S CONFESSION.
In 1797 General Sir Ralph Abercromby was appointed Commander-in-Chief. The selection was a good one if good towards Ireland was meant, for Abercromby, besides being an experienced and distinguished soldier, was well acquainted with Ireland. The task he had to perform was a double one — to guard against foreign invasion and to preserve internal peace. He came to the very proper conclusion that on the former object the regular troops should be employed, and that with the latter the civil authority, assisted only when absolutely necessary by the military, ought to deal. On the condition of the country he came to a conclusion very different to that formed by the Lord-Lieutenant and the Government. "There must be some change," he wrote, " or the country will be lost. The late ridiculous farce acted by Lord Camden and his Cabinet must strike every- one. They have declared the country in rebellion when the orders of His Excellency might be carried over the whole kingdom by an orderly dragoon, or
88 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
a writ executed without any difficulty, a few places in the mountains excepted." He found the military forces in a condition of ineffectiveness and complete insubordination. The general officers preceding him he described as cherishing " plots and conspiracies." " Instead of attending to their duty and the discipline of their troops, they are," he said, "acting as politicians or justices of the peace." The military, he declared, were utterly out of hand, and he issued general orders on the subject, in which he described the army as being; " in a state of licentiousness which must render it formidable to everyone but the enemy." Even after the issue of those orders, he declared that "houses had been burned, men murdered, others half hanged," and many other outrages committed by the troops. He inveighed strongly against the cruelties perpetrated in the process of disarmament. " Within these twelve months," he wrote, " every crime, every cruelty that could be committed by Cossacks or Calmucks has been transacted here." While allowing fully for exaggeration on the part of a man and a soldier whose instincts of humanity, justice, and discipline were outraged by what he saw, two conclusions must be arrived at. Ireland was being subjected to a reign of military terror, and, whether deliberately or not, the people were being forced into open revolt. If General Aber- cromby could have had his way, there was still a chance of averting rebellion. But he was not to
ABERCROMBY RECALLED 89
have his way. He encountered the same opposi- tion that had crushed Lord Fitzwilliam, and he shared the same fate. He was forced to resign, and his place was given to General Lake, who had made himself notorious in connection with house-burnings and other outrages perpetrated by the troops. A month later the Rebellion broke out.
PROTESTANT REBELS.
By 1797 the United Irish Society had developed into a military organization, with the avowed object of enrolling, drilling, and arming recruits for a revolution. The principal leaders were Thomas Emmet, a lawyer of some distinction ; Arthur O'Connor, a man of wealth and high social position ; William James McNevin ; Oliver Bond, a rich woollen draper, son of a Dissenting minister in Donegal ; Richard McCormick, who, with McNevin, represented the Catholic element on the directory ; and Lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster, on whom the supreme military command was to have devolved. With the exception of McCormick and McNevin, all were Protestants.
Early in 1798 the Habeas Corpus Act was sus- pended and martial law proclaimed in various disaffected districts. Shortly afterwards, nearly the whole country was placed under martial law. The Government was kept fully acquainted by informers with the plans of the rebel directories and succeeded
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easily in counteracting them. Some of the leaders fled the country. Many, including Lord Edward Fitzgerald, were arrested, and the Rebellion as a preconcerted combined movement completely failed. In many districts it was squashed before any very serious outbreak occurred, and it attained formidable dimensions only in Wicklow and Wexford.
It would be harrowing to go into details, and it is not my province to endeavour to apportion blame. The merciless floggings, the tortures of the pitch cap, the house-burnings and murders committed by the soldiers, militia and yeomen, drove the rebels to emulate them in retaliation ; the excesses of the rebels drove the troops to savage revenge. But in common justice two facts must be remembered. The rebels were an undisciplined mob ; and the house-burnings and needless cruelty practised upon the people in the process of disarma- ment preceded the outbreak of hostilities by some time. Let the dead past bury its dead. The ac- counts of the Rebellion occupy a page of Irish history unexampled in horror, and upon which no Irishman can wish to dwell. Yet it had its re- deeming features, and like all Irish episodes it was full of anomalies and contradictions. The savagery on both sides was, as I believe, largely due to panic. Protestants believed that the murder of all Protestants and the destruction of their religion was the object of the rising. Catholics were as firmly convinced of the existence of a fabulous
HORRORS OF THE REBELLION 91
Orange oath to massacre all Catholics and extirpate their religion. In Wexford and Wicklow religious fanaticism dominated the movement. The rebels were mainly an ill - armed rabble of Catholic peasants. Priests, goaded to madness by the dese- cration of their churches and the cruelties inflicted on their flocks, led them into action, crucifix aloft. Horrible massacres, mainly of Protestants, took place in Scullabogue Barn and on Wexford Bridge. And yet the main body of the rebels, after the capture of Enniscorthy, elected Bagenal Harvey, an influential Protestant landlord, to lead them, and another Protestant, Keogh, a retired officer in the English Army, who had served in the American War, was left in command of Wexford when the rebel army quitted it.
The chapels in Wexford and the neighbourhood were crowded with Protestants seeking refuge, and priests in Wexford were " employed from morning to night " endeavouring to secure Protestants who came to them for protection.
That in the anarchy and confusion that prevailed private malice was frequently gratified is doubtless true ; but examples of affection shown by tenants to their landlords, by old servants to their former masters, by poor people who had received some little act of kindness, were frequent also. Pro- testant ladies passed unmolested to visit and succour their imprisoned relatives through ranks of ignorant, undisciplined pikemen.
92 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
The war may appear to have been largely of a religious character. "If you go home and turn Christians," the Wexford rebels would say to Protestants, "you will be safe enough." But religion was not the motive. In the South the rebels were mainly Catholics, in the North almost entirely Protestants ; all over the country Catholics in the southern and western militia and yeomanry rank and file fought the rebels with desperate courage. The truth is that in the Rebellion of '98, as in all former rebellions, wars, and exterminations, religion was inextricably mixed up with politics and land. Below everything else the idea of re- possessing themselves of land their forefathers had held, and getting back Ireland for themselves, possessed the minds of the poor peasantry who filled the rebel ranks.
This fact is brought out in an interesting letter from a certain Mrs. Adams. She had an infirm father in the neighbourhood of Wexford, and a brother who had gone mad from terror in Wexford Gaol, and she must have had full opportunity of forming a judgment. " I shall ever have reason," she writes, "to love the poor Irish for the many proofs of heart they have shown during this dis- turbed season ; particularly as they were all per- suaded into a belief that they were to possess the different estates of the gentlemen of the country, and that they had only to draw lots for their possession."
MILITARY EXCESSES 93
STORY OF THE REBELLION OF '98.
The Rebellion, as I have said, entirely missed fire as a concerted movement. Munster and Connaught remained perfectly quiet, and the rising assumed comparatively small proportions in the central parts of the island. In Queen's County an unsuccessful attack was made on Monastereven, and on the same day some 1,000 or 1,500 rebels attempted to surprise the town of Carlow, but were repulsed with very heavy loss ; and a body of some 3,000 rebels was routed and scattered at Haggardstown by a detachment of militia and a small force of yeomanry. Shortly after another rebel body, reckoned at 4,000 men, was routed in Meath by a force of some 400 yeomanry.
In Kildare the rebels, who had entrenched them- selves with considerable military skill, were dis- lodged and defeated by the City of Cork Militia, and a large force encamped near the Curragh of Kildare, under a leader named Perkins, made terms of surrender with General Dundas, and to the number of 2,000 dispersed.
In that part of Ireland the rising is more notable, perhaps for the indecent haste with which military executions took place than for anything else. Two examples illustrating numerous cases must suffice. Sir Edward Crosby was tried by a court-martial for participating in the attack on Carlow, of which only one member was of higher
94 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
rank than that of captain, and was condemned. He was a parliamentary reformer of the school of Grattan. There is no reason to believe that he was a United Irishman or a Republican, and he certainly took no part in the attack. The only real charge against him was that he must have known of the attack and did not give notice of it. The court-martial was held, however, when men were crazy with fear. Crosby was given an hour to prepare his defence, and he had no counsel. He was hanged and decapitated, and his head was fixed on a spike outside Carlow Gaol.
A Protestant clergyman named Williamson fell into the hands of the rebels. Owing to the interces- sion of a Roman Catholic priest they spared his life and preserved him as a prisoner. He was recaptured by the Loyalists, who at once proceeded to hang him without trial. Fortunately, his brother-in-law was an officer in the regiment, and saved his life.
FAILURE IN ULSTER.
The Rebellion was a complete failure in Ulster, where it originated. It broke out on June 9 in the counties of Antrim and Down, and was quickly suppressed. An attack was made on the town of Antrim by a force of some 3,000 or 4,000 men, but they were repulsed with a loss of from 200 to 400, and broke up and dispersed. The rebels displayed conspicuous courage. They were led by Henry Joy McCracken, one of the original founders of the
EVENTS IN ULSTER 95
United Irish Society. He was subsequently taken, and tried and executed at Belfast. Lord O'Neill was killed in this action. The little towns of Ran- dalstown and Ballymena were occupied for a short time by the rebels, but there was no heart in the movement, and an offer of pardon to all those who surrendered their arms, with the exception of the leaders, led to a complete dispersion. In County Down an indecisive action was fought on June 9 in the Barony of Ards. On the llth an attack on Portaferry was repulsed. On the 13th a large force, estimated at 5,000, under Henry Munroe, a Lisburn linen-draper, attacked the troops, 1,500 or 1,600 in number, at Ballinahinch. The rebels fought with great courage, but were finally repulsed with the loss of 400 or 500 men. After this an offer of pardon to all except the leaders who laid down their arms and returned to their allegiance closed the Rebellion in Ulster. Munroe was taken, tried, and hanged at Lisburn before his own house, and, it is said, before the eyes of his wife and mother.
The notable facts about the short-lived rising in Ulster are that it was free from the atrocities that marked the Rebellion in Wexford and Wicklow — nevertheless, it was suppressed with equal bar- barity ; and that at the Battle of Ballinahinch the vast majority of rebels were Protestants, while the Monaghan militia, almost exclusively Roman Catho- lics, fought gallantly on the other side.
96 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
INCIDENTS IN WICKLOW AND WEXFORD.
The Rebellion was really serious only in Wicklow and Wexford. It broke out on May 26 at Boula- vogue, between Wexford and Gorey, where a number of rebels assembled under Father John Murphy. A party of eighteen or twenty yeomen hastened to disperse the assembly, but were attacked and scattered. By next day the rebels had acquired considerable force, and concentrated themselves on two hills between Wexford and Gorey, called Oulart and Kilmacthomas. Two hun- dred and fifty yeomen attacked and dispersed the rebels on Kilmacthomas Hill, though they were ten times as numerous as their assailants, inflicting a loss of about 150 men. The force of Father John Murphy on the hill of Oulart numbered about 4,000. They were attacked by 110 men of the North Cork Militia, who, with the exception of five men, were annihilated. On the 28th Ennis- corthy was attacked by a force of 6,000 or 7,000 men, the garrison consisting of 300, and was taken, the garrison and Loyalists flying to Wexford. The rebels attempted no pursuit, but retired, and formed their camp at the top of Vinegar Hill. The rebels afterwards moved to a place called Three Rocks. The Wexford garrison sallied out to the Three Rocks, hoping to disperse the rebels, but, finding a force of, it is said, not less than 16,000 men against them, retired to Wexford. On the 30th
THE FORTUNES OF WAR 97
the garrison evacuated Wexford, and the town was occupied by the rebels. On the 31st the rebels quitted Wexford, leaving a garrison under the command of Matthew Keogh.
On June 1 the rebels received their first serious check. A body of some 6,000 of them, who do not appear to have formed part of those who had taken Wexford, attacked the village of Newtown Barry. The garrison of about 350 yeomen and militiamen under Colonel Lestrange, fearing to be surrounded by superior numbers, retired from the village. When, however, some Loyalists continued to make a desperate resistance, the yeomen returned, and, finding the rebels dispersed, and engaged in pillag- ing through the streets, put them to flight with great loss. On June 3 the rebels made an attack on Gorey, which was entirely successful. At the same time, however, a large body under the com- mand of Bagenal Harvey made an attempt to attack New Ross, which was unsuccessful. Both sides fought with the most desperate courage, and the slaughter was great, the rebels losing about 2,000 men. On June 9 the rebels, estimated at 25,000 or 30,000 men, which is probably a great exaggeration, marched from Gorey to the attack of Arklow, and a desperate fight, which lasted nearly the whole day, ensued. A favourite leader, Father Michael Murphy, was killed, and the rebels were forced to retire to Gorey with a loss of over 1,000.
7
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On the 19th, the rebel forces, under the command of Father Philip Roche, were compelled to retreat from their position near New Ross in two bodies. One retired in the direction of Vinegar Hill ; the other made its way, after some fighting, to the Three Rocks near Wexford. On the 21st Vinegar Hill was stormed by an army of 13,000 or 14,000 men and taken, the casualties among the troops being less than 100, whilst the rebel loss was probably five or six times as great.
Enniscorthy was taken at the same time, and some horrible scenes of cruelty occurred. The building which the rebels had used as their hospital was set on fire, and all within it burnt in the flames. It has been stated, however, that the burning was accidental.
Wexford alone remained in the hands of the rebels, under the command of Keogh. In his laudable efforts to maintain discipline and order he was powerfully supported by one Edward Roche, the brother of Father Philip Roche, the rebel commander, by a number of the more respectable inhabitants of Wexford, and many of the Roman Catholic priests. They succeeded in controlling the mob, often at the risk of their lives, but with increasing difficulty as the news of rebel disasters became known and inflamed the populace to mad- ness. A large number of Protestant prisoners were confined in Wexford Gaol, and among them Lord Kingsborough, who was particularly obnoxious to
MASSACRE AT WEXFORD 99
the people as having been in command of the North Cork Militia. The leader of the violent party among the rebels was Thomas Dixon, who, with the assistance of his wife, appears to have been perfectly indefatigable in inciting the people to murder. So furious had the mob become that even the Roman Catholic Bishop, Dr. Caulfield, was in imminent danger of being murdered himself, in his efforts to prevent murder. On the 20th the whole armed population of Wexford, with the exception of a few guards, was ordered to march to Three Rocks to the assistance of Father Philip Roche, who was encamped there and who was expecting an attack from General Moore ; and on that afternoon, when the leaders and the bulk of the armed population were absent, the most horrible episode of the Rebellion, the massacre of Wexford Bridge, took place. The prisoners were taken out of the gaol in rows of eighteen or twenty, and pikemen, piercing them one by one, lifted them writhing in the air, held them for a few moments before the multitude, and then flung them into the river. Ninety-seven prisoners were said to have been thus murdered, and the tragedy was being enacted for more than three hours.
CLOSE OF THE REBELLION.
The end was now approaching. Three armies were on the march to Wexford, and the town was plainly indefensible. Keogh endeavoured to make
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terms with General Moore for the surrender of the town. In the meantime the Battle of Vinegar Hill was proceeding, and the defeated rebels were retiring on Wexford. By the combined exertions of Keogh and the Catholic Bishops and clergy the rebel forces, though furious and demoralized by defeat, were induced to leave the town. Wexford capitulated and was saved from the terrible con- sequences that would probably otherwise have ensued. General Moore camped outside the town in order to save Wexford, but a small number of yeomen and two companies of the Queen's Royals entered without resistance and took possession of the town. This ended the Rebellion of 1798.
The insurgent leaders were treated without mercy. Father Philip Roche, perceiving the Re- bellion to be hopeless, and desiring to save his troops at the Three Rocks by a capitulation similar to that accepted from the rebels at Wexford, came down alone and unarmed to make terms. He was seized, dragged off his horse, and so ill-used that he is said to have been scarcely recognizable ; he was tried by court-martial, and promptly hanged on Wexford Bridge. Matthew Keogh was also hanged on Wexford Bridge, his head cut off, and fixed on a pike before the court-house. Cornelius Grogan, a country gentleman who had been brought into Wexford immediately after its surrender to the rebels, and Bagenal Harvey were also promptly
HUMANITY AT A DISCOUNT 101
executed. Theoretically, no doubt, Bagenal Harvey, Grogan, and Keogh were in open rebellion and worthy of death, but all of them, especially Keogh and Bagenal Harvey, had from first to last, in imminent danger of their lives, done their utmost to prevent cruelty and murder, and to conduct the war in a civilized and humane manner. They saved innumerable lives, and it was surely, to say the least of it, a mistake to make no discrimination between them and those who had been guilty of horrible atrocities. Such considerations, however, were not attended to ; on the contrary, they seem to have been made use of against prisoners.
The most temperate and most truthful of the Loyalist historians, Gordon, writes that the " dis- play of humanity by a rebel was in general in the trials by court-martial by no means regarded as a circumstance in favour of the accused. Whoever could be proved to have saved a Loyalist from assassination, his house from burning, or his property from plunder, was considered as having influence among the rebels, and consequently a rebel com- mander." He relates the exclamation of one of the rebels : " I thank my God that no person can prove me guilty of saving the life or property of any- one."
CAUSES OF DEFEAT.
Prophecy after the event is comparatively easy. It is certain that the Rebellion might have been averted by timely, even though very moderate,
102 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
reform of Parliament, by amelioration of the social and political status of Roman Catholics, and by redress of the grievance under which the people laboured in the matter of tithes. That the Rebellion would have been successful if a simultaneous rising had been accompanied by a landing of French troops is, I think, equally certain, but success would have been very temporary. The Rebellion lacked that cohesion and unanimity of purpose essential for achievement. The motive force under- went a radical change. Originating in a perfectly legitimate combination of Protestants and Catholics, agitating for reform and the removal of disabilities, it advanced or receded, according to the opinion that may be entertained, into an attempt to secure those objects by force, in despair at the failure of constitutional means. It developed into a desire on the part of many to overthrow the Monarchy and the British connection, and to obtain absolute independence under a republican form of govern- ment. Owing to the failure to secure concerted action and assistance from France, the leaders of the United Irishmen and originators of that move- ment lost control. Their moderate principles were submerged, and their authority passed to men of extreme views, without military experience or capacity for organization.
The open and honest endeavour of the United Irishmen to unite men of all creeds in demanding justice for their common country, degenerated into
FRANCE AND IRELAND 103
a ferocious struggle, largely of religions, affording an eloquent warning of the destructive effect of secret societies upon political causes, and of the folly of admitting forces so antagonistic as were the Defenders and Peep-of-Day Boys into a move- ment the main principle of which was the oblitera- tion of all discordant elements of national life.
That the United Irish leaders gravely miscalcu- lated the temper of the country is evident. Even in their stronghold, Ulster, the rising was a dead failure, but the failure was in this case largely due to causes they could not have foreseen. The United Irish sentiment in the North was ardently republican. They looked for assistance to revo- lutionary and republican France, and fortified their appeal by reference to the action of the Whig Party in England, in calling upon the head of the Dutch Republic to assist them in the struggle for constitutional liberty. But the evident conversion of the Revolution in France into a military des- potism profoundly moderated their views ; and the subjugation of the Dutch Republic, of the Republics of Venice and Genoa, the outrageous action of France towards Switzerland, and, above all, her dictatorial conduct towards the United States, with whom the Ulster Presbyterians were in the deepest sympathy, produced a complete revulsion of feeling.
Throughout the South and West, and indeed throughout Ireland generally, with the exception of the Presbyterian North, sympathy with revolu-
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tionary France was at most only skin-deep ; the horrors which accompanied it disgusted a people naturally humane, and Republicanism was alien to a population essentially aristocratic and leaning to personal rule. The atrocities committed by both sides in Wicklow and Wexford horrified the people everywhere, but especially in the North. Sculla- bogue broke Bagenal Harvey's heart. He heard of it after the great battle of New Ross. The courage that had sustained him through the battle, the defeat and flight, gave way, and, wringing his hands in agony, he bitterly deplored having any part in a cause that bore such fruit. He did what he could, poor man ; he opened a subscription for honourably burying the remains of the murdered prisoners, and he issued a proclamation to his troops to the effect that — " Any person, or persons, who shall take upon them to kill or murder any person or persons, burn any house, or commit any plunder, without written orders from the Commander-in-Chief, shall suffer death." A well-meant but useless proclamation, for he was speedily removed from his command.
An Antrim leader, James Dickey, is said to have declared just before his execution that the mas- sacres in Leinster had opened the eyes of the Presbyterians, but too late. The Rebellion was premature, inchoate, and half-hearted. There was no concerted action ; no central control power- ful enough to fuse and neutralize discordant elements. Both parties were guilty of terrible
SPIRIT OF THE REBELS 105
cruelties ; but in justice it must be said that the worst offenders on the one side were disciplined men, a Flemish and a Welsh regiment ; and as to the other side, it had degenerated into an ill-armed, half-starved, undisciplined mob of men utterly out of hand, and scarcely responsible for their acts. Yet in all the dismal tale, two bright spots are to be found, and must not be forgotten ; the magnificent bravery displayed by the rebels and the many instances of humanity shown by them even at the time of their most intense rage, humiliation and despair.
LATER SPORADIC RISINGS.
The risings that have occurred since '98 need not be mentioned. They have been sporadic, and have left little or no impression upon the people or the country ; but the Rebellion of '98 did produce permanent effects which must be briefly noticed.
Whatever may be thought about the R ebellion of '98 — its causes, motives, and conduct — there can be no difference of opinion concerning its results. Its immediate consequence was the destruction of the Irish Parliament. It left Ireland shaken to the core, quivering in every nerve. The country was under martial law, the people dominated by a great military force, and under such circumstances no true exhibition of popular opinion was possible. The Roman Catholic Hierarchy and their people
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seem to have been, on the whole, inclined towards the Union, hoping to obtain emancipation under it, as they were led to expect. The fighting strength of the anti-Unionists lay in the Capital, in the pro- fessions, especially in the legal profession, and in the landed gentry throughout the country. The latter, terrified, and naturally so, at the horrors in Wexford and Wicklow, wavered in their allegi- ance to the native Parliament. But for that, had they unanimously stood firm, no amount of bribery would have sufficed to carry the Act of Union
of 1800.
THE RELIGIOUS WEDGE.
The moral effect of the Rebellion was to drive a religious wedge through the nation. During the previous half- century, sectarian animosities had practically disappeared. Partly owing perhaps to the general laxity in matters of dogmatism univer- sally prevailing, but mainly to the rise of a spirit of conciliation and a sense of nationality that made the great volunteer movement possible, and to the success of that movement in securing freedom of trade, and a Parliament, the old feuds of race and class and religion had wellnigh died out, and Ireland had become a nation. The Rebellion tore open all the old wounds again to the satisfaction of those whose political theory of government is to keep Ireland perpetually at strife.
In reviewing all these annihilations, wars, and rebellions, certain qualities of the Irish race stand
BISHOP BEDELL 107
out clearly defined. Even in so short a sketch as this, the courage, tolerance of religious differences, humanity, love of justice, reverence for the law, fortitude and indestructibility of the Irish are plainly revealed. Whether as linen-clad men opposed to the mailed warriors of the Normans, or in conflict with the trained soldiers of Elizabeth, or in defending the broken walls of Limerick, or pitted against Cromwell's Ironsides, or as little better than a rabble of pikemen charging up to the cannon's mouth at New Ross, they displayed courage of the highest order. They failed, for Ireland was ever a house divided against itself.
Tolerant they were and under circumstances which, if anything can justify it, would have justi- fied intolerance. Gentle and forgiving, lovers of justice too, and a people reverencing authority and law. Take as an example the conduct of the people towards Bishop Bedell during the Rebellion of 1641.
Bishop Bedell was no lukewarm Protestant, as was the fashion among the clergy of those days. On the contrary, he w^as a conspicuous uncompro- mising opponent of Roman Catholicism, but he was sympathetic and an eminently just and good man. His diocese lay in the heart of Ulster. During the rising of 1641, when Ulster was completely in the hands of rebels, and when, according to some English accounts, scenes of carnage resembling the massacre of St. Bartholomew were enacted, Bishop
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Bedell was treated with kindness, deference and respect. For two months he was left unmolested in his own house, free to exercise his religion and to succour his co-religionists. For a short time he was confined in a castle on Lough Erne, but even there he had, as his biographer — his son-in-law — assures us, perfect liberty " to use Divine exercises of God's worship, to pray, read, preach, etc., though in the next room the priest was acting his Baby- lonish mass." He was at liberty when he died, though his diocese was still in full possession of the rebels. His dying wish to be buried in the Cathedral churchyard was conceded by the Catholic Bishop. The Irish rebels furnished a guard of honour and fired a volley over his grave.*
* J. F. Taylor, in his " Life of Owen Roe O'Neill/' writes : " With his son and his son-in-law he (Bedell) was detained in Cloghoughter Castle. There the Bishop died, and when his body was being borne to the grave the little family group wondered to see an Irish detachment of soldiers drawn up to await the funeral. At first (they tell us) they feared some interference. But they were much mistaken. The commander, who was also sheriff of the county, requested that he and his soldiers might be permitted to show their deep sorrow for the beloved illustrious one that lay dead, and, being allowed, they followed the corpse in mournful silence until the grave was reached. . . . They wished in their own manner to show their respect and grief. So the men were drawn up and a volley of honour was fired, and a deep chant went up to the sky. ' Re- quiescat in pace ultimus Angelorum.' And a Catholic priest was heard to say, ' O, sit anima mea cum Bedello.' "
IRISH TOLERATION 109
ABSENCE OF RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Nothing is more remarkable in all the stained and chequered pages of Irish history than the absence of religious persecution, and the deep respect for sincere religion in every form evinced by the people. The original conversion of the nation to Christianity was almost bloodless. No scenes of violence marred the efforts of the hosts of Irish missionaries that for generations laboured in Britain, Gaul, and Northern Europe. Dominion and politics had no part in their work. They laboured for religion only, and trusted solely in the persuasion of their own zeal. Protestants flying from the persecutions of Mary in England found safe shelter in Catholic Ireland. The witch mania that caused so many cruel deaths in Protestant Britain and most Catholic countries was scarcely felt in Ireland. Quakers persecuted in Protestant England traversed Catholic Ireland unmolested, preaching the most extreme form of Protestantism. Wesley found respectful listeners in Ireland, and spoke of the docile and tolerant spirit in which he was received. Protestant clergy scattered over the wildest and most purely Catholic districts, lived in security even in the worst periods of organized crime. Ireland has ever been a faithful daughter of the Church of Rome. Catholics have always been in an enormous majority, and yet in spite of the persecutions, devastations, and confiscations
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under which they suffered at the hands of a Pro- testant people, in spite of penal laws and indignities, the Irish have never shown a retaliatory spirit even when the Sovereign of the two countries was Catholic, and Catholicism was a dominant factor of government. During the period of Protestant persecution in England under Mary, not one Pro- testant suffered for his religion in Ireland. One of the first Acts of the Catholic Irish Parliament during the short period of Catholic ascendancy under James II. was to introduce, and pass, a Bill establishing liberty of conscience.
Sir John Perrot, the only Administrator of Ireland in the " spacious times " of Elizabeth who exercised his functions with justice and honesty, was regarded with respect — and almost admira- tion— by the people who suffered under his rule.
Sir John Davies, the Attorney-General of King James, expressed admiration at the absence of crime. " I dare affirm," he said, writing in 1612, " that for the space of five years past there have not been found so many malefactors worthy of death in all the six circuits of this realm (which is now divided into thirty-two circuits at large) as in one circuit of six shires — namely, the western circuit in England. For the truth is that in time of peace the Irish are more fearful to offend the law than the English, or any other nation whatever." He gave it as his belief that — " The nation will gladly continue sub-
THE PERVERSION OF IRELAND 111
ject without adhering to any other lord or King as long as they may be protected and justly governed without oppression on the one side or impunity on the other. For there is no nation or people under the sun that doth love equal or indifferent justice better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it be against themselves, so as they may have the protection and benefit of law when upon just cause they may
desire it."
THE "MERE IRISH."
The Irish were by nature more law-abiding than the English, and yet respect for law and contempt for law became national characteristics of the two peoples. And why? Because, taken as a whole, law throughout English history was native law and a beneficent agent, respecting national sentiment, and securing men in their liberties and rights. Throughout Irish history it was alien law and a maleficent agent, outraging national sentiment and depriving men of their liberties and rights.
Many pages might be filled with instances of the humanity displayed by the " mere Irish," but it is unnecessary. If the few cases I have cited do not suffice, ample material to form a judgment may be found in the pages of impartial history. To conduct war in a humane and civilized manner respecting non-combatants, sex, and age, and to honourably fulfil their pledges, were ever the aims of Irish leaders, and history teems with instances of
112 ANNIHILATIONS, WARS, ETC.
individual kindness on the part of " Rebels " even in the darkest periods of depression and despair.
How were these qualities rewarded ? By broken pledges and violated faith ; by legal injustice and chicanery ; by trickery and deliberate murder ; by wars of annihilation in which neither age nor sex were spared ; by the destruction of flocks and crops ; by vast confiscations carried out by force and fraud. By such measures a law-abiding, honest, and kind-hearted people were forced into hatred of, and contempt for, law. were educated in distrust, were driven to seek refuge in secret organizations and the brutalities of private revenge. That, in view of the circumstances in which she was placed and of the conditions that universally obtained, England had some justification for her policy of extermination may perhaps be conceded ; but the impossibility of obliterating the race and making Ireland English was demonstrated at an early date. The resilient and indestructible vitality of the race, its powers of recuperation and assimila- tion, were proved over and over again. Wave after wave of immigrants, Anglo-Normans, Eliza- bethan Puritans, became incorporated with a people that, out of apparently absolute destruction, sprang up again invariably into active life. It is marvellous that English statesmen could not learn their lesson. It is tragic that their energy should have been concentrated upon crushing out all that was good and developing all that was bad in the
ENGLAND'S STUPIDITY 113
Irish character. It is strange that they could not see that if the realm was ever to be the better for Ireland, it could only be by allowing and encourag- ing Ireland to develop on her own lines. Culpable stupidity is the sin of England.
PART II
DESTRUCTION, DEGRADATION, AND REVIVAL
IRELAND'S MISFORTUNES.
THOUGH the object of the wars of annihilation— namely, the destruction of the race — was not attained, they did not fall far short of accomplish- ing it. They drove such of the natural leaders of the people and of their most energetic followers who escaped famine, fire, and the sword to foreign countries, or forced them into a miserable life of semi-brigandage at home. They reduced the rem- nant of the tillers of the soil left alive to complete servitude and an existence bordering on starvation. They left a broken-spirited people with only one object worth living for — revenge, and only one outlet for what little energy was left to them— isolated reprisals. But they failed to kill the race or to extinguish the sense of nationality. Nor did they completely ruin Ireland. To accomplish that latter object other and more successful methods were pursued. Though not so visibly outrageous to humanity, the destruction of her industries,
114
EARLY INVASIONS 115
trade, and commerce proved more fatal to Ireland than the sword, and the penal laws did more to degrade the nation and weaken nationality than famine, the rope, or the flames.
Ireland has enjoyed three periods of prosperity. It is difficult to speak with accuracy of the condi- tion of the country prior to the Scandinavian inroads and settlements, but there is no doubt whatever that Ireland in those early days was looked upon, and with reason, as a rich and pros- perous land. She developed an architecture of her own. Her people were skilled textile workers. She was the abode of learning. She kept alive the flickering flame of Christianity, and her missionaries travelled and taught over Britain and on the Con- tinent. She was well advanced in civilization — in many respects, far ahead of her contemporaries, when her riches tempted the sea-rovers of the North.
THE VIKINGS IN IRELAND.
The predatory invasions of Northmen put an end to this period of prosperity for a time, but for a time only. The Vikings never got the hold in Ireland that they acquired in England. In England they gradually dethroned the Saxon Princes, and finally ruled over the whole land. In Ireland they never penetrated to any distance from their base — the sea. They failed to overthrow native dynasties or chiefs and to establish them- selves in their place. They burned and destroyed
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and checked the advance of civilization, but not for long. The raids and incursions of predatory Vikings were soon followed by immigration in force of more stable elements. The Scandinavian sea-kings and their followers excelled in two professions or trades — piracy and commerce. They were skilled murderers and also first-rate men of business. The same men who, issuing with their long ships from Icelandic fiords, harried the coasts of France, Britain or Ireland, invested the proceeds of their plunder judiciously at home ; and with piracy they ever combined trade. Danes, as they are generally but somewhat erroneously called, settled perma- nently in the seaports and engaged in commerce. The indestructible Irish absorbed and assimilated them, as they did the Anglo-Normans who followed them, and the country made great strides in arts, crafts, commerce, and trade. For some five cen- turies Ireland was a busy field of industry, and the wealth of the country must have been large. Numerous and great fairs were held all over the island, and it must have been traversed by good main roads. The natural waterways were thoroughly utilized, and the harbours were thronged with Irish ships engaged in a flourishing oversea trade. They carried out raw or partially manufactured produce, such as meat, cheese, fish, and hides ; and manu- factured goods — cloth, cloaks, carpets, blankets, sail-cloth, fine linen, gloves, and shoes. Wooden utensils and metal-work were also exported in large
IRISH PROSPERITY 117
quantities. The imports were, with the exception of Spanish iron ore, salt, and some dye-stuffs, nearly all luxuries, such as wine, spices, and expen- sive articles of attire. The ships of Ireland traded with England, Scotland, Spain, France, Italy, and the Low Countries. Her fisheries were profitable, and her coasts were frequented by large Spanish and English fishing fleets. Ardglass, Drogheda, Dublin, Wexford, did a large trade with the Bristol Channel and other English ports. Waterford, Dungannon, Youghal, Cork, Kinsale, Bantry, Dingle, Limerick, Galway, Sligo, throve greatly through their trade with the Continent. Galway was one of the busiest ports of the two islands. The towns were well and substantially built ; their water- supply was good, and in sanitation and comfort they were ahead of the current requirements of the age. Doubtless, remote parts of the country were wild and poor, but, speaking generally, the people appear to have been fully occupied, well dressed, and well fed. The merchants, chiefs, and upper classes were handsomely attired, and lived in con- siderable luxury.
ENGLISH MISCONCEPTIONS.
Such a condition is, I am well aware, very different from that generally portrayed by contem- porary English writers. They were wont to describe Ireland as a desolate waste of inhospitable plains, mountains, and forests, sparsely inhabited by human
118 DEGRADATION AND REVIVAL
beings little superior in intelligence, morals, and manners to the wild beasts that shared the wilder- ness with them. This absurdly inaccurate descrip- tion is not difficult to account for. In the first place, English authors were influenced by that strange and universal, but illogical, tendency of human nature which leads men to decry their enemies ; in the second place, accounts of the country and the people were written by men steeped with prejudice, following closely in the wake of those devastating armies which, by the sword, fire, and famine, reduced the country through which liey marched to the condition so graphically described by Spencer. These destroying armies cut swaiths broad, it is true, but still narrow as compared with the country left untouched, and English deputies and others accompanying them saw only the red ruin left, and recorded only what they saw ; in the third place, the Crown, the agents of the Crown, and English adventurers wanted an excuse for their conduct, and, in justification, entered the plea that they were bringing settled government, civilization, and the laws of God and man to a Godless set of benighted savages, sunk to the lowest depths of immorality, brutality, and crime. That the description was utterly false there can be no doubt. In spite of constant wars, Ireland steadily progressed in agriculture, fishing industries, manufacturing industries, trade, literature, and the liberal arts and sciences, and her achievements
A RICH COUNTRY 119
were the work of her own hands. At the height of her second epoch of prosperity, towards the close of the fifteenth century, English rule was confined to Dublin and a circle round it with a radius of not more than thirty or forty miles. Ireland absorbed new elements of population with ease and rapidity ; Scandinavian, Norman, English, and Welsh, adopted the language, dress, customs, manners, legal system, and land tenure of the Irish, and discarded the legal, social, and economic systems to which they were accustomed.
It is absurd to suppose that superior races could have been thus assimilated by an inferior race. Inferior the Irish were, no doubt, in those character- istics that make for cohesion and solidarity, but they certainly were not inferior in all that is comprised in civilization.
The certain fact that Irish imports so largely consisted of luxuries, and that exports were balanced by remitments of money, is proof of the manufacturing and commercial activity that pre- vailed. The excellence of Irish work was so generally recognized that Irish artificers were in great demand, and settled in large numbers on the Continent, in Spain, France, and the Nether- lands, and in smaller numbers in Bristol and other English trading centres. The fact is, Ireland was not, as generally represented, barbarous and poor ; she was, in truth, busy, active, intelligent, and rich. Her misery did not excite the charity of
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Plantagenet and Tudor Sovereigns ; her riches roused their cupidity, and, in the effort to possess themselves of those riches, they destroyed the sources of them. Thriving towns became tumble- down villages, and so remain to this day, a few architectural remains alone testifying to their former prosperity. On those once so busy waters scarce a sail can now be seen. The Tudors ruined Ireland, and they did not benefit themselves ; they created a desert, and marvelled that no profit accrued to them therefrom.
WAR ON IRISH INDUSTRY.
War was waged upon Irish industry in various ways ; the process can only be briefly described.
The policy of securing Irish trade for England had been inaugurated before Henry VIII. came to the throne ; but it is to that monarch and his great descendant, Elizabeth, that the credit of carrying it out to the bitter end must be given. England was full of the spirit of adventure. Her trading instincts and her shipping were rapidly developing, and her merchants, coveting Irish commerce, made it their private business to capture it. With their armed merchant vessels they harried the coasts, and made open war upon the seaport towns. Elizabeth employed regular fleets under her most distinguished naval commanders — Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh, Frobisher, and others famous in history — to cap-
ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS 121
ture the Irish foreign trade. They did not capture it, but they did demolish it, and in the process nearly ruined Galway and all the southern and western ports. Every effort was also made to destroy inland industry. The great national fairs were prohibited. No trade of any kind was allowed to be carried on by anyone not of English name.
The principal towns in Ireland, whether of Gaelic, Scandinavian, or Anglo-Norman origin, were converted into English settlements. Charters were granted to them carrying municipal rights and privileges, on condition that they remained English. They were not to admit " mere Irish " to any share in their government. They were not to trade with them, or in any way to countenance, assist, or befriend them. The greatest pains were taken, by the enactment of sanguinary laws against inter- marriage and fosterage, to preserve the purity of the blood. Every effort was made to retain trade and commerce in the hands of the settlers, and to prevent the " mere Irish " from participating in the business and government of the towns, and from sharing in their corporate life and in the privileges conferred upon them, but all to no avail. The conditions imposed upon the chartered towns were not, and could not, be fulfilled. It was impossible for the citizens to act up to them, even had they desired to do so. Trade with the Irish was essential to them ; it was necessary to their very existence.
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" CONQUEST " BY THE IRISH.
The charm of Irish language, law, customs, and manners had its inevitable effect, and, as usual, the English did not Anglicize the Irish, but the Irish Irishized the English. The towns placed them- selves under the protection of the native chiefs, and their commerce flourished so long as the chiefs were strong enough to protect them. Nothing is more remarkable in Irish history than the complete toleration in matters of religion, race, language, customs, and manners evidenced in civic life. Irish artificers were welcomed by the cities, and freely admitted to their guilds. In all the great towns, and even in Dublin itself, "mere Irish" took an active part, and held high office in municipal government. In short, the people of the towns became as Irish as the Irish outside their walls, and when they became involved in the general deter- mination to capture or destroy Irish industry and trade, they too rose and became "Rebels "in defence of their liberties and rights. Religion, and charges of aiding Spain, were, of course, pleaded as an excuse by the King's deputies. The Spaniards were, it is true, Catholic, and so were the Irish with whom the cities, largely Protestant, made common cause ; but neither religion nor a desire to befriend the Spaniards had anything to do with the conduct of the towns. The simple truth is that the towns rose, and were forced to rise in defence of their
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 123
municipal life, for the preservation of their borough liberties, and against the total annihilation of their trade, and they sought assistance wherever it could be found. They became " Rebels " for self-preser- vation. They failed, and were destroyed. It is not strange that in their ruins loyalty does not find congenial soil. The pity of it ! That Irish and English could live and work harmoniously together, that conciliation led to mutual respect, mutual respect to a sense of common patriotism, and patriotism to peace and a high degree of prosperity, were amply demonstrated in the social, political, and economic circumstances of the seaports and great towns. If anyone should wish to learn what Ireland might now have been, he has only to look at what such cities as Galway, Cork, Limerick, or Waterford were when English and Irish were allowed in harmony to develop on natural lines, and to work out their own salvation in peace. But such a condition was not to the liking of English adventurers or of the English Government. Prosperity was to be destroyed. The races were not to merge in a sense of common patriotism. Ireland was not to be at peace. As Mr. Attorney Davies truly wrote in 1620 :
" Such as had the government of Ireland under the Crown of England did intend to make a perpetual separation and enmity between the English and the Irish, pretending, no doubt, that the English should in the end root out the Irish,
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which, the English not being able to do, caused a perpetual war between the nations, which continued four hundred odd years." And an English writer of the same period, with equal force and truth, wonders that "English obstinacy should be eternal." " Never," he says, " since the creation of the world were hostile feelings so systematically kept alive for such a length of time in any other nation."
During all this period Ireland was looked upon as a foreign country, bitterly hostile, and therefore to be destroyed root and branch, in race, religion, and language, in commerce and in trade. In more recent times she was treated as a colony, or dependency, to be exploited solely for the benefit of England. But, though the destruction of industry of all kinds appeared to be complete, neither law nor violence ploughed quite deep enough. The roots remained ; and, during the period of peace following on the Restoration, the tender shoots of industrial enterprise began to manifest themselves. They were speedily cut
down.
IRELAND'S STRUGGLE FOR TRADE.
The Cattle and Navigation Acts, as amended in 1663, are the first indication of a settled policy to treat Ireland, not only as a dependency, but as an inferior sort of dependency which could not be suffered to compete in any way with other depen- dencies across the ocean. Ireland was in no posi- tion to protect herself. Some description has been
INDUSTRIAL RUIN 125
given in this and in a previous chapter of the con- dition to which she was reduced by the Elizabethan and Cromwellian wars and by the destruction of her seaport towns and foreign trade. She had, it is true, a Parliament and Privy Council, but only in name. Both Council and Parliament were merely subordinate branches of the English Council and Parliament. Ireland was helpless, hopelessly reduced in mind, body and estate, yet her spirit was indomitable, her recuperative powers not ex- hausted. Her industries struggled hard, and after the Restoration, a revival of trade and industry set in that provoked the jealous hostility of England. The land in Ireland was chiefly under pasture, and a considerable trade with England in live stock arose. In the interest of English and Scotch breeders it was prohibited ; the exportation of dairy produce and provisions generally was also pro- hibited, and Ireland's chief source of prosperity was crushed at a blow. But Ireland did not lose heart. She turned to foreign countries and the West Indies to find a market, but in vain. By various enactments Irish shipping was excluded from the carrying trade, Irish goods were not allowed to be exported to the Colonies, nor could Colonial goods be imported into Ireland. Thus was Irish shipping and her Colonial trade destroyed. So Ireland, not despairing, turned her attention to sheep. Irish wool became famous as the best in the world, and a great woollen industry sprang
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up, mainly in the hands of Protestant settlers.* The trade grew so rapidly in volume and impor- tance as to excite the fears and jealousy of the English manufacturers, who clamoured for its destruction. Irish woollens were excluded by the Navigation Acts from the whole Colonial market, prohibitive duties were placed upon them in the English market, and finally the export of woollen goods from Ireland was totally forbidden. The industrial ruin of Ireland was accomplished, and with it went her one chance of becoming a pros- perous and contented land. It is impossible within the limits of this sketch to mention all the restrictions placed upon Irish manufactures, shipping, and trade, and the various measures taken for destroying industrial and economic life. Suffice it to say that whenever any Irish industry was held to be detrimental to their interests by any section of the manufacturing or trading com- munity in England or Great Britain, that industry was hampered, harassed, and eventually destroyed. The country was flooded with debased coinage. This outrage moved even the Pale to remonstrance, but it was in vain, the English Privy Council asserting that the Irish Council was considering what was good for the people, not what was advantageous to the King. In the sentiment thus
* Some 42,000 Protestant families were engaged in it. Between 20,000 and 30,000 had to be supported by charity as a result of the destruction of their trade.
IRISH "USQUEBAGH" 127
expressed as a matter of course, that what was good for the people was bad for the Crown, that the interests of England and Ireland were diamet- rically opposed, the whole ruinous policy of Eng- land is succinctly summed up. Shipping, the textile industries, glass manufacture, sugar-refin- ing, brewing, sea-fisheries and fish-curing, leather industries, manufactures of metals, were all attacked in turn. Whisky was the only excep- tion. It appears to have greatly gratified English palates. Richard Boyle, the great Earl of Cork, in sending a present of " a runlet of mild Irish usquebagh," writes : "If it please his Lordship, next his hart in the morning, to drink a little of this Irish usquebagh as it is prepared and qualified ; it will help to digest all raw humours, expel wind, and keep his inward parts warm all day after, without any offence to his stomack." Such a valuable specific was not lightly to be destroyed, and, as distilling did not interfere with any English manufacture, that industry was allowed to live. It was left to the enlightened legislation of 1909 to endeavour to put an end to one of the few sur- viving industries of Ireland. So ended the second period of prosperity in Ireland.
FAULTS OF THE TIMES.
In thus annihilating all industries in Ireland in the supposed interest of English manufacturers, England cannot be justly accused of special vin-
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dictiveness, or of pursuing an exceptional course. As a result of the union that took place under the Commonwealth in 1654, when Irish representa- tives sat in Parliament at Westminster, Ireland was admitted to the common enjoyment of the Colonial trade ; and it is not illogical that England deprived her of that privilege when, after the Res- toration in 1660, the Union was annulled. Precisely the same course was pursued with Scotland. England looked upon Ireland as a mere depend- ency to be exploited for her benefit if possible, but by no means to be allowed to incommode her, or to compete with her in industry and trade ; and in adopting that conception England acted according to the accepted canons of the time. Such a policy may be justified, certainly it can be understood ; but the double policy persistently pursued by England cannot be justified, and cannot be understood. There would be sense, however brutal, in drawing a cordon round Ireland, des- troying all her industry, trade, and commerce, and allowing the inevitable consequence to the Irish, as a race and a nation, to ensue ; but there is no sense to be found in the policy of perpetually planting Ireland with English, and then perpetually ruining the English in Ireland for the benefit of the English across the Channel.
The selfish and miraculously unwise policy, so consistently pursued by England, was successful in so far as it ruined Ireland — but it did not
ENGLAND'S LEGACY 129
benefit England. England gained little or nothing even at the time. The restrictions upon Irish enterprise, and the ruin of Irish trade, reacted unfavourably upon her, and have left her a legacy of trouble which she cannot avoid. The destruc- tion of their industries broke the energy of the Irish people, warped and contracted their natural charac- teristics by forcing them all into agriculture, and created an exaggerated and fictitious land hunger from which Ireland has suffered ever since, and will suffer until it is reduced to healthy dimensions by industrial revival. Economically the policy of England was unsound, and socially it was insane. By ruining Ireland's prospects as a self-supporting, prosperous country, she placed herself under a burden of future responsibility from which she cannot escape. And it must not be forgotten that, during this period of the laying waste of commerce, Ireland was subjected to the penal laws.
PENAL LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS.
The penal laws were directed against Roman Catholicism, but, as is invariably the case in Irish history, the animus was not against the religion in itself, but was against the race professing that religion. The enactments were not against Catholi- cism that happened to be the religion of the vast majority of Irish, but were against the vast majority of Irish who happened to adhere to that religion. The penal code came into existence
9
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under William — immediately after the Revolution — and was extended under Anne and the first two Georges. It affected all human action and en- deavour in every phase of life. Catholics were prohibited from sitting in Parliament, and were deprived of the franchise. They were excluded from the Army, Navy, the Magistracy, the Bar, the Bench. They could not sit on Grand Juries or Vestries, or act as sheriffs or solicitors. The possession of arms was forbidden to them. They could not be freemen of any corporate body, and were allowed to carry on trade only on payment of various impositions. They could not buy land nor receive it as a gift from Protestants ; nor hold life annuities or mortgages or leases for more than thirty-one years, or any lease if the profit exceeded one-third of the rent. Catholics were deprived of liberty to leave their property in land by will. Their estates were divided among all their sons unless the eldest became a Protestant, in which case the whole estate devolved upon him. Any Protestant who informed upon a Catholic for pur- chasing land became the proprietor of the estate. No Catholic was allowed to possess a horse of greater value than £5, and any Protestant could take the horse for that sum. A Protestant woman landowner was, if she married a Catholic, deprived of her property. Mixed marriages celebrated by a Catholic priest were declared null. A wife or a child professing Protestantism was at once taken
CATHOLIC DISABILITIES 131
from under the Catholic husband or father's con- trol, and the Chancellor made an assignment of income to them. Catholic children under age at the time of their Catholic father's death were placed under the guardianship of Protestants. Catholics were excluded from seats of learning. They could not keep schools or teach or act as guardians of children, or send their children abroad to be educated.
As regards the actual exercise of religion, the code was not at first severe. It required priests to register themselves, and when registered they were allowed to celebrate Mass, but this comparative toleration did not last long. The Abjuration Oath was imposed upon all Catholics. To the Oath of Allegiance, Catholics (clerical and lay) had no objection. It merely bound men who had not the slightest desire for a counter-dynastic revolution to obey the reigning Sovereign and abstain from con- spiracy against him, but the Oath of Abjuration was quite another matter. It affirmed that the " Pretender " had no right or title to the Crown, and it restricted allegiance to a Protestant monarch. Catholics could not well take an oath stultifying the principles for which they had fought during the Revolution, and binding them to renounce their allegiance to the new dynasty, should the then pos- sessor of the Crown or his successors embrace II oman Catholicism. They refused in great numbers, with the result that in a Catholic country bishops
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and priests were hunted as though they were un- clean beasts. Bishops and unregistered priests were liable to banishment on discovery, and to the death penalty if they returned. Finally, it was enacted that all unregistered priests should leave Ireland before a fixed date, and that all found sub- sequently should be found guilty of high treason.
The penal laws in Ireland were not peculiar in their stringency, but they were peculiar in the circumstances of their application. Similar laws against Catholicism in Protestant countries equalled them in severity, and unquestionably the repres- sion of Protestantism in Catholic countries was conducted on more drastic lines, but the circum- stances in Ireland were in two respects quite peculiar. In other countries majorities persecuted minorities ; in Ireland a very small minority were persecuting a very large majority. In other cases political reasons can be adduced in justification for religious disabilities. In Ireland no political excuse for the penal laws can be found, for whereas England and Scotland were agitated by frequent Jacobite plots, risings, and demonstrations, not the faintest symptom of active sympathy for the lost cause was manifested in Ireland.
The penal code failed owing to its severity. It was impossible to deprive three-fourths of the population of religious ministrations. It became difficult to enforce the law. The Irish Protestants were better and more humane than the laws Parlia-
PRIEST-HUNTING 133
ment passed for their support. The laws were evaded. Protestants held property in private trust for their Catholic friends. Protestant guardians connived at allowing their Catholic wards to be brought up in their own religion. The executive was not strong enough to ensure protection to priest-hunters, and priest-hunting became a dan- gerous occupation. The code failed absolutely in extinguishing Catholicism, but it succeeded admirably in other directions. By depriving the Catholic gentry of any share in civil and military life, by excluding them from all participation in the conduct of affairs by treating them as an unclean caste in their native land, it degraded them, and it deprived the people of their natural leadership. It reared artificial barriers between religion and religion, and between class and class, quite alien to Irish human nature. It debased the people, and by forcing them to seek all they held necessary for their spiritual and material welfare in evasion of, or by open defiance of, the law, it created a lasting feeling of distrust of and hostility towards law in the minds of a naturally most law-abiding people.
In the lethargy of exhaustion consequent upon the destruction of her industries and her degrada- tion under the penal laws, Ireland lay torpid until the Volunteer Movement in 1779 won for her freedom of trade and, eventually, a Parliament.
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FREEDOM — AND A REVIVAL.
During the short life of Grattan's Parliament a great recovery took place, and Ireland's third period of prosperity set in. From the time that liberty of trade was obtained to the outbreak of the Rebellion of '98, Ireland made great strides. The public credit improved. The rate of interest was reduced. Commerce revived. The Dublin Custom House proved too small for the business passing through it, and a new Customs House became necessary. A spirit of energy and enterprise prevailed, affect- ing agriculture and all other industries and trades. In 1790 Sir John Parnell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, said : "It was his pride and happiness to declare that he did not think it possible for any nation to have improved more in her circumstances since 1784 than Ireland had done/' And in 1798 Lord Clare, the great advocate of the Union, in reviewing the last twenty years, declared that— " There is not a nation in the habitable globe which has advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agriculture and in manufactures, with the same rapidity in the same period." Numerous other passages may be quoted in proof of the great and rapid advance made in material prosperity ; but as the fact is not, I think, disputed, the two quota- tions above-mentioned may suffice.
The improvement is traceable to three causes. Liberty to trade made an opening for industry and
LIBERTY AND PROSPERITY 135
enterprise. Under the stimulus of self-govern- ment, self-reliance, energy and enterprise rose from the dead. The first efforts of industrial energy and enterprise were encouraged by a wise system of bounties and grants. The best authorities on economics admit that State assistance to private effort may be admissible in developing the re- sources of a new country. If that be so, the most hide-bound of Free Traders must allow that the fostering action of the Irish Parliament was justi- fiable, for the difficulty of reviving a slaughtered industry in an old and cruelly treated community is far greater than that encountered in creating an industry in a new country, inhabited by men whose energy has not been sapped by centuries of ill-use. Be that as it may. bounties were given on the exportation of corn; grants were made for harbours, inland navigation, and the development of fisheries ; textiles, the woollen, cotton, linen, and silk trades ; glass ; and, in short, all manufactures and industries received, directly or indirectly, some small measure of Government support. To quote the words of Flood : " The infancy of our manu- factures and the poverty of our people have forced us into a variety of bounties and encouragements, in order to give some spring to the languor of the nation." Some spring was given ; the resilience of the Irish character responded, and Ireland throve. Liberty to trade was essential, and in my opinion judicious encouragement did much ; but the main-
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spring of prosperity, the real motive- power making for industrial recovery, lay in the gratified sense of nationality, the healthy stimulus of responsibility, and the energizing effects of self-governing power. Liberty to trade survived the Union, but the destruction of her Parliament struck a blow at Ireland's vitals from which she did not recover. The Union rang the knell of Ireland's last and fleeting period of prosperity. Under its benumb- ing influence her energy and enterprise waned, her strength and vitality gradually withered away.
PART III
IRELAND'S PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
THE popular idea is, I think, that up to 1800 Ireland was governed by a Parliament identical in constitution, functions and powers with the Parlia- ment of Great Britain, and that Ireland was then deprived of national government with the consent of her Parliament, but contrary to the wishes of the people. An outline of Ireland's parliamentary history and of the causes that led up to the legisla- tive Union is necessary in order to dispel a good deal of ignorance on the subject. The shortest possible sketch must perforce suffice; but it will show that the development of parliamentary institutions in Ireland is symptomatic of her instinctive effort to achieve that distinct and cor- porate nationality which she had not attained under native rulers, and towards which she struggled all through the annihilations, devastations and des- tructions portrayed in former chapters.
THE RULE OF ECCLESIASTICS.
Prior to Henry II.'s landing in Ireland ecclesi- astical synods had been held in the country, but
137
138 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
nothing of the nature of a Parliament. Henry summoned an ecclesiastical synod at Cashel to- gether with a lay council of some kind ; but the main business before it was ecclesiastical — namely, to bring the usages of the Church in Ireland into harmony with those of the Church in England.
The authority of the Crown in Ireland, which was merely nominal during the reign of Henry, became somewhat more real during the reign of his son John. He granted charters to some of the principal towns ; and privileges and property are, in some instances, to be traced for title to the reign of that monarch. In 1204 he summoned a Council on the English model, and for the same purposes as Councils were summoned in England, namely, for supply — in that case for money to carry on the war with France. All the principal personages, both ecclesiastical and lay, were nominated by the King and summoned to this Council. In the remaining years of the thirteenth century similar councils were assembled from time to time. During John's reign English government began to assume some ap- pearance of a definite form. A King's Deputy, afterwards called Lord- Lieutenant, was appointed. An Irish Privy Council was created by Henry III.
In 1295 the germs of the elective principle may be found, but the application of the principle was very limited in extent. The elected members sat with the bishops, abbots, priors and barons, and the Council was styled a Parliament. Gradually
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Parliament divided itself into two houses, an upper and lower house, or a House of Lords and a House of Commons, after the manner already followed in England ; but these Parlia- ments cannot be said to have represented the nation in any sense. The distinction between " subjects " — loyal English and " mere Irish " —the native Irish and Irishized Anglo-Normans, was sharply drawn. The native Irish chiefs were not summoned. It is most improbable that they would have obeyed if writs had been issued to them ; and the great Anglo-Norman lords also evinced great reluctance to obey summonses. In fact, the native chiefs and the Norman lords, who had become more Irish than the Irish themselves, though they acknowledged in a somewhat vague way the over- lordship of the King, considered themselves virtu- ally independent and resented the summons to Parliament as an infringement of that independence. In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. the influence of the ecclesiastical element in Parliament was largely diminished, and, eight years later — in 1542 — a Parliament was sum- moned, to which the native chiefs were called, and which some of them at least appear to have at- tended. The King had already been proclaimed head of the Church in Ireland, and the principal object of this Parliament was to sanction the adoption by the King of England of the title of King of Ireland, instead of Lord of Ireland, as he
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had been previously styled. The change of title was sanctioned by Parliament with unanimity, and many of the Irish chiefs accepted it, two of them being received by the King at Greenwich. It is to the last degree improbable that the Irish realized what the change of title meant. To the King and his advisers it meant vesting the whole of the land of Ireland in the Crown. To Irish chiefs, accustomed from time immemorial to the national system that the land belonged to the people, the feudal theory was inconceivable, and they doubt- less looked upon the substitution of " King " for " Lord " as a matter of very small importance. The assumption of the superior title had no immediate effect upon the very nominal authority of the Crown.
The Councils and Parliaments of Ireland, such as they were, continued to be called from time to time. They resembled in all respects the Councils and Parliaments of England, they were summoned for the same purposes, exercised the same functions, and possessed similar powers. They were not representative of the people, and were merely Parliaments, in the modern sense, in embryo.
The Irish Parliaments appear to have been at any rate nominally independent of the English executive until the passing of Poynings' Act in 1494. The gist of Poynings' Act was that it was the duty of the King's Deputy in Ireland (the Lord-Lieutenant) in Council to draft and submit
THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM 141
all Bills to the King ; that if the Bills were approved by the King in Council in England they were then to be submitted to the Parliament in Ireland ; that the Irish Parliament could reject or accept meas- ures thus sent to it, but could not amend them. The effect of Poynings' Act was to deprive the Irish Parliament of power to originate legislation of any kind, or to alter in any way those measures which came before it after having been approved by the King in Council in England on the advice of the King's Deputy in Council in Ireland. The Irish Parliament became a subject body, little better than a mere registration machine, an instrument for echoing the opinions of the King and his Deputy.
Thus Parliament became completely subservient, and though protests were made, there is no men- tion of any revolt against this ignominious position until the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when in 1585 a Parliament convened by the Deputy, Sir John Perrott, rejected a Bill for a subsidy, and refused to vest certain attainted lands in the Crown with- out inquiry. In this Parliament the growth of a representative system may be clearly discerned. The House of Commons consisted of 126 members, 54 representing 27 counties, and 72 representing 36 cities and boroughs. Owing to the forced adoption of English surnames, it is difficult to say how many members of this Parliament were of native race, but certainly 18 members
142 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
of the House of Commons appear by their names to have been native Irish. The House of Lords consisted of 26 spiritual and 26 temporal peers. Of the latter 4 were native Irish. After this no Parliament was called for twenty-seven years.
The next Parliament, summoned in 1613 during the reign of James 1., showed a great development. No qualification of race or of creed was insisted upon, but in order to ensure a strong English majority in conformity with the anti-Irish regime which still obtained in Ireland, forty new boroughs — nominal boroughs only — were created in the Protestant settlement in Ulster. This Parliament was broad-minded and liberal in comparison with its predecessors, and repealed a whole host of statutes having for their object to keep the native Irish and Anglo-Norman colonists separate and distinct.
NON-REPRESENTATIVE ASSEMBLIES.
One essential point must be borne in mind in tracing this development of the parliamentary machine in Ireland. During the long period of some 400 years that had elapsed since Henry II. convoked a Synod and Council, the enactments of Councils and Parliaments had no effect, and were not intended to have any effect, outside of the colony of English settlers. They were not national institutions, and their proceedings did not concern the native Irish and assimilated Eng-
SIGNS OF INDEPENDENCE 143
lish settlers. The Parliament of 1613, however, and all subsequent Parliaments legislated, more or less effectually, for the whole kingdom, and though many instances of the assertion of inde- pendence by force, or the recovery of independence by rebellion, took place in various parts of the country, the enactments of Parliament were generally recognized over the whole kingdom, though the Parliaments were representative mainly of landed property, and consequently of Protestantism, as landed property had passed into Protestant hands.
Irish Parliaments, though in the main merely registration assemblies, evinced from time to time symptoms of independence. Protests were, for instance, made in 1376 against the summoning of Irish representatives to England, but it was not until 1459 that any distinct declaration of the rights of Ireland and of her Parliament was formu- lated. It was then claimed that Ireland was, by its constitution, separate from the laws and statutes of England, that Irish subjects were not bound to answer writs unless issued under the Great Seal of Ireland, that laws affecting Ireland must be freely accepted by the Irish Parliament in order to become binding on the Irish people, and that Ireland was entitled to coin money. The at- tributes of a sovereign nation and legislative independence were asserted. Parliament did not assert the right to originate legislation, but it did
144 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
declare that legislation originating in England had no binding effect on Ireland unless and until it had been accepted by the Parliament of Ireland. The controversy as to the competence and independence of the Irish Legislature continued until about 1782. During the reign of Charles I., after the recall of Strafford, the Irish Parliament made, in 1640, another assertion of independence. It declared that the Irish subjects of the King were a free people ; it admitted that they were to be governed according to the common law of England, but it added, " and by statutes established by the Parlia- ment of Ireland " — a somewhat ambiguous state- ment of independence.
About the same time Parliament increased its power and authority by adopting the ingenious device of " Heads of Bills." All Bills were drafted by the Irish Privy Council. They were then sub- mitted to the English Privy Council for acceptance, rejection, or amendment, and, as approved by that Council, were sent to the Irish Parliament for adoption or rejection. Legislation, therefore, originated practically in an English body. The Irish Legislature could not introduce Bills, but by the device of " Heads of Bills " this disability was overcome. Heads of Bills were virtually Bills, being actual Bills with a slight verbal change in the preamble. By the adoption of this method, legislation practically originated in the Irish body, but it was still, of course, subject to the approval
THE COMMONWEALTH UNION 145
of the King's Deputy and Irish Privy Council, and of the King and his English Privy Council — in other words, his English Ministers.
During this period, also, discussions arose as to the tenure by which Ireland was held by the Crown. One side, represented by Straff ord, asserted that Ireland was held by the right of conquest ; the other side, acting through Parlia- ment, denying conquest. It is a difficult matter to accurately define what is meant by " conquest," but it cannot, I think, be denied that Parliament was right. Henry II. entered Ireland possibly with the sanction of the Pope, certainly with the general approval of the Church. He received the homage of those of his English subjects who had settled in Ireland, and of some native princes, who acknowledged him as their overlord. But Henry's title was never largely accepted as good, and Ire- land was never conquered in the ordinary meaning of the word. Irish chiefs, Irish Parliaments, Irish jurists, constantly asserted her independence as either absolute or as subject to the suzerainty of the English Crown.
FIRST PARLIAMENTARY UNION WITH ENGLAND. During the Commonwealth no Parliament was summoned in Ireland, but a sort of legislative union took place. The English Parliament assumed complete dominion over the country, basing its claim upon force — upon the suppression of a " rebel-
JO
146 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
lion " rather than upon any inherent and general right to legislate for Ireland ; and Irish representa- tives, along with representatives of Scotland, were summoned, and sat with the English Parliament in London. After the Restoration this arrangement came to an end. An Irish Parliament completely subservient to the English Parliament again sat in Ireland, and passed the great Acts of Settlement and Explanation, under which the greater portion of the land of Ireland has ever since been held. In the reign of Charles II. abundant evidence of the supremacy of the English Parliament is to be found. The growing of tobacco was, for instance, prohibited in Ireland — a prohibition which was cer- tainly incompatible with the independence of an Irish Parliament. Numerous enactments of the English Parliament, which, however, were not ultra vires, had a most ruinous effect on the trade and commerce of Ireland, and were not protested against. Ireland lay completely at the mercy of England ; her Parliament — a Parliament of property-owners holding under the Acts of Settle- ment— was not disposed to quarrel with the Parlia- ment of England, and even if it had been it was not strong enough to protect the interests of the country.
During the Civil War which followed the Revolu- tion of 1688, the whole complexion of affairs was changed. We find the Irish Parliament recog- nizing one King and the English Parliament
NOMINEES OF THE CROWN 147
recognizing another King. Naturally, in these circumstances, the Irish Parliament assumed com- plete independence, and Acts which received the royal assent were passed without any reference whatever to the English Parliament or to the King recognized by that Parliament. Equally naturally, after the war the English Parliament refused to recognize the competency of the Irish Parliament, .and declared all its Acts null and void.
THE HEAVY HAND or IRISH PARLIAMENTS.
During the reign of William and Mary the Irish Parliaments were a mere echo of the English Legislature ; they passed all the Acts which ruined Irish trade, manufactures, and shipping, and, theoretically, Ireland destroyed herself through the action of her own Parliament. But the Irish Par- liament did not represent the people or even the Protestant community, and the trading and manu- facturing interests bitterly resented the helplessness and subserviency of the native Legislature. During many centuries the members of councils and par- liaments had been directly named and summoned by the King; and though, at the period under review, members of the House of Commons repre- sented counties and boroughs, they were representa- tive in theory only ; practically they were, as hitherto, the nominees of the Crown. Under those circumstances, very little friction arose between the two Parliaments ; no real spirit of independence
148 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
manifested itself in Ireland, and the occasional protests of the Irish Parliament were of an aca- demic character.
It was not until enactments of the British Par- liament began to affect Irish manufacture, trade, and shipping, and finally succeeded in encompassing their ruin, that the people commenced vigorously to urge the theory that Acts of the British Parlia- ment were not binding on Ireland unless or until they had been accepted by the Irish Parliament. The claim was not admitted ; but if it had been, Ireland could not have been saved from the evil consequences to her of legislation affecting the imports and exports of Great Britain, her carrying trade, and her trade with her Colonies and depen- dencies. However selfish or impolitic the action of the British Parliament may have been, it was within its rights in making what regulations it chose in respect to all those matters.
At the same time, questions arose as to the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords. Both issues — that of the jurisdiction of the Irish House of Lords, and that of the right of the British Parliament to make laws binding on Ireland — were decided against Ireland by an Act passed in the reign of George I. The British Parliament declared that the British House of Lords was the final court of appeal in Irish cases, and it enacted that — " The Crown, with the consent and advice of the Lords and Commons of Great Britain, had, and of right
BRITISH AND IRISH CLAIMS 149
ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the kingdom and the people of Ireland."
This act was really little more than a challenge to the Irish Parliament. If true, it was merely the recital of a truism ; if false, it could not confer the jurisdiction claimed — it was merely an unargued assertion of a claim. However, the challenge was not taken up ; the Irish Parliament remained silent, and, if silence gives consent, it may be said to have acquiesced in the British claims. The supineness of the Irish Parliament is not difficult to account for. The franchise was very limited. No Roman Catholics could vote or sit in Parliament. In the counties the landed proprietors held generally under the Acts of Settlement, and dreaded any disturb- ance of title ; and the majority of the House of Commons sat for boroughs, most of them very small, and the property of a few great families who "ran" the country. But though Parliament was quiet and acquiesced, the country was not quiet, and did not acquiesce.
SWIFT'S PROPAGANDA.
Swift revived the theories which former publicists — Sir Richard Bolton and William Molyneux — had advanced, and with all his energy and genius vigorously preached a crusade. Charles Lucas, the M.P. for Dublin City, took the matter up. The principle advanced was that Ireland was a distinct
150 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
kingdom ; that the King of Great Britain was King of Ireland in the same sense that the King of Ireland was King of Great Britain, and in no other ; and that there could be no superior in Ireland to the King and the Lords and Commons of Ireland in Parliament. Much popular favour for this doctrine was evinced, but the only practical result during the reign of George II. was the forma- tion of a regular Opposition in the House of Commons.
Up to the accession of George III., the sum- moning of a Parliament in Ireland was quite arbitrary, and its duration indefinite in period. Parliament could be summoned only at the will of the King, and long periods elapsed with- out any Parliament being summoned. Parlia- ment could be dissolved only at the will of the Sovereign or on demise of the Crown, and Parlia- ment frequently sat for very long periods. It sat, for instance, during the whole thirty-three years of the reign of George II. ; but after the accession of George III. an Act was passed, in 1767, and received the royal assent, limiting the duration of Parliaments to eight years.
The effect of this enactment upon the House of Commons was very great. Members became more dependent upon the electors. In spite of a restricted franchise and the disabilities under which Roman Catholics suffered, members of Parliament were brought more closely in touch with popular
THE "FREE TRADE" MOVEMENT 151
feeling, and became influenced by it. Both in tone and character the House of Commons was much improved. The Opposition became stronger and more self-reliant. Notable men — such, for instance, as Malone, Flood, Burgh (head of the Irish Bar), and Grattan — came to the front to champion the popular cause. The popular demand was for freedom of trade, and for the removal of those restrictions that had ruined the industries and commerce of Ireland, and by that ruin had reduced great numbers of the population to the direst distress. The free trade demanded by Ireland must not be confounded with the term " free trade" as now popularly understood. It had nothing to do with tariffs and fiscal systems, but was merely a demand for parity of treatment for the produce and goods of Great Britain and of Ireland.
THE VOLUNTEERS AND FREEDOM OF TRADE.
It is very doubtful if the agitation for free trade would have been successful but for the Volunteers. The Volunteer Movement originated in a most laudable determination to resist foreign invasion. It commenced in the North, and though at first exclusively Protestant, and organized by a few of the leading families, it spread rapidly over the whole country, and soon included Catholics in its ranks. By 1779 there were, it is estimated, 40,000 Volunteers in arms. They were truly, and in all
152 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
respects, " volunteers "; they were armed and equipped and clothed at their own expense, and were officered by men of their own choice, gener- ally gentlemen of high position and large property in the country. They were loyal to the Crown and to the British connection ; but they were with equal intensity determined to win freedom of trade for their country. They were soldiers, but citizen- soldiers, and citizens first. Through them Ireland for once spoke with a united voice, and Ireland won the day.
In October, 1779, a resolution was unanimously passed by the House of Commons to the effect that nothing but " free trade " — in other words, freedom to trade, freedom from the disabilities imposed by former English and Irish Parliaments — would save the country from ruin. The resolution was carried to the Lord-Lieutenant by peers and members of the House of Commons, walking in procession through lines of armed Volunteers extending the whole way from the Houses of Parliament to the Castle. The Government and the British Parlia- ment gave way, and by the beginning of 1780 various Acts of Parliament prohibiting the exporta- tion of Irish goods were repealed, and trade with the English settlements and plantations was thrown open. Ireland discovered her power when united ; she had learned that Parliament, backed by a body far more representative of the nation than Parlia- ment itself — namely, the Volunteers — could not be
GRATTAN'S CAMPAIGN 153
resisted. Having completed so much in obtaining freedom of trade, men naturally began to consider whether the independence of Parliament was not necessary in order to retain what they had achieved. It was argued that the British Parliament which gave could also take away, and that Ireland had no security against the re-enactment of oppressive laws. Moreover, a very strong national sentiment animated the Volunteers and the classes from which they sprung. They desired not only freedom of trade, but freedom of religion, and relief from disabilities also. Both sentimental and practical reasons of great cogency existed for demanding the independence of Parliament. On the other hand, it was felt by many in Parliament, and strongly urged, that great concessions had been obtained, and that to press immediately for further measures was ungenerous, and perhaps scarcely decent. But the nation was determined to safe- guard itself; Grattan took up the popular cause, and his arguments and eloquence prevailed. On April 19, 1780, he proposed the following resolu- tion in the House of Commons :
" That the King s Most Excellent Majesty and the Lords and Commons of Ireland are the only power competent to make laws to bind Ireland."
No vote took place upon this resolution — the direct issue was evaded by dilatory amendments —
154 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
but the effect of the resolution and of Grattan's speech roused the whole country.
On February 15, 1782, the famous meeting of delegates of the Ulster Volunteers took place at Dungannon. Among many other pregnant resolu- tions, the following was passed :
" That a claim of any body of men other than the King, Lords and Commons of Ire- land, to make laws to bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a grievance,
" That the powers exercised by the Privy Councils of Great Britain and Ireland under, or under colour or pretence of, the law of Poynings are unconstitutional, and a grievance."
Just a week later Grattan moved an address to the Crown to assure His Majesty that " the people of Ireland were a free people, the crown of Ire- land an Imperial crown, and the kingdom of Ireland a distinct kingdom, with a Parliament of its own, the sole legislator thereof; that by their fundamental laws and franchises the subjects of this separate kingdom could not be bound, affected, or pledged by any Legislature save only by the King, Lords and Commons of His Majesty's realm of Ireland ; nor was there any other body of men who had power or authority to make laws for them; that in this privilege was contained the very essence of their liberty."
IRISH "INDEPENDENCE" 155
GRATTAN'S VICTORY FOR IRELAND.
On this no distinct issue was taken ; a motion for adjournment was agreed to, and Parliament was prorogued on March 14. But the battle was won. When Parliament met again on April 16 the Lord-Lieutenant read the following message from the King :
" His Majesty, being concerned to find that discontents and jealousies were prevailing among his loyal subjects in Ireland upon matters of great weight and importance, recommends Parliament to take the same into their most serious consideration in order to effect such a final adjustment as may give mutual satisfaction to his kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland."
Grattan accepted the message from the Crown as presaging legislative independence, but he enumerated the conditions he considered essential. These conditions were—
1. The repeal of the Perpetual Mutiny
Bill, and the dependency of the Irish Army upon the Irish people.
2. Abolition of the legislative power of the
Council.
3. The abrogation of the claim of England
to make laws for Ireland.
4. The exclusion of the English House of
156 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
Peers and of the English King's Bench from any judicial authority in Ireland. 5. The restoration of the Irish Peers to their final judicature, and the inde- pendence of the Irish Parliament in its sole and exclusive legislature.
Grattan was right in his surmise that the meaning of the King's message was that the independence of the Irish Legislature would be granted. That independence was enacted by three statutes, one Irish and two British. Poynings' Law having been enacted by the Irish Parliament, it was necessary for the Irish Parliament to deal with that question, and an Act was accordingly passed providing —
" That the Lord-Lieutenant or other chief governor of Ireland was to certify to the King in such Bills, and none other, as both Houses of Parliament in Ireland should certify to be enacted under the Great Seal of Ireland without alteration.
" That such of the same as should be returned under the Great Seal of Great Britain without alteration, and none other, should pass in the Parliament of Ireland.
" That no Bill should be certified as a cause or consideration to hold a Parliament in Ire- land, and that Parliament might be holden without any Bill being certified, but not with-
IRELAND A NATION 157
out licence for that purpose being first had and obtained from the King under the Great Seal of Great Britain."
The British Statutes were, first, the Statute of Repeal, which repealed Statute 6 of George L, which laid down the dependence of the Irish Par- liament, and, secondly, the Renunciation Act, which declared —
" That the right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the Parliament of that king- dom in all cases whatsoever, and to have all actions and suits at law or in equity which might be instituted in that kingdom in His Majesty's Courts therein decided finally and without appeal, from thence was established and ascertained for ever."
Thus at long last the Irish Parliament became the unconditioned, independent instrument of a free people. The spirit *of unity struggling through the centuries, and materializing in the great Volun- teer Movement, made a nation ; and the nation won freedom for its Parliament — nominally, at least. But, in truth, the freedom was somewhat illusive and the independence far from real.
AN ILLUSIVE INDEPENDENCE.
The whole executive power remained in the hands of the British Government through their
158 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
nominee, the Lord-Lieutenant, and legislative autonomy without the sanction of administrative power can scarcely be said to confer independence. The Lord-Lieutenant controlled all patronage, and under those circumstances a really free Parliament could not exist. In days when so large a propor- tion of members of the House of Commons sat for small close boroughs, which were the property of a few influential individuals, the Executive was able, through the use — or abuse — of patronage largely to control that branch of the Legislature. Bills passed by the Irish Parliament required the assent of the Crown under the Great Seal of Great Britain — in other words, of the King and his Eng- lish Ministers. Theoretically, the Crown exercises the right of veto at will. Practically the royal assent to Bills is withheld only on the advice of responsible Ministers — i.e., of the Cabinet. Theo- retically, the Cabinet is a committee of the Privy Council ; practically, it is a committee of the party in power. Measures passed by the British Legisla- ture received the royal assent by the advice of the King's British Ministers, and these Ministers repre- sented the majority in the British House of Com- mons. But the case of Ireland was quite different. Irish Bills were not recommended for the royal assent by the King's Irish Ministers. They were submitted to his British Ministers, and on their advice could be disallowed. The Irish Legislature could legislate as it pleased, but to make its legisla-
POWER OF THE PURSE 159
tion effective, the consent of British Ministers who were responsible to the British House of Commons had to be obtained. It must be remembered, also, that the power of the purse, wielded so effectually by the British House of Commons, was of com- paratively little value to the Irish House of Commons. The hereditary revenue of the Crown constituted the principal source of income from Ireland. The Crown was not dependent for supply on the Irish Legislature to anything like the same degree as it was dependent upon the British Legislature.
The status of the Irish Legislature, as established by statute, was that of a sovereign independent Parliament, and was, no doubt, far superior to the position it had occupied at any previous period. But, nevertheless, for the reasons above mentioned, the British Parliament was de facto supreme, and Ireland did not attain that position of absolute equality with Great Britain which Grattan claimed as her due. That such a position would be incon- sistent with the relative circumstances of the two islands as they now exist may be conceded, but the claim was not unreasonable at the time when it was made. The disparity in population and wealth between England and Ireland in 1782 was nothing like so great as it is now.
There was nothing, therefore, incongruous in the aspiration to equality as between the two kingdoms ; nor is it perhaps surprising that Grattan
160 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
felt satisfied that the equality granted by the three enfranchising statutes would be maintained. In both Great Britain and Ireland the franchise was very limited; Government was controlled by the propertied classes. Grattan was a liberal-minded man ; he was ready to relieve the Roman Catholic population of all social and economic disabilities, and to place them politically on a level with their Protestant fellow-countrymen ; but the idea of throwing all political power into their hands by a great extension of the franchise never entered into his head. He was not actuated by religious prejudice or animosity. His whole conception of the State was government by the landed gentry. The vast majority of landowners were Protestants hold- ing their estates under the Acts of Settlement, in close sympathy with the governing classes in Great Britain, strongly attached to the connection with Great Britain by religious and other ties. Political power in Ireland was almost exclusively vested in the owners of property, and Grattan assumed it would so remain.
Nevertheless it is strange that a man of such pre-eminent talents as Grattan did not see the viciousness inherent in the Charter of Irish In- dependence. A partnership between two nations co-equal in law but unequal in fact, based on co- equality of their Parliaments, and therefore con- straining the more powerful partner to assert itself by indirect and underhand means, is the very worst
IRISH TRADE 161
form of partnership that could be devised. The Irish Parliament was either too strong or not strong enough, and it is curious that the fatal blot was riot perceived.
AN "INDEPENDENT" IRELAND.
It was not very long before events occurred indicating the precarious nature of the relations existing between the two Parliaments ; and indeed it looks as though almost from the outset Fate had determined to indicate the nature of the differences of opinion which could possibly arise, and to furnish examples of all the causes of friction most likely to occur in internal affairs, in external affairs, and over a purely constitutional question.
In 1780 statutes were enacted by the British Parliament annulling the restrictions that had been imposed on the trade from Ireland to the Colonies and dependencies, and restrictions on the exports of some Irish manufactures were also removed. But all restrictions had not been abolished, and no compact had been entered into preventing the British Parliament from re-imposing laws affecting colonial trade. These matters attracted a great deal of attention during the winter of 1784-85, owing to the distress which then prevailed in Ireland. A Committee was appointed to inquire into the state of Irish trade and manufactures, and its report was followed by an address to the Crown
from the House of Commons to the effect — " That
11
162 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
a well- digested plan for a liberal arrangement of commercial intercourse between Great Britain and Ireland would be the most effectual means of strengthening the Empire at large, and of cherish- ing the common interests and brotherly affection of both kingdoms." Pitt, who was Prime Minister, adopted the views of the Irish House of Commons. His opinion, as stated by himself at a later period, appears to have been that the legislation of 1782 and 1783 was only of the nature of demolition, and that a constructive measure as a final adjust- ment of the relations between the two kingdoms was desirable.
The difficulty concerning commercial relations was complicated by the intrusion of another matter calling for arrangement. In 1782 it was sought to impose upon Ireland an obligation to contribute to the maintenance of the naval establishment, and it occurred to Pitt to make this a quid pro quo for the commercial concessions he determined to ask the British Parliament to make to Ireland. Pitt, therefore, answered the address of the Irish House of Commons by proposals for a final settlement of the commercial relations between the two kingdoms in what were styled the " Commercial Propositions." They were satisfactory to Ireland, for Pitt was wise in his generation, and in framing his proposals con- sulted Joshua Pirn, an eminent member of a mer- cantile family in Dublin, and John Foster, one of the ablest men that Ireland has ever produced, who was
PITT'S NEW PROPOSITIONS 163
afterwards Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. At the same time proposals were made that any surplus of the increasing hereditary revenue, which at that time amounted to about £650,000 a year, should be allocated to the naval establishment. In order to meet objections in Ireland this proposition was altered by defining the surplus as, " whatever sum accrued above the fixed sum of £656,000 in each year of peace wherein the annual revenues would equal the annual expense, and in each year of war without regard to such equality." It was hoped that both the Empire and Ireland would benefit by the proposals.
The Propositions would in all probability have been accepted by the Irish Parliament ; but they met with a fierce resistance in the British House of Commons, and an agitation against them arose among English merchants and manufacturers, jealous of the effect of Irish industry on their trade, of so violent a character as to compel Pitt to with- draw them, and to substitute other Propositions, twenty in number. The most important alteration was a new clause to the effect that — " It was highly important to the general interests of the British Empire that the laws for regulating trade and navi- gation should be the same in Great Britain and Ireland, and that therefore it was essential for carry- ing into effect the present settlement that all laws which had been made or should be made in Great Britain for securing exclusive privileges to the ships
164 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
and mariners of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Colonies and plantations, and for regulating and retaining the trade of the British Colonies and plantations, such laws imposing the same restric- tions and conferring the same benefits on the subjects of both kingdoms, should be in force in Ireland by laws to be passed by the Parliament of that kingdom for the same time and in the same manner as in Great Britain." This clause was very naturally objected to by the Irish Parliament on the obvious ground that it amounted to the sur- render of the legislative rights which had been conceded in 1782 ; and that by compelling the Irish Parliament to accept the commercial legis- lation of England the independence of the former body would be lost. Moreover, it was argued that if the principle involved as regards trade was once adopted, it could be, and would be, extended to other matters — such, for example, as the Army, the Mutiny Act, and taxation. The Propositions were, therefore, rejected by the Irish House of Commons, and the matter dropped.
FRICTION BETWEEN ENGLAND AND IRELAND.
In 1782 the restrictions upon the exportation of wool were, among other things, abolished, and the Irish Parliament claimed that Irish wool should have access into Portugal in the same manner as English wool. This, however, was refused by the Portuguese Government, and the Irish Parliament
THE REGENCY DIFFICULTY 165
addressed the Crown, insisting that Irish wool should be admitted by Portugal, a proceeding which, if it had been adopted, would have led to a breach of the friendly relations between Great Britain and Portugal. One of two things might have happened. Either the relations of Great Britain with a friendly Power might have been disturbed contrary to the wish of the British Parliament and the British Ministers, or Ireland might have become involved in a war in which Great Britain refused to be a party.
Another indication of the precarious nature of the bonds between the two countries was given in 1789 when the King was affected with a mental infirmity which rendered him unable to fulfil the functions of royalty. The regal authority had to be exercised by someone. The British Parliament, holding that it was competent not only to select the person, but also to define the powers which he was to possess, chose the Prince of Wales, and in a Regency Bill prescribed the rights and duties of his office. But the Irish Parliament treated the Prince of Wales as rightfully entitled to act, and invited him to assume the government of Ireland during the continuance of the King's illness, without imposing any restrictions whatever upon his power. Fortunately the King recovered his health, other- wise a very curious state of affairs would have arisen ; in Ireland, the Prince of Wales would have possessed all the prerogatives and attributes of the
166 PARLIAMENTARY INSTITUTIONS
King, whereas in Great Britain he would have only possessed such powers as Parliament might choose to endow him with.
PITT'S VIEWS ON FEDERATION.
Thus in a very few years questions had arisen in connection with internal trade, in connection with external relations with foreign Powers, and in connection with a great constitutional question on which the Legislatures of Great Britain and Ireland found themselves divided. No constitutional means for reconciling such differences existed, and the minds of English statesmen turned to a legisla- tive union as the best, if not the only, means of solving a problem fraught with danger to the State.
And other causes, also, were working in the same direction. The sympathies of the Presby- terians in the North of Ireland, great numbers of whom had settled in America, had been deeply stirred in favour of the Colonists in the War of Independence. Revolutionary doctrines and ten- dencies, emanating from France, were making themselves apparent among the whole population in Ireland. England was engaged in a life and death struggle. She was putting forth all her strength to save Europe from French domination ; and at a time when Ireland, under the influence of new forces and clamouring for the redress of grievances, seemed to be the most vulnerable point in the British system,
PITT'S HOPES 167
it is not strange that the great statesman at the head of affairs should have turned his attention to a legislative union as the best means of consolidat- ing the strength of Great Britain, and of enabling him to cope with enemies abroad and with revolu- tionary doctrine at home. He appears also to have been animated by other considerations. He desired to complete Catholic Emancipation, and to make a suitable provision for the bishops and clergy of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. The claims of Roman Catholics for relief in all matters affecting their right to hold property, and their social condition generally, were ably advocated in the Irish Parliament, and at a later period, in 1793, the Irish Parliament admitted them to the franchise. But a strong and influential party in the Irish Legislature, led by Lord Clare, was active in putting the brake on all political and religious reform, and Pitt, apparently mistrusting the Irish Parliament, felt that his projects for the benefit of the great majority of the people of Ireland could be more easily and surely carried out through the instrumentality of a union of the two Legislatures. He thought that with the Protestant minority in Ireland joined to the Protestant majority in Great Britain, and with the Established Church in Ireland united to the Established Church in England, the Irish Protestants would feel so secure that no furthur objection could be raised against granting the franchise, and the right to sit
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in Parliament, to Catholics ; or to a State pro- vision for their clergy.
EARLY IRISH PROJECTS FOR UNION.
It was with all these forces acting upon them that English statesmen turned their eyes wistfully towards the project of a legislative union which, after all, was no new thing. A legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland had been an accomplished fact on at least two occasions in their history. In 1376, in the reign of Edward III., a mandate was issued directing that the Irish clergy of each diocese should send two persons, and the Irish counties, cities, and boroughs, also each two persons, to England, to treat, consult, and agree with the King and his Council ; and in 1654, during the Commonwealth, Ireland sent thirty representatives to the English Parliament sitting in London. Many able men had from time to time advocated a union.
In 1703, during the reign of Queen Anne, the Irish House of Lords passed a resolution to the effect that a representation should be made to Queen Anne to induce her to promote the policy of union, so as to qualify the States of Ireland to be represented in Parliament in England. The House of Commons, also, in an address, referred to a more strict union with her Majesty's subjects in England ; and in 1707 the same House, congratulating the Queen on the completion of the Scottish Union,
IRISH OPINION 169
added an emphatic prayer, that — " God might put it into her heart to add greater strength and lustre to her Crown by a yet more comprehensive union."
In 1698 Molyneux published a treatise entitled : " The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England, Stated." Molyneux de- serves to stand high in the estimation of Irishmen as a patriot, for boldly proclaiming the twin doctrines that Ireland was not a conquered country, and that the Parliament of England had no power to bind the people and kingdom of Ireland. But, though strongly asserting those views, Molyneux appears to have been favourably impressed with the idea of a union. He argued that if the Parliament of England was to bind Ireland, the latter country ought to have its repre- sentatives in it. "And this," he observed, "I believe we should be willing enough to embrace, but this is a happiness we can hardly hope for."
A legislative union was advocated by many able writers on economic science, as, for instance, by Adam Smith and by Montesquieu. "Were I," said the latter, " an Irishman, I should certainly wish for a union between Ireland and England, and as a general lover of liberty I sin- cerely desire it, and for this plain reason, that an inferior country connected with one much her superior in force can never be certain of constitu- tional freedom unless she has by her representatives a proportional share in the legislature of the
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superior kingdom." But these expressions of opinion were merely academic. As a matter of practical politics the idea of a legislative union fell into abeyance until it was revived by Pitt.
Pitt had been turning over the question of a legislative union in his mind before events forced him into action. Writing to the Duke of Rutland in 1785, he said that he " wanted to make England and Ireland one country in effect, though for local concerns under distinct legislatures." Pitt's conception of a union was very different in character to that of the union which eventually took place. It was founded on the great principle of federation, and there is in fact little difference between Pitt's ideas as to the relations that should exist between Great Britain and Ireland and the views put forward by the Irish Reform Association in 1903, or set out in a resolution passed by the House of Commons in 1908. It is worthy of note that Pitt's theory of a settlement of Irish questions a century and a quarter ago in- volved an Irish Legislature controlling Irish affairs, Catholic Emancipation, and State Provision for the Catholic clergy. How different would be the pages of modern Irish history had these wise intentions been carried out !
In 1785 the idea of a legislative union com- mended itself, for the reasons I have mentioned, to British Ministers. It was also supported by great commercial interests in Great Britain, but it was
SANGUINE PROPHETS 171
deemed impracticable owing to the vehement opposition to be encountered in Ireland.
But events moved fast. The Rebellion of '98 and the landing of French troops precipitated action, and in 1799 proposals for a legislative union had taken definite shape.
ARGUMENTS FOR THE UNION.
Of the nature of the struggle that took place in connection with the Union, the arguments for and against it, and the popular feeling evinced, it is difficult, if not impossible, to treat within the limits of a short sketch. The arguments for the measure were, in the main, of a material character.
That the Union would raise Ireland to the level of Great Britain in wealth and material prosperity, and that peace and contentment would ensue, was confidently predicted. It was said that under the Union a large and constant stream of English capital would flow into a country greatly in need of it, and that the development of the natural resources of Ireland would become a special object of Imperial policy. When two countries, differ- ing widely in their industrial, commercial, agri- cultural, and economic development are identified in government, policy, and interests, they must, it was claimed, inevitably attain to the same level. English capital would naturally find its employ- ment in the undeveloped resources of Ireland, and trade would flourish. Cork, already the emporium
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of provisions for the British Navy and the refuge for homeward-bound convoys in time of war, would be converted into a great maritime station, with dockyards like those of Plymouth and Portsmouth, and would become one of the greatest commercial ports in the United Kingdom. Landed property worth about twenty years' purchase in Ireland would rise to the English level of from thirty to forty years' purchase. The prosperity of Ireland would, it was confidently asserted, be assured.
It was predicted that, along with stability of property, stability of the Episcopal Church would be guaranteed. Protestants were told that the security of their tenure of land, and the existence of the Established Church, depended upon the absorption of Ireland, a country in which the great majority of the people were Roman Catholics and the descendants of expropriated forefathers, into Great Britain, a Protestant country, whose concern it would be to protect Protestant interests in Ireland. The whole power of the Empire — a Protestant Empire — would be pledged to the Church Estab- lishment of Ireland, and the property of the whole Empire would be used to support the property of every part. Catholics were assured that when they became part of a great whole, and could not pos- sibly be any longer feared as a dominating force in Ireland, they would obtain full religious and political concessions. Emancipation, admission to Parliament, and a State provision for their clergy,
IRISH OPPOSITION 173
were dangled before their eyes. The Protestant Dissenters in the North were invited to believe that their political importance would be enormously increased by fusion with the Protestant Dissenters of Great Britain.
The trading and manufacturing classes were appealed to on the ground that in representation in the British Parliament lay their only real security against the possibly evil effects upon them of British regulations of trade and commerce. Nor was sentiment neglected. The superior position which Ireland would occupy as part and parcel of a great United Kingdom was dilated upon.
On the other hand, it was said that neither material prosperity, nor security for property and religion, could be guaranteed by a legislative union. Could the Articles of Union, it was argued, restrict the power of an omnipotent Parliament ? Was it not possible that the day might come when the descendants of the Irish Protestants who agreed to the Union would find themselves a small and unimportant minority in an Imperial Parliament, vainly struggling against the violation of the most fundamental articles of that Act of Union ?
OPPOSITION TO THE UNION.
Irish statesmen contended that the material interests of Ireland could not be safely entrusted to a British Assembly. They dreaded the moral effects of the Union in undermining respect for
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law, in promoting absenteeism, in weakening the power of the landed gentry, and thus destroying a guiding influence which, in the peculiar condi- tions of Ireland, was regarded by them as essential to the well-being of the country. They foresaw that identification of legislatures would lead to an assimilation of exchequers, and that one result of the Union would infallibly be to impose a burden of taxation upon Ireland far heavier than she could bear.
Grattan believed that the great work of uniting into one people the severed elements of Irish life could only be attained by the strong guidance of the local gentry of both religions acting together in a national legislature, and appealing to a national sentiment ; and he dreaded, with intense fear, the consequences to Ireland " if the guidance of her people passed into the hands of dishonest, dis- reputable, and disloyal adventurers." He con- tended that anarchy, and not order, would be the result of the Union; that the Government in Ireland would be fatally discredited, and would lose all its moral force ; and that, as regards taxation, the Irish contributions would prove beyond the capacity of the country.
In the British House of Commons apprehensions were expressed that the infusion of Irish members into the British Parliament would add an over- whelming weight to the influence of the Crown ; and great danger to parliamentary government
PROTESTS AGAINST UNION 175
was anticipated if the Irish members were to form a distinct and separate body acting in concert amid the play of party politics — a solid phalanx to be cast to the one side or the other to attain some distinctive Irish goal. Lawrence, who opposed the Union in the House of Commons, was apprehen- sive that in such circumstances Parliament might find the public business impeded in its progress.
Foster, the Speaker of the Irish House of Com- mons, in reply to the argument that the Union would tend to tranquillize Ireland and raise the tone of its civilization, asked the very natural question : " If a resident Parliament and resident gentry could not soften manners, amend habits, and promote social intercourse, will no Parliament and fewer resident gentry do it ?" The greatest misfortune of the kingdom, he said, was the large class of middlemen who intervened between the owners and the actual occupiers of the soil. These middlemen were mostly to be found on the estates of absentees; and Foster, and, indeed, all opponents of the Union, prophesied that the death of the Irish Parliament, and all it represented, would lead to an increase of absenteeism disastrous to the tenantry, and involving the degradation of Dublin as the social and political centre of Ireland.
Lord Charlemont believed that the Union would contribute more than any other measure to the separation of the two countries, the perpetual con- nection of which was, he said, one of the warmest
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wishes of his heart. Indeed, all the most prominent members of the Opposition warned the Govern- ment again and again that if the Union was carried by the means employed, and at the time when the measure was introduced, it would not be tolerated, and would hereafter lead to generations of disloyalty, agitation, and strife ; and, in the British House of Lords, Lord Grey predicted that a Union so carried would not be acquiesced in, and that attempts would one day be made to undo it.
In their final protest entered on the Journals of the House of Commons, the Opposition declared that a non-resident Parliament would not be likely to combat disaffection with the same promptitude and energy as a resident Parliament ; and they pre- dicted that the Union would be followed by the removal or abasement of the men of property and respectability, which would leave room for political agitators and men with talent but without principle or property, to disturb and irritate the public mind. Knox, who was secretary to Lord Castlereagh, also anticipated a degradation of the authority of law. "The Union," he said, "calculated as it is to confer both local and moral benefit, might become the source of irreparable mischief, both to Ireland and the Empire, because disturbance will, as much as ever, require summary means of suppression, and those means can no longer have the same sanction as was given them by a resident Parliament."
And sentiment was appealed to. It was argued
HISTORY'S VERDICT 177
that Ireland was asked to surrender her separate existence and all her hard-won constitutional rights for a mess of pottage of very small dimensions ; whereas it was certain that great strides in pros- perity had been made by the country during the short existence of Grattan's Parliament, it was very uncertain whether any material advantage would be derived from the Union. And even if Ireland did benefit materially, how, it was urged, could Ireland think of sacrificing her con- stitution and national existence for any advantages, be they ever so great ?
THE UNION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
How far all these various prophecies have or have not been fulfilled in detail must be left to the judgment of those who know something of the history of the last hundred years, but of this there can be no doubt — the prognostications of evil, enormous increase of taxation, discredit of law and order, absenteeism, degradation of industry and loss of trade, have been amply fulfilled, while the smooth sayings, the immense development of the agricultural resources of the country, the great influx of British capital, the creation of large com- mercial centres in Irish ports and harbours, over- brimming prosperity, and, as a result, a peaceful and contented people, have been utterly falsified by events. Yet it was not, perhaps, unnatural that people should have hoped much from the
12
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Union with the example of Scotland before them.
The union between Great Britain and Ireland produced effects exactly the opposite of those resulting from the union between England and Scotland. In Scotland the people, at the time of the Union and for a considerable time after, were violently hostile to it, but, becoming reconciled after a time, they utilized it and prospered greatly. In Ireland, under martial law and overawed by a great military force, no active signs of hostility made themselves immediately evident. The people accepted the Union with indifference, but they did not become reconciled to the change. They did not become prosperous, and, not prospering, their hostility became more and more marked.
This difference is not difficult to account for. The sense of nationality in Scotland was not shocked by the union with England as Irish nationality was shocked by the union with Great Britain. Scotland had evidenced her nationality in a long line of kings and under constitutional government. Her King had become King of England, and, so far as royalty was concerned, Scotland had annexed England. Scotland and England became united as long established equals mutually self-respecting. The two kingdoms were not divided by sea, the populations merged gradu- ally together, sundered only by an imaginary line. No religious differences of a serious character
THE SCOTTISH UNION 179
separated them. Scotland was financially and in every respect well equipped to take every advan- tage that the Union offered, and after the first feeling of resentment passed away, her energetic sons turned the Union to their own ends with persistence and daring. Everything beneficial predicted of the Union took place. In recom- mending it to the Scottish Parliament, Queen Anne said that "it would secure the religion, liberty, and prosperity of the Scottish people, remove animosities among them and jealousies and differences with England ; that it would increase their strength, riches, and trade ; that, as a conse- quence, the whole island, freed from apprehension of different interests, would be able to resist its enemies and maintain the liberties of Europe." Not one syllable of that prediction has failed to come true. The case of Ireland was very different. Ireland had been struggling through centuries of destruction, contumely and contempt, to main- tain nationality, and surrendered the material evidence of it — her Parliament — almost on the morrow of victory. Prostrated by the Rebel- lion of 1798, under martial law, overawed by a military occupation, the people languidly acqui- esced in a measure against which they revolted as they recovered tone and strength. Stormy seas interposed between Great Britain and Ireland ; the two peoples were cleft by a radical difference of religion.
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Ireland was, and is, distinct from Great Britain in a far greater degree than Scotland was, or is, from England. Ireland absorbs and is not ab- sorbed ; she assimilates and is not assimilated. No portion of the globe is inhabited by people of more mixed blood. Yet, in spite of that, in spite of annihilations and colonizations and plantations, Ireland remains Ireland and the people remain Irish in a sense and to an extent that craves insatiably for some outward expression of distinct national life.
The trade of Ireland was just beginning to revive, but she did not possess the accumulated capital or other resources necessary to enable her to take advantage of the Union. She was de- frauded. The promises of remedial measures to accompany the Union were not fulfilled. In her case it is no exaggeration to say that all the evil and none of the good that was anticipated from the Union became evident in its results.
THE CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE.
During the discussion, the question of the power of Parliament to enact its own destruction was raised. It was contended on one side that by the Act of Union the Irish Parliament and the Irish people would be merged with the British Parlia- ment and the British people ; that that merger was equivalent to self-destruction, arid that Parlia- ment had no authority to destroy itself or the
THE NATION NOT CONSULTED 181
nation. Power was, it was argued, only delegated to Parliament by the people. Parliament occupied the position of a trustee, and was bound to preserve its trust intact. On the other side, it was claimed that, as under a despotic Monarchy all power lay with the Sovereign, so under a limited Monarchy all power lay with the Sovereign and Parliament ; that there was no limit upon Parliament, save that of the Crown, known to the constitution of either kingdom, and that, therefore, any Bill of Parlia- ment was valid and binding after becoming an Act by the royal assent. This discussion appears to me to be somewhat of an academic character. It is one which, as no authority exists competent to decide upon it, might be argued for ever, and it is one, therefore, of very little practical value. That, however, is not the case with another argument raised against the validity of the Union and the circumstances under which it was passed. It was urged with great cogency that Parliament had no right to abolish itself without an appeal to the people. Ireland was quaking and shaking from the effects of the Rebellion of 1798. The people were torn by conflicting emotions. The country was under martial law, thoroughly occupied by over 100,000 troops, overawed by the military forces of the Crown. It was impossible for the people in such circumstances to form a sane and sound opinion on a great constitutional change, or freely to express their opinion if they had been
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able to form one. Nor were the people given a chance of making their wishes felt in the legitimate and constitutional way. Again and again the Op- position pressed for a dissolution and an appeal to the constituencies, but their demands were refused.
To pretend that a Parliament, elected before pro- positions for an union of the Legislatures had been put forward, had any right to terminate its own exist- ence and that of the nation by passing a Bill for the amalgamation of the two Legislatures is to stretch the powers of Parliament far beyond the bounds of reason. It was iniquitous to ask the Irish people, situated as they then were, to pronounce upon a question involving the maintenance or destruction of their existence as an independent kingdom.
Whatever may be thought of the matter on its merits, it must be admitted that the moment chosen for the application of the principle of a union was not propitious. Ireland had little to gain by it, and much to lose. She had won a measure of inde- pendence only a short time before. Her champions were, most of them, still in the fighting line. She was flushed with recent victory, animated by a strong sense of nationality ; she had prospered greatly under her own Parliament ; she was con- scious of, and confident in, her own strength ; she was very properly proud of the eloquence and ability of her statesmen, and of the high esteem in which her Parliament was universally held ; she was shaken by the convulsions of a great Rebellion ;
SUBORNED BY CORRUPTION 183
she could scarcely be expected to weigh dispas- sionately proposals involving the abdication of her status as a free people, her position as a distinct kingdom, and the constitutional rights which she had so lately won.
POPULAR OPINION AS TO UNION. It is, I think, generally supposed that the Union was carried by gross bribery and corruption, and contrary to the universal desire of the people. There is an element of exaggeration in this view. It is true that Parliament was suborned by a deliberate system of corruption unequalled and unparalleled even in an age in which such methods were commonly resorted to in political warfare. It is quite certain that without wholesale corruption, Parliament would never have ac- cepted the measure, but it is doubtful to what extent the people were hostile to it. From the materials available it is very difficult to follow the trend of popular opinion during the struggle. Rapid changes appear to have taken place. Localities and interests, at one time reported as unfavourable, were at another time said to be favourable to the scheme, and vice versa. One month's report differed from another. The agents of the Government were busy through the country threatening, persuading, and bribing. Parliament was not really representative, and under the cir- cumstances then existing — martial law and the
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occupation of the country by great masses of troops — petitions and resolutions signed by corporations and other bodies cannot be depended upon as indicative of popular opinion.
Official accounts cannot be trusted, but, never- theless, the truth appears to be that men's minds were very unsettled. The prospect was of the nature of a leap in the dark. People did not know what the result would be, and they were swayed by various and varying considerations. In many cases the self-interest of individuals, of localities, and of classes, conflicted with the sense of nation- ality, and even as regards the national interest, differences of opinion were honestly held. Dublin was consistently and violently opposed to the Union. As the capital and seat of the Legisla- ture, Dublin had everything to lose, and Dublin strenuously fought against the Union to the bitter end. Other cities oscillated. Cork and Limerick were, at one time at any rate, in favour of the Union. Cork, it was supposed, would, from its geographical position and magnificent harbour, become a great naval station, and a commercial rival of Bristol, Liverpool, and the Port of London. Protestant opinion in the North, where Protestants were numerous and strong, was usually strongly opposed to the Union. In the South, Protestant opinion was naturally against the measure, but in- clined to favour it, being influenced by the terrible scenes which had lately occurred at Wexford
THE UNITED IRISHMEN 185
during the Rebellion of '98. The mercantile classes were, as a rule, opposed to the Union. The scheme commended itself to the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and the principal Roman Catholic landed gentry as guaranteeing, as they were led to believe, complete emancipation and the payment of the clergy, and the Roman Catholic population were naturally inclined to follow their lead. The legal profession was, almost to a man, dead against the Union, and the law provided some of the most eloquent and energetic opponents of the measure. The United Irishmen, despairing of obtaining reform from the Irish Parliament, hated that Par- liament for being under English influence, and espoused the cause of the Union in order to destroy it. The Orangemen, of whom the Volunteers were largely composed, were extremely hostile to the Union. As to the leaders, the principal pro- tagonists and antagonists were — Pitt and Sheridan in Great Britain ; and in the Irish Parliament the Chancellor, Lord Clare, and Foster, the Speaker of the House of Commons.
THE FINAL ACT.
In eloquence, arguments, and, certainly it may be said, in honesty of conviction, the Opposition were vastly superior to the Government ; but neither honesty nor argument nor eloquence could avail against the corruption so lavishly employed. Peer- ages and advancements, places and pensions and
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emoluments of all kinds, were showered broadcast ; and members of the Opposition were, wherever possible, deprived of all the places and emoluments that they held. The extent to which Parliament had been suborned may be gathered from a letter of the Lord -Lieutenant — Lord Cornwallis — in which he says that half of the supporters of the Government would, in their hearts, have been only too glad if the measure had been thrown out. But that was not to be. On May 26, 1800, the Bill was read a second time in the House of Commons. After that, though some further discussion took place on details, there was no heart in it, and most of the Opposition withdrew from the House when the Bill was read a third time on June 7. The Bill then passed the House of Lords, twenty peers entering a solemn protest against it in the Journal of the House. Thus the Irish Parliament, by its own act and deed, abolished itself only nineteen years after it had achieved its reputed independence, and with it abolished the symbol and outward and visible signs of Irish nationality.
That many members of both Houses voted for the Union in the honest and honourable conviction that it would be for the benefit of their country, is undoubtedly true ; and that the Bill received a large measure of support in the country is equally certain. But it is clear, also, that without bribery and corruption it could never have been passed, and that the majority of the people were opposed to it.
GRATTAN'S DOUBTS 187
Towards the end public interest flagged ; the thing was inevitable, and the people seem to have re- cognized it. Thomas Goold, one of the most energetic opponents of the measure, lamented in his last speech that public sentiment did not keep pace with the Opposition in the House of Com- mons. No popular demonstration took place after the passing of the Act. The counties were, prac- tically speaking, the only free constituencies, and no county candidate was rejected on account of having voted for the Union.
The principal members of the Opposition, to their undying credit, accepted the situation. They fought the Bill with conspicuous ability and un- tiring energy, and, having done their utmost to preserve the liberties of their country, and finding themselves defeated, subordinated their convic- tions and opinions to their patriotism, and an- nounced their desire and intention to do all in their power to ensure the success of a measure which they cordially disliked. But they were very doubtful of the future. Grattan appears to have had but little faith in the lasting character of a union accomplished by such nefarious means. " The constitution may," he said, " be for a time lost ; the character of the country cannot be so lost." Foster, Goold, Plunket, Bushe, Saurin, Lord Corry, Ponsonby, all used language of a similar kind. They declared that had the country not been divided and weakened by the Rebellion of
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'98, and had it not been occupied by a great military force, the measure could never have been passed. Its passage was, they said, accomplished by bribery and corruption, contrary to the wishes of the constituencies, and they feared the worst consequences from its enactment.
Nothing is, as a rule, more unprofitable than attempting to portray what might have been ; but to every rule there is an exception, and it may be useful to consider what would have been the course of history if the Union had not been forced through at a most unpropitious moment, and by most ne- farious means ; and if Pitt had only had his way.
Judging by the proceedings of the Irish Par- liament during the last few years of its short existence, and by the utterances of public men, remembering that the Catholics had been admitted to the franchise, it may be taken, I think, for granted, that parliamentary reform and the removal of disabilities would have been gradually undertaken by the native Legislature ; and it is certainly reasonable to assume that the great revival in trade and general prosperity that manifested itself would have continued and have grown in strength. That a legislative union would have sooner or later taken place, I have not the slightest doubt; but had the national sentiment been given time to solidify, had the trading and commercial instincts of the people been allowed the opportunity to develop and
FEDERALISM 189
materialize in acquired wealth and accumulated capital, propositions for a union would have been received in a very different spirit, very different means would have been employed to recommend it, and if carried it would have pro- duced very different results. And it would have been a union of a different kind, a federal union of the nature originally contemplated by Pitt. Pitt desired to fuse the two countries into one, on all larger and Imperial questions, by the representa- tion of Ireland in an Imperial Parliament, while leaving the Irish Parliament free to deal with all matters of local concern. That is federation. The idea was strongly objected to, and even jeered at, in the British Parliament by Sheridan, who championed the cause of the Opposition in Ireland, and by Canning. It was never mooted in the Irish Parliament, and had the suggestion been made there, it would doubtless have been rejected with scorn as involving the degradation of a " sovereign Parliament " to an inferior status. As was very natural, the battle in Ireland was fought on the clear issue of all or nothing.
UNREDEEMED PLEDGES.
Nevertheless, Pitt was right ; and had a union of the nature he first suggested been passed, and had it been followed by the other measures which he advocated, it is certain that the same patriotism that inspired the Opposition to make the best of a
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measure which they utterly detested would have induced men of light and leading in Ireland to accept federation in good faith, and in accepting it, to labour for honest and good government in the Parliament of Dublin and for the common welfare in the Imperial Parliament in London.
The other measures which it was understood would accompany, or follow closely upon, the Union, were the Commutation of Tithes, Catholic Emancipation, and State Provision for the Support of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Priests. The payment of tithes in kind was felt as an intolerable grievance by every class and creed, and the prospect of relief inclined men towards the Union. Catholic Emancipation and State provision for the secular clergy were ardently desired by the Roman Catholic population, and it was in the confident expectation that these boons would be immediately granted, that any support to the Union was given by Roman Catholics. They were doomed to disappointment. Catholic Emanci- pation was not granted until 1829, and was then given in the worst possible way. It was extorted. It was carried as the result of agitation, by a Government opposed to it on principle, and avowedly actuated by fear. A Bill for the Com- mutation of Tithes was not passed until 1835, after an agitation that developed into an organized con- spiracy for the repudiation of contracts and against payment of debts legally due, accompanied by out-
TRICKED AND BETRAYED 191
rage on an extensive scale. Endowment of the Roman Catholic priesthood fell through altogether, owing primarily to the failure of the Roman Catholic bishops and gentry to procure emancipa- tion. The people of Ireland were tricked and be- trayed. The Act of Union was carried by bribery and false pretences of reform. It is not within my province to criticize Pitt's character and conduct, or to express any opinion as to whether he deliber- ately deceived the people or was himself deceived. I accept the statements as narrated, and assume his object to have been to place the relations between the two kingdoms on what he conceived to be the only sound and permanent basis — a federal basis, and along with that to bring about a settlement of all the burning questions, social and religious, which at that time agitated Ireland.
What the effect upon the future of the country would have been if that programme had been carried out in its entirety is a matter of speculation. It is difficult to gauge the public opinion of those days. The lassitude and prostration of the country following upon the Rebellion must be taken into account, but still the complete loss of legislative independence does not seem to have been felt, at first at any rate, acutely by the people from the point of view of sentiment. Disgust with the Union appears to have grown out of disappointed hopes concerning remedial measures, the decay of trade and industry, and the general misgovernment of
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the country. Remedial legislation would have encouraged the people. Misgovernment would not have occurred had control of purely Irish affairs been left with the Irish Parliament. Nor is there any reason for supposing that under those circum- stances industry and trade would have withered away. The history of Ireland since 1800 might have been very different from what it has been if a federal arrangement had been carried out, and if Catholic Emancipation, State Provision for the Clergy, and Commutation of Tithes, had followed close upon its heels. The failure to carry Catholic Emanci- pation was a great betrayal of the hopes of the people. It is a curious fact that the ostensible cause of this breach of faith was the failure of Parliament to convince the King; while another great betrayal, the violation of the Treaty of Limerick, guaranteeing ordinary religious rights to Catholics, was due to the failure of the King to convince Parliament.
PART IV
EMIGRATION, CONFISCATION, LAND TENURE, LANDLORDISM
THE influence of emigration upon the social and industrial condition of Ireland has been so great and so disastrous as to necessitate an allusion to it. With a passionate devotion to their native land, the Irish even in early days combined a love of wandering; and during the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries a voluntary emigration on a con- siderable scale took place in the interests of science and letters, or for the nobler purposes of religion. Ireland led the way in planting and nurturing Christianity in Europe. Her missionaries spread over Scotland, the North of England, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy, and penetrated to more distant regions, founding and maintaining monasteries and schools of learning.
Of the remnant that escaped the Plantagenet and Tudor wars of annihilation, many of those who retained sufficient means and energy left the country.
The disasters that befell Ireland during the six- teenth century drove multitudes of her ablest men
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of art, science, and letters to take refuge on the Continent.
After the suppression of the so-called Rebellion of Tyrone in the sixteenth century, many Irish soldiers took foreign service, and a great migration followed the confiscations under James I. in the early years of the seventeenth century. Forty thousand Irish soldiers enlisted abroad after Crom- well had laid Ireland waste. As a consequence of the Revolution, 14,000 officers and men who sur- rendered at Limerick passed at once into the service of France, and formed the nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade. Spain maintained five exclusively Irish regiments, and the Austrian Army was crowded with Irish soldiers and officers, many of whom rose to great distinction, as they also did in other countries. A Browne and a Lacy were Russian Field-Marshals. Maguires, Lacys, Nugents, O'Donnells, were among the ablest of Austrian Generals. Among Spanish Generals are to be found the names of O'Donnell, O'Mahony, O'Reilly, O'Neill, O'Hara. O'Mahony, Sarsfield, Dillon, Laly, are famous in the annals of the French Army, and Lord Clare was Marshal of France. Nor was the distinction that Irishmen acquired confined to the profession of arms ; their names are to be found on the roll of men distin- guished in letters, diplomacy, and affairs of State. It is impossible to estimate the number of Irish engaged in military service, but as, according to
EXPATRIATED IRISHMEN 195
the French War Office, over 450,000* Irish soldiers died in the service of France alone between 1691 and 1745, the number of expatriated Irishmen must, in proportion to the population of Ireland, have been very great. When the high eminence to which indi- vidual Irishmen attained in all the walks of life is considered, together with the facts that Irish regi- ments in foreign service were during so long a period kept up to strength by recruiting in Ireland, and that they deservedly attained a noble record for courage and conduct in the field, the loss to the country, and eventually to England, of such splendid material must be estimated as enormous. But, great as it was, the disaster caused by emigration, consequent upon the destruction of industries, the penal laws, and the unsettled state of the country after the Revolution, was of a more enduring character.
* Lecky, in his " History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century," says : " The Abbe MacGeoghegan makes this extra- ordinary assertion : ( Par les calculs et les recherches faites au bureau de la guerre on a trouve qu'il y avait eu depuis 1'arrivee des troupes Irlandoises en France, en 1691, jusqu'en 1745, que se donna la bataille de Fontenoy, plus de 450,000 Irlandois morts au service de France' ("Hist. d'Irlande," iii. 754). This statement is to me perfectly incredible, but Newenham, in his valuable work ' On Population in Ireland,' says : ' Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that we are not sufficiently warranted in considering the Abbe MacGeoghegan's statement as an exaggeration' (p. 63) ; and O'Callaghan, in his 'History of the Irish Brigade in the Service of France,' cites two MS. authorities, professedly based on researches made in the French War Office, which place the number even higher."
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The persecution of Catholics rendered existence in Ireland intolerable to men of energy of mind and body, and they fled the country in great numbers. The social condition of the country rendered the life of a landowner, of whatever creed, wellnigh unbearable. There was no outlet for industrial enterprise in a land where manufactures had been destroyed. The Test Act drove the Presbyterians out of Ireland, and a strong and steady stream of Protestant emigration set in, carrying the industrial skill and energy of the north of Ireland to America and the Continent. Ireland was drained of its best blood, and the drain has continued, in varying degrees, down to the present day. The great famine, and the emigra- tion following on it, may be called an Act of God, though, as I have pointed out elsewhere, it is more truthfully described as due to the folly of man. Modern emigration may be attributed, though not quite accurately, to natural causes ; but, nevertheless, the forced emigration of so large a proportion of the best blood, brain, bone and muscle, military genius and industrial skill, must be held to be an important contributory cause of those effects now reacting upon England, commonly summed up as " The Irish Question."
LAND TENURE.
Land was originally held in common in Ireland as in all other countries — it was the property of
THE IRISH LAND SYSTEM 197
the free men of the clan, and was periodically apportioned among them. But in historic times private ownership, within certain strict limits, was becoming recognized and favoured. The territory of the tribe consisted of (1) Land held in common, mostly uncultivated mountain, bog, forest, and waste, used by all for pasturage, turbary,* and the chase ; (2) arable land, held, as to the greater part of it, in gavel-kind ;t and (3) land which was private property. The tribal territory was sub- divided among septs or clans, in which the same system of land tenure and division existed. A king or head chief ruled over the tribe, and sub- chiefs over the septs comprised within it. The chiefs were elected by the people, but the tendency was towards direct succession in the same family, and in many cases the position became practically hereditary. Mensal lands were the lands provided for the chief, and held by the chiefs in succession, and for the tanist, the heir-apparent, and for the family. In addition to the support provided for them out of their mensal lands, the chiefs were entitled to quarter themselves and their retainers, under well-defined legal restrictions, upon the freemen of the tribe for various periods ; and
* Digging turf for fuel.
f In English gavelkind land descends in equal portions, as from a father to all his sons, or a brother with no issue to all his brothers. In Irish gavelkind a redistribution of all the holdings of the sept on the decease of a member appears to have been legal, but it is improbable that it was customary.
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members of the tribe were bound to provide labour for public purposes, and, of course, to render military service. Land was also set apart for the maintenance of law-givers, bards, and men eminent in learning, science, and art. The free- holders, those who possessed private property in land, and enjoyed absolute ownership, subject only to the condition that the soil could not be alienated from the tribe, were, as a rule, the nobles, men of the reigning family, learned men and officials.
The freemen of the tribe or sept held mostly in gavelkind, though some of them appear to have possessed private property also. A system of tenancy existed, land being let for very short periods, and it was usual for what may be termed the lessor, the noble or chief, to provide stock also.
Rent was paid in kind. Two classes of tenants existed, the one much superior to the other ; but it is difficult to ascertain in what the superiority existed. It seems to have been merely a higher and more independent social and economic con- dition. In the case of one class of tenants no security was required for land or stock provided to them. From the other class security was required. Below these various grades recognized as in- corporated in the tribe, a class existed in a status little above that of slavery. Escaped criminals, fugitives, broken men, scattered remnants of other septs or tribes were granted protection and a
THE CRIMINAL CODE 199
living, but little more, and their condition was far below that of the freemen of the tribe, however poor.
Of what we should call Statute Law there was none ; but all the details of this intricate system were dealt with very completely by common law. The rights, privileges, duties, liabilities of every class and individual were clearly defined and scrupulously safeguarded.
The criminal code was also elaborate and humane. The law was codified, interpreted and defined by " Brehons ", and the office was practically an here- ditary one continuing from generation to generation in one family.* There appears to have been no executive. The law had no sanction. The death penalty was unknown. In the case of an offence, civil or criminal, the Brehon laid down the law and named the penalty ; but there his functions ended. He had no power to enforce his judgment, nor was it within his province to attempt to do so. The sanction lay in public opinion, and it speaks well for the law-abiding character of the people that the sanction was sufficient.
Such a system, with its constant change of oc- cupation under gavelkind, its lettings and sub- lettings, its mensal lands and private property, its quarterings and forced labour, seems to us cumbersome, and intricate in the extreme, and
* The family were bound to educate for the post the member of the family who appeared to be the most naturally fitted for it.
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was so described by English invaders or settlers; but it suited the age and the people.
The population was very small. The common lands, the unenclosed, uncultivated portion of the tribal territory, was very large and provided pastur- age for all and to spare. There was no land hunger in those days. It was difficult to find people to utilize the land. Now the people are craving for land to occupy, then the land craved for people to occupy it. The lessor of land was at the mercy of the lessee. The short term lettings were in favour of the tenant. If friction occurred, the tenant walked out and found little difficulty in getting other land ; but the owner of the land found much difficulty in getting another tenant. The changes of occupation consequent upon gavelkind caused little inconvenience when durable stone buildings were unknown. A tenant's right to growing crops and unexhausted improvement was secured to him. Rents and dues were clearly defined by law, and were very low. The law provided the same means for the recovery of rent or dues as for the recovery of any other debt ; but under no circumstances could a free tribesman be evicted from the soil.
CONTENTMENT OF THE PEASANTRY.
Whatever may be thought of the system now, that it suited the people then is proved by the following facts. No symptom of anything like a peasants' rising — so common in European history
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— is to be found in Irish history. All attempts by English Sovereigns to substitute feudal tenure for it were violently resisted, and when the chiefs showed themselves ready to surrender their terri- tories and receive them back as titled holders under the Crown, their action was always vehemently opposed by the nobles and tribesmen. Though Irish fought in English ranks against Irish, no instance is to be found in all the bloodstained pages of history of tribesmen appealing for protec- tion against the exactions of their chiefs. The great Anglo-Norman families that settled hi Ireland adopted more or less completely the native system. They scrupulously observed native law and custom, and the people adhered to them with the same devoted attachment they displayed towards princes of their own race.
The land system was, of course, crude and utterly unsuited to modern requirements, but it would have adapted itself to changing conditions. It would have developed probably along the lines indicated in the famous Composition of Con- naught, mentioned in Part I. But the system was not allowed to develop. The usual mistake was made in seeking to impose upon Ireland a totally different system imported from England. Feudal- ism was unsuited to the Irish people. It ran counter to all the tribesmen's ideas of liberty, justice, and tenure ; it degraded him ; it was out- rageous to the whole temper, genius, and character
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of the people, and it was never accepted. It is to instinctive hostility to the English system that all the various and changing troubles that constitute " The Land Question " are to be attributed, with the exception, of course, of spurious agitation for political objects, about which a word or two will be said later on.
The Scandinavian and Anglo-Norman incursions and settlements produced very little dislocation. The newcomers found their level, fitted in with the native social structure, warred and were made war upon, paid or exacted tribute, dispossessed others or were dispossessed, formed alliances, intermarried, and were soon absorbed into the national life.
THE LONG PARLIAMENT'S CONFISCATIONS.
The confiscations and settlements of later dates were of a different character and produced very different effects. The policy of confiscation, with the definite object of ousting the people and plant- ing English settlers in their places, may be said to have commenced in 1542, when Mary seized upon the territories of the O'Moores, O'Connors, and O'Dempseys in Leinster, and converted them into two English shires — Queen's County and King's County — with Maryborough and Phillipstown as their capitals. In Munster, after Desmond's so-called Rebellion in 1586, something like 600,000 acres* were confiscated and passed into English hands.
* Probably equivalent to about a million of our present acres.
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In Ulster, under James I. in the early years of the seventeenth century, the proprietary rights of the people in Tyrone County were swept away by order of the King's Bench, and, shortly after, six whole counties were confiscated and planted with English and Scotch. In Connaught, the Composi- tion was deliberately broken by James, and con- fiscation and plantation were interrupted only by the death of that King.
The Long Parliament confiscated practically the whole of Ireland, with the exception of Connaught and Clare, which were deemed worthless, and were converted into a " reservation," into which the miserable survivors from other parts of Ireland were swept. It is no exaggeration to say that, between the reigns of Henry II. and Charles II., the land of Ireland had, through forfeiture and confiscation, changed hands not once but many times. Forfeiture was common in all countries — in England among them — but no parallel can be found to the forfeitures and confiscations in Ireland, either in degree or in kind. Forfeiture in England followed as a natural condition of defeat in dynastic wars or rebellions ; but where members of a family had the wisdom to espouse different causes — a not infre- quent occurrence — estates remained in the family. In all cases the new proprietors were men of the same race, religion, language, laws, and customs, and the cause of confiscation was clear and recog- nized as just. Expropriation affected the lord of
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the soil only ; the people — the herdsmen and tillers of the land — were untouched. The case in Ireland was very different. Treaties were broken ; solemn undertakings violated ; whole counties and provinces confiscated ; titles invalidated for no cause what- ever, except greed — the desire to find land for needy adventurers. The owners of land and those dependent on them — the chiefs and the tribesmen, the Lords and the peasants — were swept away wholesale, without a shred of justification, to make room for men alien in race, religion, law, and usage. It is the rank injustice of the confiscations that has left an indelible impression on Ireland.
THE ENGLISH AND IRISH LAND SYSTEMS.
It is not likely that the English land system would under any circumstances have been accepted by the people in exchange for a native system so much more to their advantage, but the gross in- justice and illegality of the confiscation made it impossible. Under the Irish system the tribesman was a free man and an independent man ; nothing could deprive him of his holding. Under the English system he became reduced to a condition of absolute dependence upon his lord. The change involved terrible degradation, and as it abolished national law and custom, and was accompanied by a severance of all the old ties of loyalty and affec- tion towards an honoured and trusted chief, it is not strange that the people have never acquiesced in it.
FEUDALISM IN IRELAND 205
Feudalism took root in England, and the system of land tenure that has for centuries prevailed in that country evolved naturally from it. Feudalism never took root in Ireland, and the native Irish system was not of a nature to develop in the same direction. As a result, the views entertained by landlord and tenant in England and Ireland of their respective rights and duties, and consequently the whole social circumstances of the two countries, have been so dissimilar as to make the English dream of converting Ireland into so many English counties impossible of fulfilment, even if no other causes were in operation. The basis of the agri- cultural system in England is partnership, and the conception of agriculture is that of a business. The owner found the land and the capital for permanent buildings, drained and did everything necessary for the creation of a farm, and he pro- vided the money for maintenance. The tenant undertook to pay what he deemed a reasonable rent, and found the plant, labour, etc., to work the farm. If he failed, he failed in a commercial trans- action, as might happen in any other trade or industry. He realized and went into some other business, or found land elsewhere. Of course on the majority of estates, where tenants had held the same farm for generations under generations of landlords of the same family, many other attributes of ownership and tenancy came into play, and softened the asperities of a purely commercial
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transaction, but still partnership and business con- stituted the root principle. It was the natural direction in which Feudalism developed.
In Ireland partnership was out of the question, and business did not, and could not, dominate the relations between landlord and tenant. For a land- lord to build good farmhouses, fence and drain little holdings of a few acres of poor land, was obviously impracticable. Rent in England represented a very low rate of interest to the landowner, perhaps two per cent. Rent in Ireland would, under the English system, have represented a loss of 200 per cent. The thing was impossible ; consequently, with a very few exceptions in which Irish estates were managed on the English model, and in more where the owner helped the tenant in building and improvements, the landlord put no money into a farm. The tenant did everything at his own expense. And the conception of agriculture as a purely business transaction was also impossible in a country where the people had no other resources, where agriculture was the only means of sustaining life, and where there were fifty applicants for every vacant plot of ground. Nor could the tribal system naturally develop into anything like the relations existing in modern times between land- lord and tenant in England. The Irish system contained no root from which such a relationship could spring. It developed into a kind of under- standing that the tenant paid rent when he could,
LANDLORD AND TENANT 207
and that when he could not, the landlord did with- out it ; and that, at any rate, eviction was under no circumstances right.
An arrangement of that character had very little savour of business about it. From an economic point of view, it was eminently unsound, yet at the time I am contemplating, before the vast catastrophe of the famine and the introduction of political motives into social life, it answered fairly well. Irish tenants were by nature the best of rent-payers ; they paid, and paid willingly, when they could, and if the landed gentry had in those days of high prices and comparative prosperity husbanded their resources with prudence, the kindly feeling that existed between them and their tenants might have withstood the shock of politics and evil days. In spite of everything, such is the natural fidelity of the Irish, that up to quite modern times in history, landlord and tenant lived happily to- gether. What, then, caused the ruin of the landed gentry in Ireland and their estrangement from the occupiers of the soil ?
THE POSITION OF THE LANDOWNERS.
This national calamity is due to various causes : to the social and economic condition of the country, and, to some extent, no doubt, to the faults and characteristics of the landowning class, for which that class is more or less responsible ; but principally to certain definite facts beyond their control, such
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as the great fall in prices that occurred after the conclusion of the French War in 1815, the Act of Union, the great famine, the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the doctrine advanced in theory in the middle of the nineteenth century by James Finton Lalor, and since then vigorously put in practice, that the expropriation of the landowners was for political purposes necessary.
Landowners of the Roman Catholic religion almost disappeared as a class under the malign in- fluence of the penal laws, and the various disqualifica- tions under which they suffered. Landowners of the Protestant religion became demoralized under the equally malign influence of an artificial ascendancy. For generations they were encouraged — indeed forced — to look upon themselves as a superior race dominating an inferior race. In the eyes of the State and the law they occupied a social position very similar to that of the slave-owning planters of the Southern States prior to the Civil War. Such a position by no means involved heartlessness or cruelty, but it bred callousness, inability to adapt themselves to changing circumstances and to enter freely into the needs and aspirations of the people. The position was false and the resulting consequences were bad.
AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY RECORD.
Arthur Young, who visited Ireland towards the close of the eighteenth century, was an accurate
ARTHUR YOUNG'S IMPRESSIONS 209
and unprejudiced observer, and his remarks on the subject of agriculture and on the relations between the classes engaged in it are well worthy of consideration. He speaks of the state of things in 1776 as showing marked signs of im- provement, but his description of them throws a vivid light upon one of the many difficulties with which the landowning class have had to contend. In describing the abominable system of middlemen, Arthur Young attributes it to a not unnatural pre- ference, on the part of owners of estates, for the enjoyment of low rents collected without trouble instead of higher rents coupled with difficulty in their collection. He remarks in his " Tour in Ireland " that-
" The obvious distinction to be applied is that of the occupying and unoccupying tenantry ; in other words, the real farmer and the middleman. . . .
" The friends to this mode of letting lands con- tend that the extreme poverty of the lower classes renders them such an insecure tenantry that no gentleman of fortune can depend on the least punctuality in the payment of rent from such people, and, therefore, to let a large farm to some intermediate person of substance at a lower rent, in order that the profit may be his inducement and reward for becoming a collector from the imme- diate occupiers, and answerable for their punctu- ality, becomes necessary to any person who will not submit to the drudgery of such a minute attention.
14
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" That a man of substance, whose rent is not only secure, but regularly paid, is in many respects a more eligible tenant than a poor cottar, or little farmer, cannot be disputed. If the landlord looks no farther than those circumstances the question is at an end."
THE INFLUENCE OF THE " MIDDLEMAN." That the creation of the " middleman " system is partly — and perhaps largely — due to the desire of resident landlords for security and ease is doubtless true, but Arthur Young omits another cause — absenteeism. The existence of proprietors of large tracts of land, public companies, and private individuals having no residence on their estates or intimate connection with Ireland, naturally led to the granting of unrestricted leases for long terms, and the lessees let and sublet to such an extent that it was not unusual for three or four interests to intervene between the original lessor and the actual cultivator of the land. The system was essentially a vicious one. The middle- man is thus described by Arthur Young :
" Sometimes they (the middlemen) are resident on a part of the land, but very often they are not. . . . The merit of this class is surely ascer- tained in a moment. There cannot be the shadow of a pretence for the intervention of a man whose single concern with an estate is to deduct a portion from the rent of it. They are, however, sometimes
A SYSTEM OF TYRANNY 211
resident on a part of the land they hire, where it is natural to suppose they would work some im- provements. It is, however, very rarely the case. I have, in different parts of the kingdom, seen farms in which the residence of the principal tenant was not to be distinguished from the cottared fields surrounding it. ... Living upon the spot, sur- rounded by their little under-tenants, they prove the most oppressive species of tyrant that ever lent assistance to the destruction of a country. They re-let the land, at short tenures, to the occupiers of small farms, and often give no leases at all. Not satisfied with screwing up the rent to the uttermost farthing, they are rapacious and relentless in the collection of it. ... They take their rents partly in kind when their under-tenants are much dis- tressed. ... It is at the option of the creditors, and the miserable culprit meets his oppression, perhaps his ruin, in the very action that is trumpeted as a favour to him. It may seem harsh to attribute a want of feeling to any class of men. But let not the reader misapprehend me ; it is the situation, not the man, that I condemn. An injudicious system places a great number of persons, not of any liberal rank in life, in a state abounding with a variety of opportunities of oppression, every act of which is profitable to themselves.
" But farther : the dependence of the occupier on the resident middleman goes to other circum- stances. Personal service of themselves, their cars
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and horses, is exacted for loading turf, hay, corn, gravel, etc., insomuch that the poor under-tenants often lose their own crops and turf from being obliged to obey these calls of their superiors. Nay, I have even heard these jobbers gravely assert that without under-tenants to furnish cars and teams at half or two-thirds the common price of the country, they could carry on no improvements at all, yet making a merit to themselves for works wrought out of the sweat and ruin of a pack of wretches assigned to their plunder by the in- humanity of the landholders.
" In a word . . . intermediate tenants work no improvements. If non-resident they cannot, and if resident they do not. But they oppress the occupiers, and render them as incapable as they are themselves unwilling."
Speaking of the effects of centuries of class and religious ascendancy, the same author remarks :
"The age has improved so much in humanity that even the poor Irish have experienced its influence, and are every day treated better and better. But still a remnant of the old manners, the abominable distinction of religion, united with the oppressive conduct of the little country gentle- men— or, rather, vermin of the country, who never were out of it — altogether bear still very heavy on the poor people, and subject them to situations more mortifying than we ever behold in England. The landlord of an Irish estate inhabited by Roman
A DEEP-SEATED DISEASE 213
Catholics is a sort of despot, who yields obedience in whatever concerns the poor to no law but that of his will. A long series of oppressions, aided by many very ill-judged laws, have brought land- lords into a habit of exerting a very lofty superi- ority, and their vassals into that of an almost un- limited submission. Speaking a language that is despised, professing a religion that is abhorred, and being disarmed, the poor find themselves in many cases slaves even in the bosom of written liberty."
THE TAINT OF ASCENDANCY.
The state of things thus described was not by any means universal. Arthur Young speaks highly of the conduct of many estates and of the affectionate relations existing between resident landlords and their tenants. But the disease affected the whole body social, and, though it has long since passed away, the taint of ascendancy has to some extent poisoned the relations between classes, and consequently has reacted unfavourably upon the landed gentry as a class. They cannot be held responsible. As Arthur Young remarked : " It is the situation, not the men, that must be condemned." It was for centuries the policy of England to force ascendancy upon them.
The Irish gentry, by nature improvident and fond of display, sought during times of prosperity to emulate the lavish expenditure of their peers and neighbours across the Channel. They over-
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built themselves. Their mode of life left little or no margin for a rainy day. They lived beyond their means, and when the rain fell they had no reserve to shelter them. The Act of Union intensified the evil. It shifted the centre of gravity from Dublin, the capital of a poor country, to London, the wealthy capital of a wealthy country. It may have enlarged the views of Irishmen ; it certainly increased their expendi- ture and stimulated absenteeism. If their horizon was extended, it was at the expense of their sense of nationality. In the larger field they lost sight of their duty to their native land, and their affec- tion for it waned. Many of them lived abroad, leaving their agents to collect rent, while others lived at home in a style they could not afford. The Irish gentry sought London instead of Dublin. They were proud, hospitable, lavish — shall I say extravagant and reckless ? — and, in their attempt to hold their own and emulate the more expensive life of the richer community, financial equilibrium was destroyed.
Under the Union their political power and prestige gradually waned. A class that had governed during Grattan's Parliament, and had practically administered Irish affairs for half a century before, and had administered them, on the whole, well, lost value, significance, and caste in an Ireland merged and submerged in the greater volume of an United Kingdom. The Union de-
THE POTATO 215
prived them of the opportunity of dealing with Catholic Enfranchisement, the reform of Parlia- ment, and other needful measures. They lost influence over, and sympathy with, the people. When Emancipation was tardily and unwillingly granted, it was accompanied by a measure of electoral reform that still further dissociated the landlord from his tenants.
THE FORTY-SHILLING FREEHOLDER.
In order to understand the position at this time in Irish history, it is essential to study the origin of the 40s. freeholder. By the middle of 1845 the population of Ireland had risen to 8,295,061, or about twice the population which Ireland con- tains to-day. In his book on the Famine, Mr. W. P. O'Brien, C.B., who, as a former Poor Law and Local Government Board Inspector, writes with peculiar authority on agrarian conditions, remarks that — " Of this vast population considerably more than a third may be described as being then almost wholly dependent on potatoes for their daily exist- ence. By far the largest proportion of those in this hapless condition was concentrated in the western and southern districts of the country, but even there they were not all placed in this respect on an exactly common level. They, in fact, con- sisted of three distinct classes, who presented, in regard to the means of subsistence then available for them, varying degrees of wretchedness.
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" The three classes were constituted as follows : (1) Occupiers of cabins with small farms, varying in extent from one to five acres ; (2) cottiers living on the lands of the farmers for whom they worked, in cabins to which were attached small plots of ground of from a rood to a half or an entire acre ; (3) below these classes there stood, at the bottom of the scale, the labourers who had no fixed employment and no land, but who simply rented the hovels or apartments they resided in, and depended for support on the patches of con-acre* potato ground they were able to hire each year from some neighbouring farmer."
" In the census returns for 1841, the total number of farms in Ireland exceeding one acre in size is given as 691,202. and of these, 310,436, or not far short of one-half, consisted of holdings between one and five acres. The existence of this undoubtedly deplorable state of things was clearly traceable to the joint operation of three distinct causes, all making in the same direc- tion."
" By an Act passed in 1782, Roman Catholics were permitted to acquire freehold property for lives, or by inheritance ; and in 1793, by a further enactment, the 40s. freehold franchise was conferred
* Mr. O'Brien thus describes con-acre : " The parties to it do not stand to each other in the ordinary relation of landlord and tenant ; it is simply a licence to occupy a certain part of a field for the production, as usually limited, of a single crop."
SMALL HOLDERS AND POLITICS 217
upon them. Landlords then recognized the political importance to be acquired by having at their com- mand a large body of dependent and subservient voters, and, under this impulse, the number of holdings of this class was rapidly increased and multiplied. The Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829, however, abolished this franchise altogether, and, the political value of the tenants of this class to the landlords being thus extinguished, they were then regarded as a burden, not a blessing, to the estates, and the persistent efforts subsequently made to get rid of them at any cost constituted one of the many consequential evils of this pernicious system."
Mr. O'Brien's views on this point appear to be somewhat illogical. The term "freehold" is liable to be misunderstood. It was applied to tenancies held under leases, generally for three lives. The Bill passed by Flood for granting the franchise to tenants holding under leases of 40s. valuation undoubtedly stimulated the creation of small holdings by augmenting the political impor- tance of landlords having a large body of voters holding under them, but it could not have had the effect attributed to it of creating a subservient class. It is true that, as a rule, the 40s. freeholders voted solidly with their landlord, but not under compulsion. The status of a leaseholder is ob- viously more independent than that of a tenant at will. The fact is that landlords, as a class, opposed
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O'Connell, and O'Connell, in insisting upon dis- franchising the 40s. freeholders, sought to break the power of the landowning class.
THE GREAT FAMINE OF 1846-47. In 1846 Ireland was visited by the awful catas- trophe of the Great Famine. Books, and libraries of books, have attributed the famine and its conse- quences, to the rapacity and cruelty of the land- owning class. They have been accused of exacting rent from a starving peasantry, of snatching food from the lips of perishing men, women, and chil- dren, and exporting it for their own gain. The money they spent in assisting emigration, the efforts they made to minimize the horrors of emigration, have been cited against them. Never has a class been so cruelly libelled. Had the resolutions and recommendations passed by a mass meeting of Irish peers and gentry, under the presidency of the Marquess of Ormonde, held in Dublin on January 14, 1847, been adopted, the consequences of the uni- versal failure of the potato crop—practically the sole food of the people — could never have assumed the proportions they did. At this gathering, 18 Irish peers, 700 landowners and magistrates, and 37 Members of Parliament, met in the vain endeavour to save Ireland. It was a meeting of faithful sons of Ireland, anxious only for one thing —to rescue their country ; and they passed a series of resolutions which sufficiently indicate the serious
LANDLORDS TO THE RESCUE 219
purpose of the movement, of which the meeting was the outcome. These resolutions are worth recalling :
" 1. The formation of an Irish Party to represent the whole country on the policy required for the famine.
" 2. The suspension of all laws impeding the advent of food, and the employment of all means, regardless of cost, required to save the people.
"3. The use of the Royal Navy to carry food so as to save the costs of transport, which, inflated by private speculation, enor- mously increased the price of food.
" 4. Productive works of relief to be a charge on landed property, but not unproductive works — such as the useless road -making
(imposed as a labour test without practical utility.
" 5 and 6. As a permanent encouragement to better tillage, tenants should receive com- pensation for improvements ; and as an en- couragement to a residential proprietary, absentee landlords should pay an absentee tax."
It is worthy of notice that this great Convention of the landowners of Ireland recommended, among other matters, that the cost of productive works of relief should be a charge upon their estates, that
220 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
tenants should receive compensation for improve- ments, and that absenteeism should be discouraged by fine.
The views of the landed gentry as expressed in these resolutions fell, it need hardly be added, upon deaf ears. The British Parliament and British Ministers had the matter in hand ; they dealt with it in accordance with their theories, and without refer- ence to the opinions of competent men on the spot, and the Famine pursued its terrible course practi- cally unchecked. The peasantry perished by thousands, and, as a class, the landed gentry perished with them. The Famine ruined them. They did not immediately starve, as the poor peasants did ; they had some resources to sustain them, but they were irretrievably broken. It is improbable that more than one in one hundred weathered the storm. Ireland foundered in the Famine, and the landed gentry went down in the ship.
If blame attaches to landowners as a class, it is to their action long antecedent to the Famine in allowing minute subdivision and the multiplication of small holdings ; but in extenuation it may be fairly pleaded, that the temptation, both in the direction of increased political power and enhanced income, was great, and that efforts to check the tendency towards subdivision would have been bitterly resented by the people. Their conduct during the Famine is, I think, fairly summed up by
THE LANDLORDS' CRITICS 221
O'Connell, when on January 11, 1847, he said : " As a general rule, none can find fault with the conduct of the Irish landlords since the awful calamity came upon us."
IRISH RELIEF AND ENGLISH ECONOMICS.
In the wholesale denunciation of Irish landlords critics are all too apt to forget the many circum- stances which contributed to the Famine, and the amazing character of a catastrophe with which the Irish administration could deal only by leave of an English Government asphyxiated by Cob- denite economic principles. It must be admitted that the disaster could not have been avoided — the staple crop, the potato, the sole sustenance of the people, failed ; but had a native Parliament been in power many of its consequences would have been averted. Whatever their faults may be, the Irish gentry understood their country, its needs and requirements, and it is only necessary to read the recommendations of the landlords alluded to above, to see that, if they had had the power as they certainly had the will, measures competent to deal with the emergency would have been taken. It is to the utter ignorance of Parliament and its fanatical devotion to economic principles then held to be immutably true — the iron principles of the Manchester School — that the tragic consequences of the Famine are due. The one thing Parliament appears to have dreaded was imposture — rather
222 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
might people die than any obtain relief improperly. The one principle it acted upon was under no circumstances to interfere with the natural course of trade and the natural effect of cause. Lest relief should be misapplied, food for the starving was refused to any man holding more than a quarter acre.* Conceive the unutterable folly of thus practically ' evicting an entire nation, arid making it impossible for the people ever to recover themselves. Instead of tiding them over an emergency, finding them in seed, and endeavouring to help the people to help themselves, the British Parliament deliberately turned every starving family out of their holding, and forced them, for a morsel to put into their mouths, to abandon the only means they had of subsistence in the future. Instead of employing them to till the land, they set them to make roads leading to nowhere, and to do all kinds of useless relief works. The folly of it, the incredible folly of it all ! In deference to the rigid methods of the Manchester School of Economics, King's ships were not allowed to carry grain to starving localities — lest the freights of
* " In the new Act of the Out-door Relief there was one sig- nificant clause. It was enacted that should any farmer who held land be forced to apply for aid under this Act for himself and his family, he should not have it until he had first given up all his land to the landlord except one quarter of an acre. It was called the Quarter-Acre Clause, and was found the most efficient and the cheapest of all the Ejectment Acts" (Mitchell's " Ireland," vol. i., p. 218).
DOOM OF THE GENTRY 223
private shipowners should suffer ; the ordinary current of trade must not be stopped, checked, or diverted, even though the people perish.
THE RUIN OF THE LANDED GENTRY.
Having perpetrated the last but one, and in some respects the worst, of all the confiscations, by compelling a starving peasantry to oust themselves out of their holdings for a handful of Indian corn, the Government proceeded to complete the opera- tion by killing and burying the landed gentry. They were broken financially. Poor rates had gone up to twenty or even thirty shillings in the pound. Doubtless they might have been saved by timely assistance, but that would not have been in accord- ance with the doctrines of the Manchester School of Economics. They were virtually bankrupt, and obviously the proper thing to do on proper business lines was to sell them up for anything their estates would fetch, for the benefit of their creditors, and clear them out of the way as speedily as possible. Accordingly a Court was established — the En- cumbered Estates Court — with power to deal with all estates in that all but universal condition. Estates were summarily put up to auction, gener- ally advertised as capable of carrying a larger rental, and sold with a clear parliamentary title to the highest bidder. The old race of gentry, animated by many sentiments toward the land and the people, unbusinesslike perhaps, but kindly
224 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
and valuable, disappeared to a large extent, and their place was taken by speculators, treating their purchases on strict business lines, and considering mainly how much profit was to be made.
Parliament is not to be blamed for the attitude adopted towards the famine as implying deliberate cruelty or callousness, but it was culpable to the last degree in shutting its eyes to the extent and dimensions of a terrible national catastrophe, and closing its ears to the advice of those who realized the gravity of the situation. In the case of a com- munity in which the whole social and economic machinery has been thrown out of gear by a dis- astrous war, invasion and temporary occupation by a successful enemy, no Government would hesitate to suspend for a time all legal processes and obliga- tions affecting trade, commerce, industry, and the whole civil life of the people. The sudden and com- plete failure of the potato crop — the sustenance of some eight millions of people in Ireland — produced a condition of chaotic dislocation more formidable than could have resulted from foreign invasion, however disastrous, and nothing short of suspension of the ordinary machinery of civilization in order to give time for recovery would have availed to save Ireland from the consequences of the Famine.
Nothing of the kind was done. On the contrary, nothing was allowed to be done that could inter- fere in any way with the ordinary processes of law, the ordinary course of trade, and the ordinary
A PERNICIOUS POLICY 225
working of economic theories then in vogue. To forbid the unloading of gifts of foreign food and the transportation of food in King's ships, to serve notices of eviction on practically the whole popula- tion and compel them to labour on artificial and useless works, leaving their fields derelict and uii- tilled, to exact 20 or 30 shillings in the pound in poor rates from men depending entirely upon agricultural rents, and to allow the ordinary pro- cesses of law for the recovery of debt to continue in force, was, under the circumstances, the most pernicious policy that could possibly be pursued. The potato blight was the Act of God, but assuredly the consequences of the Famine from which Ireland has never recovered were the act of men.
ENGLAND'S FATAL ERROR.
It is not surprising that the worst of motives have been attributed to the English people and English statesmen. The futile attempts at relief, the failure to grasp the gravity of the situation, in fact, the whole attitude adopted does, it must be admitted, give colour to the accusation that an opportunity was seized to sweep Ireland clean by allowing a great calamity to pursue its natural course ; but such an accusation is totally unfounded and most unfair. Great sympathy was felt and expressed by the people of England, and the men who controlled Parliament and the men who com- posed it acted according to their lights, and their
15
226 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
lights were derived from the rigid Manchester School of Economics. They knew little, and per- haps it is not unjust to say they cared less, about Ireland. But two assertions may safely be made. Had the Famine, with all its awful consequences, occurred in England, the action of Parliament would have been very different. Had the fate of Ireland been in the hands of an Irish Parliament, very different action would have been taken. With a famine brought face to face with them at home, Englishmen, however deeply imbued with Man- chester-made economics and however fanatically attached to the strict observance of legal obliga- tions, would have recognized the force majeur of a great catastrophe ; and a native Parliament would have adopted the same attitude towards a famine in Ireland.
Parliament sinned through ignorance, and erred owing to that strange intellectual perversity which enables Englishmen to look upon Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom or as a separate entity, as suits their convenience. It suited their convenience then to regard Ireland as a separate entity. Money voted for relief was considered to be a loan to Ireland to be sub- sequently repaid. In 1853, when raising the duty on spirits and imposing the income tax in Ireland for the first time, Mr. Gladstone said that as a set- off to these new burdens he would relieve Ireland of certain remaining charges, amounting to £240,000
THE CORN LAWS 227
a year, which had been incurred in connection with Famine relief, and which were still due. But whether the cause of malpractice be culpable or blameless ignorance, the effect is the same: the horrors of the Famine left a bitter legacy of hatred in Ireland, in the United States, and wherever Irish immigrants sought new homes ; and the incapacity then dis- played engendered a deep distrust in government by a Parliament at Westminster.
THE FAMINE AND FREE TRADE.
The abolition of duties on cereals is often, but erroneously, attributed to the Famine. The Famine may have precipitated the event, but the object of the Corn Law League was to cheapen manufactur- ing labour. It is true that Cobden, the great apostle of Free Trade, argued that agriculture would not suffer, and believed that all other nations would speedily follow the example of the LTnited Kingdom in abolishing import duties of all kinds ; but the true motive was the desire of the manufacturer to cheapen food in order to cheapen labour, and so cheapen the cost of production, and, according to the Manchester School of Economics, such a proceeding was perfectly legitimate, what- ever the consequences might be. If capital was rendered unproductive in one industry, the labour and the capital would, it was argued, find place and employment in some other industry. That theory still finds favour, but even the most hardened
228 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
advocates of free imports must admit that free imports of corn have gone far to ruin agriculture, and that as in Ireland agriculture was practically the only industry, the effect on Ireland was especially severe. No other industry existed in which displaced agricultural labour could find employment. The opening of the ports, coupled with the development of new countries and cheap freights, completed the ruin of a class that relied entirely upon agricultural rent.
HOME RULE AND AGRARIANISM.
The coupling of agrarian questions and political schemes that constitutes so remarkable a feature of modern agitation had its origin in the writings of Lalor in 1848. His theories were that, as land- owners derived their titles from a foreign Govern- ment, they had no legal or moral right in their property; that they constituted the greatest obstacle to repeal ; that, as Ireland paid no direct tax, the Government could not be struck at by a refusal to pay taxes, but that rent could be refused, and by that means the Government could be indirectly coerced ; and that the agitation for repeal lacked reality and force. " Our means," he said, " are im- potent against the English Government, which is beyond their reach, but resistless against the English garrison who stand here scattered and isolated, girded round by a mighty people." " The land question contains, and the legislative question does
LALOR'S THEORIES 229
not contain, the materials from which victory is manufactured." Speaking of the prospects of Re- peal, he states that — " There is but one way alone, and that is, to link Repeal to some other question, like a railway carriage to the engine, possessing the intrinsic strength which Repeal wants, and strong enough to carry both itself and Repeal together, and such a question there is in the land." The interest of the peasantry in Repeal was, he said, "never ardent, nor was it native and spontane- ous, but forced and factitious." The Union was carried by bribery — peerages and place for many. According to Lalor, the Union could be repealed only by bribery on a still more gigantic scale - — land for nothing for all. Without touching upon the morality involved, the theory was cer- tainly a most self-destructive one for Repealers or Home Rulers to entertain, since obviously, if true, it divested the political ideal of all reality and force. Its adoption was most unfortunate both for the cause they had at heart and for the social welfare of the country, for it robbed political reform of the support of property, and raised an artificial barrier between class and class ; but it appealed to Mitchell and later leaders of the people, and was put in practice with vigour. Owners of land, whatever their race and lineage, were denounced as the British garrison and alien land-thieves, extortionate tyrants without moral claim or legal title, and as the only obstacle to
230 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
Home Rule. The result was inevitable. Owners of property of any kind were forced into Unionism, whatever their political opinions might be. It is to this illegitimate union between political and agrarian reform that the strange political change that has taken place in recent times is mainly due, The demands, first for freedom of trade and subsequently for legislative independence, were made by Property. The landowning classes were intensely Nationalist, but they were also loyal to the Crown and to the connection with Great Britain. Property won legislative independence. Property fought hard to retain it, and struggled to the end against the Union. The people were comparatively lukewarm in the fight. Since then the interests that fought hardest against the Union have become its warmest supporters, while Nation- alism has become, to some extent, identified with separation, and even with disloyalty, to the Crown. The descendants of men who viewed the Union with comparative indifference have become its opponents ; and the descendants of men who gloried in being Irish have been driven to identify themselves with Great Britain, and to consider themselves to be the British garrison in Ireland. Thus was the downfall of the landed gentry, social and political, all but accomplished.
To draw in anything like detail a picture of the gradual change from tribal to modern tenure is obviously impossible in a short treatise of this kind.
RENTS AND PRICES 231
The change may be said to have commenced with Henry II. in 1171, and was not completed until 1860, when an Act was passed, known as Deasy's Act, to the effect that the relation of landlord and tenant was deemed to be founded on the express or implied contract of the parties, and not upon tenure or service. Eleven years after, in 1871, the tenure as set out in Deasy's Act was knocked to pieces. It took 689 years to accomplish the revolution, and in eleven years it was destroyed.
MODERN LAND LEGISLATION.
It is scarcely necessary to touch upon the land legislation of the last thirty or forty years. Far be it from me to say that rents had not become too high owing to the great fall in prices. Impoverished landowners no doubt exacted, or tried to exact, excessive rent ; but in justice to them it must be remembered that they were deeply encumbered, and the living margin remaining to them was very small, that the demand for land was excessive, and that non-payment of rent had become a political creed. Nevertheless, legislation was fully justi- fiable. The great mistake made by Gladstone was in merely tinkering with a social and economic condition that required drastic, even heroic, treat- ment. The Disestablishment of the Church was, from the Home Rule, or " Ireland a separate entity," point of view, absolutely justifiable ; it is impossible to defend the proposition of a State
232 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
Church, representing barely one-fourth of the population of the State. From the Union point of view it was unjustifiable. Whatever may be thought of it, this much is certain : Disestablish- ment and Disendowment produced no effect what- ever upon the social condition of the country. Almost equally futile were Gladstone's attempts at remedial land legislation. He could not grasp the nettle. What was needed was to put Ireland into liquidation ; fix rents in perpetuity so low as to be of the nature of a quit rent, or fix fair rents periodically revisable on definite data, such as price of produce and cost of labour ; pay fair compensa- tion, and apportion losses among all those inter- ested in any estate. Nothing of the kind was done. Fixity of tenure and fair rent were theo- retically sound, but rents were fixed on no known principle, and were revised on no ascertainable data. They varied according to the idiosyncrasies of the men who fixed and revised them. Free sale, accompanied as it was by an inordinate desire to obtain land at almost any price, was of very doubt- ful value. The most that can be said for the numberless Acts affecting land which passed be- tween 1871 and 1903 is that they gave immediate and greatly needed relief to tenants, that they con- tained the germs of the only sound solution of the problem, and paved the way for a complete transfer of tenure. The evil in them was that they were unjust to the landlord and injurious to agriculture.
LAND AND FINANCE 233
They encouraged, nay, they almost compelled, every tenant to show his holding in the worst pos- sible condition when he came to have his rent fixed or revised. They were inequitable to the land- owner, in that he was compulsorily deprived of property, to which he had an undeniable legal title, without compensation, and the whole loss fell upon his shoulders, instead of being borne, as it should have been borne, by all those beneficially interested in an estate.
WYNDHAM ACT OF 1903.
This chaotic, illogical, and ill-feeling-breeding condition of things was put an end to by Mr. Wyndham's great Act of 1903 — or, rather, would have been put at end to had that Act been carried into full effect. The restoration of actual owner- ship by the transfer of title from landlord to occupier on fair and reasonable terms to both, offered the only possible solution, and the 1903 Act was admirably adapted to carry it out. But Parliament was guilty of the mistake it invariably makes in reference to Ireland. All through the history of Ireland it has been the same. Remedial legislation has always been a little too late or a little too small. In this case legislation was not too late, but its action was too limited. It is perfectly true that owing to various causes affecting British credit unforeseen difficulty was experienced in financing the Act ; but the case was urgent, and no
234 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
difficulty should have been allowed to stand in the way. A complete settlement of the land question on the lines of the Act of 1903 is an essential pre- liminary to social accord, peace, confidence, and prosperity, and, as I shall presently endeavour to show, a contented Ireland is of paramount impor- tance to Great Britain and the Empire. No price is too high to pay for the achievement of so desirable an object. Among all the mistakes of Parliament in its dealings with Ireland, not one can be found more fatal in its consequences than that it committed in allowing the Act of 1903 to fail for lack of funds.
THE LANDLORDS: HISTORY'S VERDICT.
In sketching out the causes, economical and political, that have contributed to the decay of the Irish landed gentry, I have endeavoured to pre- serve an impartial mind. The task is a difficult one in dealing with the class to which I belong, and I may have failed ; but after reviewing all the circumstances, I can honestly say that I do not believe that any class in any country has had to contend with difficulties so great as those which beset them, and I do believe that, as a class, they have acquitted themselves well. Deeply rooted in the Irish mind had ever been the sentiment that the rightful owners of the soil had been supplanted by men of alien blood ; and equally ineradicable has been the instinct derived from old tribal law and
THE LANDLORDS' BURDEN 235
custom that, whatever else might betide him, an occupier could not be evicted, and that subdivision to supply land for his children was legitimate and proper. The inevitable changes consequent upon the operation of laws, natural or artificial, have been attributed to the action of individual land- lords. The great change from tillage to pasture that took place in 1815, when Ireland ceased to be the granary of England, and again later on, when the opening of the ports, the development of new countries and of the means of transporta- tion threw hundreds of thousands of acres out of cultivation throughout the United Kingdom, have been attributed to landlordism, and so has the artificial stimulus given to pasture by the iniquitous system of charging tithes solely upon tillage land. Clearances, which existed at the time Arthur Young visited Ireland in 1771, have been laid to the account of men now living.
The great Famine of 1846-47 placed landlords in an impossible position. A catastrophe of such national dimensions and intensity could be handled only by the State, and the State refused to do so. To deal with it was beyond the power of any class. It meant throwing the whole burden of supporting the population, of reconstituting society, and re- establishing agriculture, upon a small class, them- selves involved in the catastrophe. Poor rates were a first charge upon property, and rates could not be met without rent. Landlords, such as were able,
236 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
did what they could. Money to assist emigration was found by those not dependent upon Irish rent, and tenants for life were given powers to mortgage property for the same purpose. Their efforts have been cited against them. It was Parliament, not the landowners, that evicted practically the whole nation at the time of the great Famine, but the landlords bear the blame. The evils due to ab- senteeism can scarcely be exaggerated. The owner of the soil was, it is true, primarily responsible, but it was the poor Irish middleman who ground the faces of his poorer Irish fellow-countrymen that held under him. If a landlord condoned subdivi- sion, allowed rents to run into arrears, and lived in a somewhat reckless, haphazard way, he was blamed by English critics for not managing his estate on sound business principles. If he consoli- dated farms, insisted on punctual payment, and introduced sound commercial principles, he was cursed in Ireland as a tyrant and evictor. In England the letting value of agricultural land was easily ascertainable ; it was the rent a solvent, sensible man would contract to pay. In Ireland, owing to the excessive land hunger, no commercial index to true letting value was to be found. During centuries every effort had been made to erect impassable barriers between English and Irish, between the planter and the supplanted, between lessor and lessee, between landlord and tenant, between Protestant and Catholic. The
THE LINE OF CLEAVAGE 237
Irish have ever been tolerant in matters of religion. Religious faith has never been considered as a dis- qualification affecting the services of Irishmen to Ireland, nor as a matter for personal reproach ; but, nevertheless, the social effect of the meeting of all classes in a parish — landlord and tenant, farmer and labourer, squire and peasant — in common worship is infinitely great in softening manners, creating sympathy, and tightening those invisible bonds that knit society together. From the benign influence of common worship Ireland was debarred, and the fact that one line of cleavage ran through religion, race, and class has not lessened the diffi- culties with which landowners have had to contend.
POLITICS AND THE LAND.
For years landlords were attacked, from purely political motives, for actions for which they were not responsible and on grounds having no justifi- cation in theory, fact, or reason. Consider the position of landowners when prices collapsed and evil times befell agriculture in 1871. They were subjected to violent agrarian agitation of a threefold character. They were attacked on purely political grounds as the English Garrison that must be destroyed. They were attacked on the ground of holding property without legal or moral title, and therefore deserving of expropriation, with a second- class ticket to Holyhead as compensation. They were attacked for extorting rents rendered ex-
238 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
cessive by the fall in prices of agricultural produce. Landlords were but human, and even had they been so far above passion and prejudice as to have felt no resentment, it would have been hard for them to sift truth from falsehood, justice from injustice, right from wrong, in the agrarian struggle in which they became engaged. With no commercial standard of fair letting value to guide them, in the face of demands in many cases preposterous, con- fronted with an agitation largely dictated by political motives, it cannot be thought strange if under cir- cumstances of such confusion men lost sight of strict equity and justice, and stood rigidly upon their legal rights. Much has been charged un- deservedly against landlords through ignorance, for when Gladstone undertook to regenerate Ire- land, and landlordism was on its trial, they did not properly state their case. Attacked as a class for political object, they held together as a class to resist political attack, though many may have felt uneasy at the injustice to tenants involved in many cases. Partly for that reason, partly from that want of cohesion that seems characteristic of the Irish race, and partly perhaps because the old landlords had but little sympathy with the new race established under the Encumbered Estates Act, the case of landlordism was allowed to go by default. Yet Gladstone admitted that " they (the landlords) have stood their trial, and have as a rule been acquitted." Irish landlords have been unjustly blamed in
RISE OF AGRARIANISM 239
history, but from all blame they cannot be ex- onerated. They were reckless in methods and expenditure, lavish in hospitality, giving too little thought to the future. While during the great European War Ireland was England's principal source of food- supplies, they lived as though wheat would always command high prices, and good times for agriculture would last for ever. Too often they encouraged or shut their eyes to subdivision and the creation of small holdings, and thus may be said to have indirectly connived at the Famine. When the great decline in prices occurred in 1871, they did not meet their tenants half-way. There was not sufficient intimate acquaintance between the classes, and sympathy was deficient. Landowners left their properties too much in the hands of agents whose main duty was to collect rent, and did not concern themselves personally as they should have done with the injustice to tenants of their claims under the altered circumstances, or with the means adopted to enforce those claims. Demands for a rent that had become excessive were met by excessive demands for reduction of rent, and an agrarian war arose that might have been averted by closer personal intercourse, greater sympathy and wider views. As a class, landowners have suffered in the past from the blighting influence of ascend- ancy, religious and racial ; and in quite modern times they have failed to free themselves entirely from its deadening effects, to realize how circum-
240 EMIGRATION— LANDLORDISM
stances have changed, and to adapt themselves to them. The Irish landowners have remained too much a class apart ; they succumbed too easily to class animosity created for political purposes, were too proud to come down into the arena, take off their coats and demand their right to take part in the conduct of affairs. It is a false pride that fears defeat at the polls as a dishonour ; and it is a foolish pride, for in spite of all the demagogues that have preached, and will preach, class hatred, the Irish people still feel, and will feel in their hearts, affec- tion and respect for the " old stock." The country gentlemen fought for their natural and legitimate position half-heartedly, more or less content with the amenities and amusements of life, shorn of the social and political influence that ought to attach to it. Well, they have still an opportunity. Land purchase must, and will, be made operative again. In that lies their chance. For their sake, and the sake of Ireland, may they make the most of it, for it is the last.
PART V
CONCLUSION: IRELAND'S FUTURE
IN condensing the history of 700 years into the compass of a few pages, it is obviously impossible to do more than merely touch upon the most salient points, and briefly notice the principal episodes and events. Critical examination of policy, of incidents and their consequences, minute descriptions of happenings, and of what caused them and resulted from them, is out of the ques- tion ; and all that I have endeavoured to do is to dismiss, so far as is possible, all bias from my mind, and to present an impartial and truthful sketch. The morals to be drawn, and the con- clusions as to the future which may be arrived at, will naturally vary, according to personal idiosyn- crasies and the political and social views of individuals. The moral I draw and the conclusions at which I arrive represent my purely personal views and convictions. They may be deemed out of place in an essay of this kind, but I give them because these pages would not have been compiled had I not formulated ideas as to the means
241 16
242 IRELAND'S FUTURE
whereby the regeneration of Ireland may be accomplished. Mere criticism of England's policy and action in the past would be a barren endeavour without some definite conception of what the policy of the future ought to be.
An interesting theme for psychological study is to be found in the fact that British statesmen and the British people, who, as a whole, are sagacious and far-sighted in their dealings with other nations, with their Colonial Empire, and with their de- pendencies, have invariably exhibited the opposite qualities in their relations with Ireland ; and that they are even now unable, apparently, to under- stand that their failure in Ireland is due to the very same national characteristic that has made their success so pronounced as colonizers and builders of Empire. As a centralizing, assimilating agency England has, as compared with other nations, been unfortunate. Whenever she has abstained from centralizing, or has adopted decentralization, good fortune has attended her action. France is a combination of a great number of independent and semi-independent States. Some, such as Normandy and Gascony, conquered ; some, like Anjou and Burgundy, annexed ; and others — Brittany and Champagne, for instance — incorpor- ated by marriage. These States, however acquired, were absorbed in France. They became France, and natives of Provence, Burgundy, or Normandy answer to the name of Frenchmen all over the
ENGLAND'S FAILURE 243
world. France assimilated the elements near at hand, but in colonizing distant regions her career does not show a marked success. England has not absorbed Ireland, Scotland, or Wales. The British Islands are not England, the inhabitants are not English. No common name distinguishes them among nations. They describe themselves as English, Scots, Irish, or Welsh; but England has colonized the four quarters of the globe. By refraining from centralization she has kept the Channel Islands contented and loyal. By attempt- ing centralization she lost the Colonies in North America. By the adoption of one principle an Empire was lost ; by acting on the other principle another and a greater Empire was created and is held together. The failure to give content, pros- perity, and good government to Ireland is due to persistence in a vain attempt to accomplish a task for which the English character is unsuited. Eng- land cannot assimilate Ireland.
ERRORS IN ENGLISH POLICY.
During the earlier periods with which this treatise deals the conduct of England was at least consistent, and though eminently unwise, it was in accordance with views current at the time. Her policy was to exploit Ireland for the benefit of England without concern for the effect upon the former country. She aimed at annihilating the Irish in order to plant English in their places,
244 IRELAND'S FUTURE
and at destroying Irish trade, manufacture and commerce, in the interests of English trade, manu- facture and commerce. Though not at variance with the custom of the age, the policy was short- sighted and foolish to the last degree, and, un- fortunately, the same selfish methods have been continued long after wiser views of the relations between the two islands came to be generally entertained.
Looking back upon the pages of Irish history, and endeavouring to judge the causes that have made Ireland what she is, motives are more im- portant than facts, sentiment than deeds. Wars, persecutions, and confiscations pass and may be forgotten. Albeit they bleed freely, the wounds heal. But a false policy cripples so long as it lasts, and treachery, injustice, and humiliation cause en- during hurt. The consequences of a mistaken policy, of the treachery displayed towards the Irish in carrying it out, of the injustice with which they were treated, and of the contumely heaped upon them, abide with us still. The conception of ex- tinguishing Irish nationality by forcing upon the people a system of land tenure and law alien to them and utterly irreconcilable with their percep- tion of nationality lies at the root of all the trouble. In the effort to carry out that fatally false policy, methods were used which were bound to fail, and which success could not justify or condone. Every page of the history of England's dealings with
BROKEN PLEDGES 245
Ireland is defiled by broken faith. I make no reference to isolated events, such as the attempt to poison O'Neill by a gift of wine sent by the King's Deputy as a token of goodwill on the conclusion of peace. Such cases may be attributed to the crime of individuals, but in mentioning deliberate breaches of faith on the part of the State, what a terrible list may be made out ! The Earl of Kil- dare surrendered on the promise that his life would be spared, and, " sore against the will of his coun- cillors, dismissed his army." The promise of clemency made on his behalf was broken by the King. The Composition of Connaught was set at naught. The King's word was broken in the matter of the " Graces." In nearly all the so- called rebellions of Desmond, Tyrone, and others the cause was broken faith.
The Treaty of Limerick was violated. The troops surrendered on honourable terms, stipulat- ing, among other conditions, all of which were agreed to, for the free exercise of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland. Winter was coming on. The condition of the Williamite forces was bad. Surrender was of infinite value to William. Capitulation was accepted, but the terms were broken. Instead of granting toleration, the penal laws were put in force. Transportation was to be provided for the troops and those under their pro- tection— their wives and families. Sufficient trans- portation was not found, and when the troops
246 IRELAND'S FUTURE
embarked a great number of women were left behind, and many of them, clinging desperately to the boats, were drowned.
After the Restoration the pledges of restitution were not fulfilled.
The smashing of the Constitution granted in 1782 may perhaps be condoned. The Irish Parlia- ment created by that Constitution destroyed its creator ; but nothing can condone the destruction of the Constitution without an appeal to the people, or the broken promises of Catholic Emancipation and the Commutation of Tithes — held out as inducement to accept the Union.
Pages of instances of broken pledges might be given, but perhaps the whole case — the difference between the " superior !" and " inferior !" race in matters of good faith — may be summed up in the words of St. Leger to the King, Henry VIII. St. Leger may be trusted to have put the matter as leniently as he could. Writing in 1546, he said : " For Irishmen keeping their pacts I know not wherein they have greatly broken them ; but perchance if Englishmen being there were well examined they all keep not their promises." Let Irish and English honour rest at that. As it was then, so it was later ; and thus through all the dismal pages of English history in Ireland perfidy stands out as pre-eminently the cause of Irish distrust.
THE LAND ACT OF 1903 247
THE MORAL OF PAST MISTAKES.
What is the moral to be drawn? That the most punctilious observance of good faith towards Ireland is necessary to create trust in the good- will of England. Has Parliament understood that? I think not. The great Land Act of 1903 — the wisest measure ever passed for Ireland, a measure capable of transforming the face of the country and the temper of the people — was not a treaty, nor a covenant, nor a contract ; but it was an Act of Parliament conveying a definite pledge. Parliament cannot make a bind- ing contract. What Parliament does it can undo. Nevertheless, Parliament did enter into a specific undertaking. Great Britain did, in so far as she can speak through Parliament, pledge herself ; and Parliament, in so far as it can speak through the medium of the recognized chiefs of recognized parties, did pledge itself to fulfil its part of a contract if the other parties to the contract ful- filled theirs. The honourable understanding was that if the Act worked well it would be financed. It did work well, and it was not financed. Is it not strange that with this modern instance before their eyes, and with unquestionable cases of broken faith in the past within their memories, the belief of the Irish peasant in the good faith of England and in the justice of Parliament is not very robust ?
The expulsion of the best blood of the country
248 IRELAND'S FUTURE
by confiscations and penal laws, and, above all, the destruction of all handicrafts, manufacturing industries, and trade, have left an impression upon Irish character and the economic and social condition of the country difficult to erase. What is the moral ? The condition in Ireland is not due to natural causes. She is not responsible. Her con- dition is due to artificial causes for which England is responsible. Ireland must be looked upon as a portion of an estate run to waste, not because it is unprofitable for cultivation, but because cultivation was forbidden and the land was laid desolate. Ireland is sick in mind, body, and estate, but convalescing. Convalescence must be helped.
Whatever England has done in the way of reform for Ireland has been marred in its effect by being a little too small or a little too late ; and this fatal error is making its malign influence felt even now. All parties and all statesmen are, I am sure, agreed that the transfer of tenure in Ireland should be speedily accomplished, to the great advantage of the whole United Kingdom, but the operations of the Land Act of 1903 are hung up for want of a little money, to the dismay of the friends, and to the delight of the enemies, of a peaceful Ireland. A most beneficial measure is handicapped because its financial provisions are just a little too small. The same unfortunate defect operated disastrously during the period we have had under review. Catholic Emancipation, the Commutation of
IRELAND'S LONG STRUGGLE 249
Tithes, and other remedial measures, were too long deferred. A policy well designed to satisfy the requirements of Ireland at that time was utterly ruined because concessions were granted a little too late. " Too small or too late " is the epitaph of British endeavour.
THE POLICY OF "CONQUEST."
A sketch of Ireland attributing all her ills solely to a natural incapacity to effect centraliza- tion inherent in the character of the English people, or to English misrule, would be quite out of perspective. Defects in the Irish character are also responsible, though in justice it must be admitted that most of them are due to causes beyond her control, and are the direct consequences of misrule. The root of evil, for which England was responsible, was planted in the resolution to transform Ireland, to melt down her civilization wholly, and recast it in an English mould, instead of utilizing and adapting it. The root of evil, so far as Ireland is concerned, lay in arrested develop- ment ; and her history is a record of perpetual struggle to preserve nationality and achieve unity, in despite of the determination to make unity impossible, and to obliterate nationality by craft and force. The tribal system and the memory and tradition of it made unity for national pur- poses difficult of achievement, and England utilized the difficulty to the utmost. It was ever her
250 IRELAND'S FUTURE
policy — a not unnatural, but a short-sighted policy —to frustrate all efforts in that direction. From the invasion by Henry II. in 1171 to 1529, when a great man and a great conciliator, the Earl of Kildare, died in the Tower and his son and five brothers were hanged, numerous instances may be mentioned when internal differences could, under the influence of a strong and patriotic personality, have been arranged. All through Irish history occasions stand clearly out when the commonest justice would have reconciled Ireland and Eng- land, and would have enabled the two communities to pursue converging courses in amity. But the object of English, and afterwards British, policy was ever the same — the exploitation of Ireland for the benefit of a Sovereign, a trade, or a class ; and the method employed was ever the same — the en- couragement by every possible means of internal strife.
What is the moral ? To assist by all legitimate means the efforts towards the reconciliation of creeds, classes, and divergent interests in Ireland. Is that acted upon by the State ? I think not. Can it be truthfully said that even now the theory of divide to conquer has been quite abandoned, that Ireland is no longer used in the interest of class or party, and that statesmen have risen to the true conception that in a united Ireland they must look for, and will find loyalty to, the British connection and the Empire ?
FRUITS OF UNITY 251
Lack of the power of combination and co-opera- tion, want of cohesiveness, difficulty in subordin- ating personal and private to national and public objects, inordinate impatience for results, have ever stood in the way of Ireland ; but there is no reason to assume that the want of qualities so essential to the achievement of great purposes is the result of natural and racial defects of character, and is not due to the fact that national character never had a chance to develop and grow. Be that as it may, the fact is that with few exceptions the Irish have never acted as one.
FRUITS OF IRISH UNITY.
In 1014 Ireland, for the time united, fought and won the Battle of Clontarf, an action which ought to be considered one of the great battles of the world. Their dream of dominion was at stake, and Northmen from Iceland, Norway, Sweden, England, Scotland, and the Isle of Man fought to realize it, but were worsted in a battle which shattered the prospect of a great Scandinavian Empire with its capital in London, and inciden- tally paganism with it. England remained part of a Continental kingdom, but the battle left Ireland unfettered and free.
In 1779 Ireland acted as a nation under the influence of the Volunteer Movement, and won freedom of trade and a constitution.
In 1901-02 a revival of national spirit brought
252 IRELAND'S FUTURE
about a conference on the Land Question that led to an Act of Parliament, which would have settled for ever the cause of centuries of strife, had that national spirit been allowed fair play. Had Ireland held together, Land Purchase could never have been killed, and Ireland would have by now obtained most of, if not all of, the reforms she can legitimately desire. But a people lacking in inde- pendence were worked upon by misguided men, and the national spirit that could have achieved so much was stifled. For that lost opportunity Ire- land has herself to blame. From time to time individuals and associations have striven to con- centrate nationality into action, but in vain. Ire- land has been in all her troubles helpless, because divided against herself.
Suspicion, the sad legacy of persecution disgraced by flagrant acts of treachery and broken faith, makes co-operation hard. Perpetual injustice has twisted the nature of a law-abiding people into a deep distrust of law, and has inclined them to seek in secret societies and through underhand means to right their wrongs. Centuries of failure have sapped their self - reliance and centuries of un- deserved contempt their self-respect. From all these causes spring that difficulty in uniting genuinely, that impatience and that suspicion of each other that has militated so greatly against them in all their efforts for redress. Through all the movements of modern times, through
THE IRISH REVIVAL 253
O'C (Hindi's agitation for repeal, Butt's efforts for reconstruction on federal lines, Parnell's campaign for separation, impatience, suspicion, the intrusion of selfish motives into national concerns, and, in consequence, internal dissension, are plainly visible as factors disqualifying for success. In their efforts to secure unity, parties in Ireland have ever made the huge mistake of seeking to achieve unity by force, and have succeeded only in creating a semblance of unity, useless and worse than useless, in that it stifles all independence of thought, and by transforming the people into mere dummies in a political game, renders real unity — unity in action brought about by unity of thought and of spontaneous national sentiment — so difficult to attain.
What is the moral? That in independence of thought, co-operation, trust, the attitude of free- men towards each other — in short, in the quicken- ing sense of a common nationality and the sub- ordination of all else to it, lies the regeneration of Ireland. Fortunately, abundant evidences of an awakening in that direction are plainly to be seen. Attainment of local self-government did a good deal. The Land Purchase Acts have done much more. Men feel themselves to be men. In the belief that at last they will have fair play, self-reliance is quickening in them. In the hopes of better mutual understanding, self- respect and respect for others, energy and enter-
254 IRELAND'S FUTURE
prise are taking the place of lethargic despair, hatred, and distrust. The people are alive to the fact that though help in some things is needful to them, the privilege of regenerating their country is with them. They understand that Ireland must learn to walk alone, or crawl a cripple all her life ; and that they must see to it. They know that self-help and mutual help is the only formula that can transform Ireland. That they alone can work out their country's salvation is becoming a living faith with them. But help is needed, and in two directions.
THE FIRST DUTY : COMPLETION OF LAND PURCHASE.
The completion of Land Purchase is the primary obligation. That question must be viewed from the point of view both of ethics and expediency. Parliament is omnipotent. It can give and it can take back. But when Parliament undertakes a great social revolution, with the unanimous consent of all parties, and pledges itself, so far as it can be pledged by the words of the leaders of parties and the assent of their followers, to carry through that revolution, the moral obligation must, I think, be admitted. Parliament was bound to carry on the Act of 1903. It has not done so. Whatever may be thought about the ethics of the case, no doubt can be entertained of the expediency of complet- ing the transfer of tenure as speedily as possible.
PARLIAMENT'S OBLIGATIONS 255
Title to more than half the holdings in Ireland has been transferred from the owners to the occupiers, and with such excellent results that the casual traveller can distinguish at a glance between the farms that have, and the farms that have not, been purchased.
It is unthinkable that a revolution so benefi- cent can be stopped half-way. To do so would be to make confusion worse confounded, and the millions advanced may be written off, not as a bad debt in terms of money, but as wasted to a great extent, in terms of social improvement and economic fructifying effect. No parallel can be drawn ; but imagine a condition existing in the great industries of Great Britain of such a character that the welfare of millions of wage-earners depended upon Parlia- ment carrying out an arrangement to which it had pledged itself. The conception, though straining the imagination, is not impossible ; but it is im- possible to imagine Parliament repudiating its obligation when the operation was half completed, and the good results were clearly proved, on the ground that, though the transaction was a pro- nounced success, and the money advanced in furtherance of it perfectly secured, more money than was originally estimated for was required. And the real case in Ireland is stronger than any imaginary case affecting Great Britain, for the welfare of practically the whole population of Ireland is involved. Land Purchase must go on.
256 IRELAND'S FUTURE
Landlordism must be abolished in toto, and it must be on the lines of the Act of 1903. That Act was a marvellous success, because it was just, and gave reasonable satisfaction to all parties con- cerned. It may be modified in detail, but it is idle to suppose that land transfer can be com- pleted under any Act departing from it in prin- ciple.
The establishment of a peasant proprietary is essential to the social and industrial well-being of the country, and that is obligatory on the State ; but it must not be deemed all-sufficient in itself. Occupying owners of land must learn to make the most of their opportunities, and other indus- tries must be revived in order to reduce land hunger from the craving of starvation to a healthy appetite. Co-operation, the conduct of agriculture on up-to-date lines, and industrial revival are necessary, and require the exercise of qualities which have shrunk under the enervating influence of centuries of misrule. Irishmen alone can revive those qualities : that is Ireland's task.
NECESSITY FOR POLITICAL REFORM.
Land Purchase will not satisfy the aspirations or the necessities of the people. Political reform is also required. Constitutional reform is desirable both for its material and moral effect. It is necessary to ensure better government, it is neces- sary as an expression of nationality, and a true
COUNSELS OF DESPAIR 257
sense of nationality finding a legitimate mode of expression is necessary for the creation and development of those civic virtues without which Ireland cannot progress. Ireland cannot be content without some political recognition of her national- ity : nor, save under the stimulus of control over her own affairs, can the people of Ireland regain the self-confidence and energy necessary for in- dustrial development in agriculture and other trades. It is true that the doctrine that agitation for Home Rule is impossible alone, and must be tacked on to agrarian agitation to obtain vitality and force, has been held by Irish politicians, and true also that some leaders of a deluded people have laboured to wreck land purchase, fearing lest a settlement of the Land Question would make the people indifferent about Home Rule. Forms of government are but means to an end — the welfare of the governed — and to strive deliberately to make Ireland miserable, in order to create artificially an agitation which, if she were allowed to be happy, could not arise, is mere traitorous fanaticism ; but the fanatics are mistaken and the fanaticism is foolish. The people of Ireland are not likely, under any circumstances, to abandon their political claims. If they did, I should deeply regret it, for I do not believe that under the legislative Union as it stands, real prosperity and progress is possible. But I am not uneasy on the subject. With the present political condition Ireland will not be
17
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content ; and the questions, therefore, that I would put to the people of Great Britain are these ; and they are simple ones. Can the aspiration of Ireland for control of her own affairs be satisfied without menacing the interests of Great Britain to such an extent as to make such satisfaction impossible or even unwise ? Is not a large devolution of business necessary for the efficiency of the Imperial Parlia- ment ? Would, or would not, Home Rule on federal lines react beneficially upon the Empire and the prospects of civilization throughout the world ?
No DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE.
Judging by letters which from time to time appear in the Press, the first of my queries appears to be the kind of question which the oft-quoted " man in the street " puts to himself when he turns a thought to Ireland. And the answer generally is, that the Union must be maintained intact because it is the only and essential basis upon which a federated Empire may be built ; because decentra- lization would be a retrograde step ; and because separation is Ireland's object, and independence is desired in order to inflict injury upon Great Britain. " Imagine," they say, " the intolerable danger of our position in some great conflict hampered by an independent Ireland on our flank harbouring and welcoming foreign fleets and foreign troops. Come what may, the Union must not be touched ; it is essential to our safety." Even were the premisses
FALSE WAR CRIES 259
correct, they scarcely warrant the deduction. Though in times of persecution in the distant past Irishmen's eyes turned to foreign aid, there never was a general appeal, and history does not record an enthusiastic reception of foreign troops. Ireland for the Irish was the ideal then and is the ideal now, and the notion that Irish freeholders or tenants would see Ireland invaded and turned into a field of battle in order to gratify a feeling of hatred is pre-eminently absurd. Moreover, the conception of serious menace from a population not half that of London, and divided, as it would be, into hostile camps, is scarcely worthy of con- sideration. But let that pass. The premisses are not correct. Ireland does not desire independence. Flamboyant speeches, demanding independence and breathing hostility to England, may be useful for dollar-extracting purposes abroad, and may appeal to people whose knowledge of Ireland is traditional only ; but such war cries produce no practical echo in Ireland. The Irish people, .what- ever they may be, are not fools. The destruction of their market, even if they could accomplish it, does not commend itself to Irish farmers as likely to conduce to their prosperity and welfare. Of American-Irish sentiment I know little or nothing ; of Irish-Irish not more than many others ; but of this I am certain — that, with the exception, perhaps, of a small and insignificant minority, the people of Ireland have no desire for separation ; it does not
260 IRELAND'S FUTURE
suggest itself as a solution of the difficulties that beset them. What they do want is the conduct of their own affairs, and they ardently desire it for three reasons : Firstly, to satisfy national senti- ment ; secondly, because they believe, and rightly, that they could manage their own affairs far better than they are managed for them ; and thirdly, because they instinctively feel that the recognition of nationality and the responsibility of government is necessary to nourish and stimulate into activity those qualities of enterprise, industry, self-con- fidence, and self-respect, which have withered under ages of misgovernment, servitude, and persecu- tion. Self-government on the lines that have made Quebec a loyal partner of the Dominion and member of the Empire would satisfy Ireland as it satisfied Quebec, and would produce similar results. The opinion is very generally held that any change in the relations of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland towards each other in the direction of decentralization is a retrogressive step, involving such a weakening of the forces of connection as must eventually, and probably speedily, lead to the disruption of the British Empire. This political concept is absolutely erroneous. It arises from a misunderstanding of facts, is contrary to experience, and cannot be justified either in theory or in practice.
HOME RULE ALL ROUND 261
* •
IRELAND'S LONG PROTEST AGAINST UNION.
I have alluded to the three kingdoms — England, Scotland, and Ireland — because, in theory, the advantages of decentralization apply equally to all ; but I confine myself to Ireland, because her circum- stances are peculiar, and in her case the necessity for change is urgent.
It is futile to consider whether Ireland could, under any circumstances, have prospered under the Union. In dealing with human nature, one must take facts and their action and their reaction upon human beings, and the facts are that the Irish Parliament was abolished without reference to the only authority competent of such action — the Irish people — and that Ireland has not prospered under the Union. The inevitable result is that the legality of the Act of Union has been, and is, consistently denied, and that Ireland has, and does, and, in my opinion, always will, attribute her lack of material prosperity to the effects of the instrument that deprived her of control over her own affairs.
Though at the time, in the apathy of exhaustion, she acquiesced in the Union, she has never ceased to protest, and it will therefore be conceded that if any change is made in the direction of decentra- lization, if the constitution of the United Kingdom is recast on the lines of federation, Ireland stands on a footing very different from Scotland or Eng- land. Ireland bases her claim for control over her
262 IRELAND'S FUTURE
own affairs on the grounds of sentiment, necessity, and the illegality of the instrument that deprived her of that control. Scotland can plead sentiment and convenience ; England convenience only.
Of all peoples we — and by " we " I mean the unnamed nationality existing in these islands — are the most subject to self-delusion. On no other ground is it possible to account for the sort of sanctity attached to the Acts of the Union. They are looked upon as giving legal expression to accomplished facts, as the outward and visible sign of an inward union, as the final phase of a natural process of amalgamation, and any tampering with them is viewed as an attempt to dissociate forcibly elements which have naturally combined. Nothing can be further from the truth. Ireland is governed by a Governor-General, who is advised by his own Privy Council. Ireland has a Lord Chancellor all to herself. Her system of jurisprudence is in some respects peculiar, and that is the case in Scotland to a far greater extent. Marriage laws and customs lie at the root of human institutions. The English and Scotch laws of marriage are distinct, and divorce cannot be obtained in Ireland. Under such circumstances Union is a misnomer. It con- notes legislative Union only, and even in that con- nection it is misapplied, for disputes are frequent in Parliament as to whether some particular enact- ment should, or should not, apply to the various units constituting the so-called United Kingdom.
CHANGED CONDITIONS 263
A United Kingdom is, we are told, essential as the only basis upon which the structure of a more closely connected Empire can be raised. To that I agree, but the Union must be a real one based on mutual advantage, sentiment, and affection. At present, so far as Ireland is concerned, it is a sham one sanctioned by force.
REPEAL OF THE UNION IMPOSSIBLE.
To repeal the Union is absurd, so it is said. You might as well propose to restore the Heptarchy. I accept that. Repeal is out of the question. Certain defects were inherent in the constitution of Ireland. Without modification her Parliament could not have adapted itself to changing condi- tions, and new circumstances. The vast growth and increasing power of Great Britain, her industrial development, and the effects of steam and electricity in modifying time and space, have wrought a pro- found change.
Gigantic movements, industrial, social, economic, and, I may say, geographical, have since the days of Grattan's Parliament taken place in Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the relations between the two kingdoms. Ireland has now but little command of money, and individually, no credit ; she must rely upon the credit of the United Kingdom. Dublin was then as far from London as New York is now from Liverpool. London and Dublin are not half as far apart now as
264 IRELAND'S FUTURE
were Dublin and Cork in those days. Letters go from any part of Ireland now to any part of England or Scotland in a day at the cost of one penny. Time and space have been well-nigh annihilated, and electricity has made communica- tion between men almost instantaneous. There is a large settled population of Irish in Great Britain, and migratory bodies, chiefly from the west of Ireland, find employment among British farmers every autumn. The interchange of population is far greater than of yore. Many more English visit Ireland, chiefly for pleasure, and many more Irish visit England, chiefly for business. The professions in Great Britain are crowded with Irishmen, and great numbers of them, in proportion to the popu- lation of their native land, find an outlet for their enterprise, energies, and talents in the Civil Service, in India, and in the Colonies. In social and commercial matters the lives of the two nations have become so closely interwoven that political issues which at one time would have been confined in their effects to one, now make themselves felt in both.
Some form of legislative union in the shape of federation would inevitably have taken place. But even if that be so, the time chosen for proposing legislative union was most inopportune, the methods employed to carry the Act were scandalous, and the measure was far too complete. It deprived Ireland of all control. It transferred legislation and adminis-
FAILURE OF THE UNION 265
tration down to the minutest details to a Parliamen sitting in London. It made a complete fusion o the Legislatures, and aimed at making a complete fusion of the nations. It succeeded in the formei object to the detriment of both kingdoms, and it succeeded partially — if it can be called success — in the latter object, by stimulating absenteeism, and by degrading the landed gentry of the country from their natural position ; but it failed to accom plish amalgamation, and it was bound to fail in view of the unalterable characteristics of the English and Irish peoples. In spite of the intermingling of interests, and notwithstanding the obliteration of distance by electricity and steam, Ireland remains a distinct nation with a character of her own, and a united Parliament has demonstrated its inability to govern Ireland, to enforce law and order, or to administer her affairs well. The Act of Union has proved a failure because it was constructed on wrong lines, introduced at the wrong time, passed by wrong means. A legislative union would have taken place, but as it would have been to the interest of both parties, it would have been entered into willingly, and it would have been constructed on sound federal lines. It would have aimed at unification on all great and essential matters, while leaving the local legislature control over local affairs as was originally contemplated by Pitt It is on those lines that the Union must be re- constructed now.
266 IRELAND'S FUTURE
Is FEDERATION DESIRABLE?
Repeal of the Union and the re-creation in Ire- land of a sovereign independent parliament could not be conceded by Great Britain, it is not de- manded by Ireland, and may be dismissed. The question is, Is federation as between Great Britain and Ireland desirable ? What are the objec- tions ?
1. That federation is impossible in the case of kingdoms already united. That is true, but pedantic, and may be disposed of by amending the question, and asking, Is devolution on federal lines desirable ?
2. That it is a retrograde step. That is not true. It could be true only under two conditions. Firstly, that the legislative union had been will- ingly arrived at as the outward expression and logical conclusion of inward union — a proposition obviously contrary to the facts ; and, secondly, that a legislature capable of attending to the affairs of the United Kingdom one hundred years ago is equally capable of managing the vastly extended business of the United Kingdom and of the Empire now. That proposition is, I submit, also contrary to the facts. To remedy a mistake does not involve retrogression. The principle of union has not gained strength under the Act of Union. To amend the Act is a step in advance.
3. That Ireland, being represented in Parlia-
THE PRINCIPLE OF DEVOLUTION 267
ment, enjoys self-governing power, and that, there- fore, no change is needed — a fallacy, and a dangerous one, for on that theory representation of the Dominions on any Imperial body would be for ever impossible.
4. That Ireland would control not only her own affairs, but the affairs of Great Britain also, and that under Devolution the Imperial Parliament, having little or nothing to do, would become degraded. The first of these objections will find solution when the respective functions of the superior and inferior Legislatures are determined ; and under a broad and comprehensive federal scheme it could not arise. Whether England, Scotland, and Wales desire subordinate Parlia- ments is a question that the future will decide. The principle is sound, but their case is not quite on all fours with that of Ireland ; and so far, at any rate, as England is concerned, her influence in the Imperial Parliament will always be so pre- dominant as probably to render the creation of a separate subordinate Parliament unnecessary to secure her in the control of purely English affairs. On the second objection comment is scarcely necessary. Experience disproves it. The United States consists of forty-six States and four Terri- tories, all having their own legislatures. The Dominion of Canada contains ten Provinces, each with its own Parliament. Six Parliaments are comprised in the Commonwealth of Australia, and
268 IRELAND'S FUTURE
South Africa has four. Germany is a federation of twenty-six States ; and Switzerland is a federa- tion of twenty-two Cantons. Congress has not fallen into ignominy and disrepute, nor have the Parliaments of the Dominions, nor have the central federal bodies in the German and Swiss confedera- tions ; and it is absurd to suppose that an Imperial Parliament dealing with matters common to the 47,000,000 inhabitants of the British Islands and supervising the affairs of an Empire with a popu- lation of 410,000,000, would find its hands idle or its status and dignity lowered in the eyes of the world.
5. Fear that the Protestant minority would be exposed to persecution, and that the industrial and wealthy North would suffer injustice in matters of taxation. Every page of history contradicts the assumption of religious or secular intolerance and injustice on the part of the Catholic majority. But let that pass. The safeguarding of property and of all civil and religious rights is a question of detail depending upon the control of the Imperial Par- liament, or on the wording of a bill of rights and the nature of the federal arrangement entered into. Religious liberty and the rights of property are secured almost too rigidly in the great federation— the United States. I believe the fears for the minority to be groundless ; but, be that as it may, they can be effectually dispelled. The minority cannot be guaranteed exceptional treatment
A HOSTILE IRELAND 269
founded on religious, racial, or class ascendancy, and they ought to be ashamed to demand it ; but they can be guaranteed equality and fair play, and for more than that they have no right to ask.
6. That Home Rule could be used as a lever to raise Ireland to independence, that independence would be utilized as an instrument of hostility, and that the strategic position of an hostile Ireland would imperil Great Britain in the event of war. All such objections are founded on ignorance, or are derived from the imagination. Ireland knows she cannot stand alone. Ireland is proud of the Empire she has done so much to create, and in the life of which she takes so honourable a part. She will recognize to the full the advantages of her connection with Great Britain, and her Im- perial duties, whenever Great Britain recognizes the distinct characteristics of Ireland and the wisdom of giving her freedom in the management of her own affairs. I submit that satisfactory answers can be given to all the objections raised to a policy of devolution.
BRITAIN'S NEED OF DEVOLUTION.
Devolution is necessary for Ireland and for Great Britain. It is necessary in order to restore efficiency to Parliament. Parliament must be purged if the Democracy is to rule. We are drifting, if we have not already drifted, into a bureaucratic system, partially controlled by an oligarchy. By a large
270 IRELAND'S FUTURE
delegation of power, departments have been placed beyond parliamentary control. From the indecent and fraudulent tumult of an election a number of individuals emerge, the majority of whom, however loosely compacted, proceed to delegate all authority to a small committee, who become Ministers of the Crown. They control administration, and, so far as the House of Commons is concerned, legislation also. They allow or forbid, lengthen or shorten debate, as they will. For any practical good that he can do, the private member has ceased to exist. The repre- sentatives of the people have become a sort of electoral college for the creation of a cabinet. An oligarchy masquerading as a democracy rules. Representative government and parliamentary in- stitutions are becoming a sham.
For this evil evolution many reasons may be given, but at the bedrock lies the inability of the parlia- mentary machine to cope with the stupendous mass of business coming before it. The only remedy lies in delegation of power, not to irresponsible bureaux, but to representative bodies responsible to the people. Devolution to an Irish body of Irish busi- ness is closely connected with devolution of a more extended character, and, though confining myself to urging a delegation of authority to an Irish body, I have not been unmindful of the fact that a more general delegation may become necessary to restore the Commons' House of Parliament to the
IMPERIAL ASPECTS 271
position of the live and responding instrument of a free and responsible people ; and that the constitu- tion of the Second Chamber and the relations between the two branches of the Legislature must be dealt with. The constitutional problem must be viewed as a whole. If the people are to rule, if the democracy is to conduct the United Kingdom and the Empire along the lines that destiny has marked, the democracy must learn the lesson all democracies have had to learn — the duty of pro- tecting itself against itself. A strong, well- balanced constitution, finding expression in a Parliament free to exercise the high functions entrusted to it, is necessary if the democracy is really to rule.
A FEDERATED EMPIRE.
With the scheme of federation within the three Kingdoms the vision of a federated Empire is bound up. Speculation as to the form which Imperial unity may take would be out of place here ; but this much is certain. Parliament, in the con- dition in which it is now — controlled by log-rolling, paralyzed by congestion, rent on such a funda- mental question as the relations between the two Houses, or perhaps on the still graver question whether it is to consist of two Chambers or one — can offer no attraction to the great Dominions over- sea, nor is it likely to create a body on which they would consent to be represented. If ever their
272 IRELAND'S FUTURE
voices are to be heard in a council of the Empire, that council must emanate from or be a Parliament worthy of the Empire. Stability of Parliament, and of the constitution it acts under, is a condition pre- cedent to Imperial consolidation. A consolidated Empire is but a vision, it may be said. Well, yes ; but not an idle dream. Thought precedes action, and imagination precedes thought, visions materialize and dreams may come true. It is a dream which, if converted into substance by any party, would entitle that party to be styled, " the Democratic and the Unionist Party." But such matters should not be the prey of party. The majority of both the great political parties are near enough in their views on great questions to make compromise and construction feasible. Party considerations, the necessity of disagreement for party purposes, distort the view, exaggerate difficulties and cause obstacles and details to assume dimensions out of all propor- tion to their true size and shape. In ordinary affairs the fierce criticism of party is invaluable, but a constitutional question of such magnitude should be raised above party, and should at least be dispassionately discussed with the honest hope of reconciling those few differences which lie at the root of the many differences manifested in the organization of parties.
Is, then, devolution on federal lines desirable ? For the reasons set forth in the foregoing pages I believe it to be desirable — nay, essential — in the
IRELAND BARS THE ROAD 273
interest of Ireland, of Great Britain, and of the Empire. It would satisfy the vast majority of th people of Ireland and become a permanent settle- ment. It would relieve the House of Commons of a mass of business with which, under present cir- cumstances, it is impossible for it efficiently to deal. It would strengthen the union of the three kingdoms, and by so doing would tend to con- solidate the Empire. It would add to the strength of the Empire as a world Power.
COLONIAL AND AMERICAN SENTIMENT.
A quarter of a century has passed since Mr. Gladstone's struggle for Home Rule. All the circumstances have changed. Ireland is not the same Ireland ; England is not the same England ; the Empire is not the same Empire ; and there is a growing movement towards some sort of federation of the Empire and some practical recognition of the fact that a good understanding between all English-speaking peoples makes for civilization and peace. The conditions underlying the solution of the Irish problem are very different from those of a quarter of a century ago ; but one fact remains — Ireland bars the road to a better control of the affairs of the United Kingdom, to closer relations with the Oversea Dominions, and to the conclusion of an arbitration treaty between all the English- speaking peoples which may lift from them some- thing of the shadow of war and of the increasing
18
274 IRELAND'S FUTURE
burden of armaments, and which might set an example of the gospel of peace.
Irish sentiment is a powerful factor in the politics of the United States. In all the great Dominions it makes itself felt. Chary as they naturally are of appearing to wish to interfere in our domestic affairs, the opinions of responsible statesmen in the Oversea Dominions of the Crown that a settle- ment of the Irish question would be a relief to them and a strengthening of the Empire cannot be ignored.
Unionists must cease to look at the problem in the dim light of the past, and must consider it in view of things as they are now and of questions to be settled in the future.
The wisdom and justice of the case for Home Rule has been temporarily compromised by the insane policy of pinning it on to the skirts of con- stitutional revolution or reform ; but that phase will pass. Federation is the only principle on which Home Rule can be accomplished. A strong second chamber — a stable, well-balanced constitution — is essential to the principle of federation.
The success of the Land Conference ten years ago produced a marked change in Ireland in favour of conciliatory methods ; a new spirit arose which, in spite of all efforts to extinguish it, persists and grows. A strong sentiment of conservatism, in the best and largest sense, has been created by land pur- chase. Ireland will, when she gets control over her
UNIONIST POLICY 275
own affairs on federal lines, be playing to a gallery of Irish opinion throughout the Empire and the United States, content that her legitimate demands have been complied with, and expecting her to use, and not to abuse, the privileges conferred upon her. All these matters must be fairly considered by Unionists. The old non possumus attitude of the Unionist Party towards Ireland is obsolete and dangerous — obsolete because all the conditions creating it have changed, and dangerous because the continuance of the open sore in Ireland is a scandal to the Empire and a source of irritation throughout the English-speaking world. *
THE CINDERELLA OF THE FAMILY.
That Ireland, the Cinderella of the family, is destined to play so important a part in the pageant
* A significant statement of the new Irish problem was made by Mr. J. L. Garvin in the Fortnightly Revieiv of November, 1910, and Mr. Garvin's attachment to the Unionist Party is above suspicion : " It is only one acute sign of the fact known to everyone who makes a candid study of American conditions that there is no possibility not only of an alliance, but of a close rapprochement, or even of a permanent treaty of arbitration, between the British Empire and the American Republic while the Irish question remains on its present footing. To place it on a different footing has become one of the chief needs of our foreign policy. Further, we have to reckon with the senti- ment ofthe self-governing Dominions. . . . To the Dominions, our dealing with this question in the twentieth century, in spite of the immense changes of the last twenty years in every single aspect of our policy, external and internal, seems to be madness."
276 IRELAND'S FUTURE
of Empire is a notable example of the irony of fate. Yet it is so. Ireland's grievance and her persistent efforts to find redress have created a parliamentary situation that has forced atten- tion to the suffocating results of a congestion of business in the House of Commons which must be relieved if Parliament is to exercise more than a nominal control over the affairs of the State.
The probable results of devolution to Ireland must be viewed with the eye of faith. It is im- possible to express in any definite terms the energizing effect of satisfied national sentiment upon the moral and industrial attributes of a community. All that can be said is that, looking at communities in general, and upon Ireland in particular, legislative and administrative responsi- bility reacts favourably upon the social and economic life of a people, and that Ireland is disposed to make a good use of opportunities offered to her. Those who know Ireland best will agree with me in saying that, in spite of moral cowardice and suspicion, the damnable legacy of bad government, the whole sentiment of Ireland is towards the development of her natural resources, and is in favour of peace at home, friendship to- wards Great Britain, and a due appreciation of Imperial privileges and duties.
The experiment is not a novel one. It has been tried, and with success, in all the great self-govern-
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 277
ing Colonies, and Continental nations have not found it a failure. That it must meet with great difficulties in Ireland, I am very ready to admit. Public opinion might form but slowly. It would take time for all that is best in the character of the nation to assert itself. A people cannot be ex- pected to scrape off in a moment all the moral accretions of a dismal past and to emerge at once into the condition of a wise, prudent, self-governing community, but great is the charm of property and wonderful the magic of responsibility. That Ireland would win her way, though perhaps through many obstacles and difficulties, to a con- dition of good government, contentment, pros- perity, and peace, there is no good reason to doubt.
With the eye of faith also must the larger issues be regarded, avoiding stumbling-blocks of detail, and trusting to the instincts of a masterful people and the destinies of the Empire. Of one thing there can be little doubt. We are approaching, if we have not reached, the parting of the ways. Immobility is impossible. We must go downwards towards the misery inseparable from degradation to the condition of an isolated and decaying State, or upwards towards the prosperity incidental to the condition of a great and growing Imperial State. Whether the curve is to be upward or downward, whether, contraction or expansion is to be our fate, depends, as it seems to me, upon whether, through
278 IRELAND'S FUTURE
the foresight of our statesmen and the wisdom of our people, adequate means are taken to set our house in order, and to adapt our constitution and our institutions to the demands which expansion must make upon them.
INDEX OF AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS QUOTED
ABERCROMBIE, General Sir Ralph, | 87, 88
Adams, Mrs., 92
Adrian IV., Pope, Bull of, to Henry II., 10-13
Armagh, finding of the magis- trates of, 79
Carte, Thomas, 52, 55 Chatham, Earl of, 73 Clanricarde, Earl of, 56 Clare, Lord, 134 Clogy, Alexander, 49 Cole, Sir William, 51
Davis, H. W. C., "England under the Normans and An- gevins," 9 n.
Davis, Sir John, 38, 40, 110, 123
Fitzwilliam, Lord, 82 Flood, Henry, 135 Foster, John, 175 Four Masters, Annals of the, 31, 32
Garvin, J. L., 275 n.
Gordon, Loyalist historian, 101
Grattan, Henry, 80, 81, 153, 174
Harvey, Bagenall, 104 Holinshed, Raphael, 30, 32
Kildare, Countess of, 46 Knox, Alexander, 176
Lalor, James Fintan, 228 Lecky, W. E. H., 36, 53, 72, 195 n.
Macaulay, Lord, 25 Mitchell, John, " History of Ire- land," 222 n. Molyneux, William, 169 Montesquieu, Baron de, 169
O'Brien, W. P., 215-217 O'Neill, Sir Phelim, 54 Ormonde, Earl of, 63
Parnell, Sir John, 134 Pitt, William, 170 Pius V., Pope, Bull of, 21 n. Preston, General, 51
St. Leger, Sir W., 246 Smith, Adam, 169 Smith, Goldwin, 40 n. Spenser, Edmund, 30
Taylor, J. F., 108 n. Tone, Wolfe, 86
United Irishmen, pledge of, 77 Usher, Archbishop, 31
Young, Arthur, 70, 208-213
279
GENERAL INDEX
ABERCROMBIE, General Sir Ralph,
87,88
Abjuration Oath, 131 Adrian IV., Pope, 9, 10
Bull of, to Henry II., 10-13,
14, 16, 19 Agriculture, 30, 31, 37, 70, 114,
205, 209, 210, 227, 235, 236 Alexander III., Pope, 9 n. Allegiance, Oath of, 131 Alva, Duke of, 26, 61 American War of Independence,
73, 74, 166 Anglo-Norman settlements, 17,
24, 202 Anne, Queen of England, 130,
168, 179 Antrim, 94 Ardglass, 117 Ards, Barony of, 95 Arklow, 97 Armagh, 53, 78, 79 Augher, 53 Aughrim, 78
Ballinahinch, 95
Ballymena, 95
Bantry, 31, 86, 117
Barrymore, Lord, 46
Becket, Thomas a, 16
Bedell, Bishop, 107
Belfast, 55, 74, 76, 95
Belturbet, 54
Beresford, John, 83
Birr, 55
Bolton, Sir Richard, 149
Bond, Oliver, 89
Boulavogue, 96
Boyne, Battle of the, 65, 66, 78
Brehon law, 34, 36, 199 Burgh, Walter Hussey, 151 Bushe, Charles K., 187 Butler, Simon, 76 Butt, Isaac, 253
Camden, Lord, 87 Canning, George, 189 Carew, George, 30 Carlow, 93, 94 Carrick Magryffid, 55 Castlehaven, Lord, 59 Castlereagh, Lord, 176 Catholic Association, the, 81 Catholic emancipation :
approved by the Cabinet, 82 and by the Protestant in- habitants, 83 but resisted by "The Castle,"
83
and not granted for thirty- five years, 84 Pitt's desire for, 167, 170 an argument for the Union,
172
but Act not passed for twenty- nine years, 192 too long deferred, 192, 215,
217, 248 Cattle Act, 124 Caulfield, Dr., Roman Catholic
Bishop, 99
Charlemont, Lord, 77, 79, 175 Charles I., King of England, 24,
27, 28, 44, 45, 47, 56, 60, 144 Charles II., King of England, 28,
47, 63, 146, 203
Charter of Irish Independence, 160
280
INDEX
281
Chieftainship, elective, 8 Church in Ireland,, the, 15, 231 Eastern in tradition and cus- tom, 15 throws off the authority of
Canterbury, 15 Civilization in Ireland, 4, 13, 37,
115
Civil War of 1688, the, 06, 146 Clanricarde, Earl of, 19, 50, 55,
59
Clare, Lord, 83, 167, 185 Cloghoughter, 54 Clorimel, 55 Clontarf, Battle of, 251 Cobdeii, Richard, 227 Coligny, Admiral, 26 Commerce, 14, 17, 37, 70, 82, 114, 115-130, 134-136, 146, 147, 148, 151, 152, 153, 161- 164, 166, 171, 172, 224, 227, 244 Composition of Connaught, 41,
42, 44, 49, 201, 203, 245 Con-acre, 216 Corbridge, 53 Cork, 47, 117, 123, 171, 184,
264
Cork, Earl of, 46, 127 Corn Laws, 208 Cornwallis, Lord, 186 Corry, Lord, 187 Council. See Parliament Cromwell, Oliver, Protector, 24, 27, 40, 47, 58-66, 128, 145, 168, 194
Cromwell, Richard, Protector, 47 Cromwellian Campaign, 1649, 58-
66
under strict discipline, 60 decrease of population during,
61 wholesale confiscation as its
result, 62
its objects and character, 63 Crosby, Sir Edward, 93 Curragh of Kildare, the, 93
Deasy's Act, 1860, 231 De Burgos, the, 42 Declaration of rights, the, 81 n "Defenders," 74,76, 77, 78, 79,
81, 85, 103 Deputy. See Lord -Lieutenant
Desmond, Earl of, 18, 19, 32, 38 Devolution, 269-271 Dickey, James, 104 Dingle, 31, 117 Discoverers, 40 Disestablishment of the Irish
Church, 231, 232 Dixon, Thomas, 99 Drogheda, 54, 61, 117 Dublin, 29, 54, 55, 61, 76, 78, 81,
106, 117, 119, 122, 134, 184,
214, 263 Dundalk, 55, 77 Dungannon, 117, 154
Edward III., King of England,
65, 168
Elizabeth, Queen of England, 8, 18, 19, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 33, 35, 60, 64, 110, 120, 141 Emigration, 67, 68, 70, 73, 81,
193-196
Emmet, Thomas, 75, 89 Encumbered Estates Court, 223,
238 England's reasons for war against
Ireland, 20, 21 English misconceptions, 117
policy towards Ireland mis- taken, 2, 125, 127, 128, 243-246
treachery, 29, 30, 245, 246 Enniscorthy, 96, 98 Essex, Earl of, 29
Famine, the Great, 208, 218-228,
235, 239
Federation, 266, 271, 272, 274 Fennell, member of Supreme
Council, 59 Fermanagh, 53 Feudal system, 5, 18, 22, 23, 34,
42, 201, 204
Fitzgerald, Lord Edward, 89, 90 Fitzjames, Duke of, 67 Fitzwilliam, Lord, 82, 83, 84, 87,
89
Flood, Henry, 135, 151, 217 Forty-shilling freeholder, 215,
216
Foster, John, 162, 175, 185, 187 Freedom to trade, 151-153 Free Trade, 227, 228
282
INDEX
French Revolution, 73, 74, 80, 85,
86, 102, 103, 166 French troops, landing of, 86, 171 Frobisher, Sir Martin, 120
Galway, 55, 117, 121, 123 George I., King of England, 130,
148, 157 George II. , King of England, 130,
150 George III., King of England, 150,
153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 163, 192 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 30, 120 Gladstone, W. E., 226, 232 Glamorgan, Earl of, 58 Goold, Thomas, 187 Gorey, 96, 97 Gosford, Lord, 79 Graces, the, 44, 45, 245 Grattan, Henry, 80, 134, 151, 154,
155, 156, 159, 160, 174 Grogan, Cornelius, 100, 101
Habeas Corpus Act suspended, 89
Haggardstown, 93
Harvey, Bagenal, 91, 97, 100, 104
Harvie, Captain, 31
"Hearts of Steel/' 71
Henry II., King of England, 8, 9,
16, 41, 137, 138, 142, 145, 203,
231, 250
Henry III., King of England, 138 Henry VIII., King of England, 8,
10, 17, 120, 139, 246 Hoche, General, 86 Home Rule, 229, 230, 257, 269 Hospitality of the Irish, 38
Inchiquin, Lord, 58, 59, 60 Intermarriage, laws against, 40,
65, 130 Ireland, early condition of, 1
extermination of the race the object of the English con- quest, 1, 2, 33, 39. 40, 114, 124 vitality of the race, 2, 34, 64,
107, 112, 114, 124, 135 never felt the direct influence
of the Roman Empire, 4 before the Conquest, 6-9 its power of assimilating other races, 13, 17, 64, 65, 112, 122, 201
Ireland, her missionary activities,
13 general qualities of the race,
106-111
more law-abiding than Eng- land, 111
See also under Agricul- ture, Anglo-Norman Settlements, Chieftain- ship, Civilization, Commerce, Emigra- tion, Military History, Nationality, Parlia- ment, Prosperity ,Wars Irish Brigade, the, 67, 194 Irish Reform Association, 170
James I., King of England, 28,
43, 44, 142, 194, 203 James II., King of England, 65,
66
John, King of England, 138 Jones, General, 59
Kenmare, Lord, 81
Keogh, Matthew, 91, 97, 98, 99,
100, 101 Kildare, tenth Earl of, 18, 245,
250
Kildare, sixteenth Earl of, 46 Kilkenny, 56 Kilmacthomas, 96 Kingsborough, Lord, 98 Kinsale, 31, 117
Lake, General, 89
Lalor, James Fintan, 208, 228, 229
Land Act of 1903, 43, 233, 247,
248, 252, 253, 254, 256 Land hunger, 35-38, 39, 129 Land, ownership of, 24, 62, 69,
196-200, 202, 206, 207, 210,
213, 214, 221, 223-225, 228-
240, 256 Land tenure, 18, 21, 34, 42, 69,
130, 173, 196-201, 204-213 Lawrence, English M.P., 175 Leinster, Duke of, 79 Lestrange, Colonel, 97 Limerick, 66, 107, 117, 123, 184
Treaty of, 66, 192, 245 Lisburn, 95 Loftus, Sir Arthur, 51 Londonderry, 78
INDEX
283
Lord-Lieutenant, 19,, 45, 59, 82, 87, 88, 138, 140, 145, 152, 155, 150, 158, 186, 245
Lucas, Charles, 149
McCormick, Richard, 89 McCracken, Henry Joy, 94 McNevin, William James, 89 Malone, Anthony, 151 Manchester School of Economics,
222, 223, 226, 237 Manufactures. See Commerce Mary Queen of England, 20, 25,
26, 109, 110, 202 Mary Queen of Scots, 27 Maryborough, 202 Maynooth, 46 Middleman, the, 210-214 Military history of Irish,67, 194, 195 Mitchell, John, 229 Molyneux, William, 149, 169 Monastereven, 93 Monk, George, 60 Monro, Robert, 59 Moore, General, 99, 100 Mountgarret, Lord, 46, 55, 56, 76 Mountjoy, Lord, 30 Munro, Henry, 95 Murphy, Father John, 96 Murphy, Father Michael, 97 Muskerry, Lord, 46, 58
Nationality, Irish conception of,
4,5,6
Navigation Act, 124-127 New Ross, 97, 104, 107 Newtown Barry, 97
"Oak Boys," 71
O'Connell, Daniel, 218, 221, 253
O'Connors, the, 202
O'Connor, Arthur, 89
O'Dempsies, the, 202
O'Moores, the, 202
O'Neill, first Viscount, 95
O'Neill, Sir Brian, 29
O'Neill, Conn, afterwards first Earl
of Tyrone, 23 O'Neill, Hugh, 37 O'Neill, Owen Roe, 53, 55, 58,
59,60
O'Neill, Sir Phelim, 53, 54, 55 O'Neill, Shane, second Earl of
Tyrone, 18, 19, 23, 29, 37, 245
" Orangemen," 74, 77, 78, 79, 85,
185
O'Reilly, Philip, 54 Ormond, Earl of, 19, 32, 51, 58,
59, 60, 62
Ormonde, second Marquess of, 218 Ossory, Earl of, 47 Oulart, 96
Pale, the, 17, 49, 51, 57, 126 Parliament, Irish, 45, 72, 75, 77, 79, 125, 126, 132, 134, 136, 137-194, 214
historical sketch of, 137-192 and the Act of Union, 185-
189, 246
Parnell, C. S., 253 < ' Peep-of-Day Boys," 74, 77, 78,
79, 85, 103
Pelham, Sir William, 30, 32 Penal Laws, 68, 129-133, 149, 150 Percie, Sir Richard, 31 Perrot, Sir John, 41, 110, 141 Persecution for religion, 24-29,
131 absence of, on the part of the
Irish, 109-111
of majority by minority, 129 Peter's Pence, 15 Philip II., King of Spain, 26, 60,
202
Phillipstown, 202 Pirn, Joshua, 162 Pitt, William, 82, 162, 163, 167,
170, 185, 188, 189, 265 Plantation of Connaught, 43, 45 Plantation of Ulster, 43, 69 Plunket, William C., 187 Political societies. See "De- fenders," "Hearts of Steel," "Oak Boys," "Orangemen," "Peep-of-Day Boys," United Irishmen, " Whiteboys " Ponsonby, George, 79, 187 Population, 61, 67, 159, 215
decrease in, at close of war in
1652, 61 about 100,000 emigrated after
the Civil War, 67 450,000 Irish soldiers died in the French service between 1691 and 1745, 195 Portadown, 53
284
INDEX
Portaferry, 95 Portland,,' Duke of, 67, 82 Poynings' Act, 1494, 140, 156 Preston, General, afterwards Vis- count Tara, 58, 59 Prosperity in Ireland, 14 three periods of, 115 before the invasion of the
northmen, 115 for five centuries till 1663,
116-127
under Grattan's Parliament, 134-136
Raleigh, Sir Walter, 120 Randalstown, 95
Rebellion of 1641, its origin purely agrarian, 47, 48
numbers massacred greatly exaggerated, 48
motives differed in the four Provinces, 49, 50
atrocities of the Army, 50-52
contrasted with the actions of rebels, 53-58
truce signed between Charles I. and confederated Catho- lics, 57
Rebellion of 1798, an attempt to overthrow constituted au- thority, 72
the discontent that caused it stimulated by the American War of Independence and the French Revolution, 72 ; and by political societies, 74-78
the violence of the conflict attributable to the " Peep- of-Day Boys" and "De- fenders," 79, and to rejec- tion of Catholic Emancipa- tion, 82
summary of the position be- fore the outbreak, 84-85
the attitude of France, 86
failure of, 89, 93
only formidable in Wicklow and Wexford, 90; where religion was the prominent factor, 91 ; though to re- possess the land was the rebels' chief motive, 92
Rebellion of 1798, fighting at Monastereven, C a r 1 o w, Haggardstown, in County Meath, and at the Curragh, 93
commenced in Counties An- trim and Down, but was quickly suppressed in Ulster, 94, 95 incidents in Wicklow and
Wexford, 96-99 its close, 100-101 causes of defeat, 101-105 might have been averted, 101 its results, 106, 170, 179 Rebellions, wrongly so-called, 18,
19, 194, 202, 245 Regent, Prince, 165 Risings since 1798, 105 Roche, Edward, 98 Roche, Father Philip, 98, 99, 100 Roman Catholic religion, formally forbidden under Elizabeth, 20 absolutely prohibited under
Cromwell, 64
disabilities of adherents dis- approved of by Grattan and the Whig Club, 80 See also Catholic Emancipa- tion and Penal Laws Roman civilization influenced Ire- land through Gaul, 4 Roman Empire, its influence on
Irish civilization, 4, 5 Ross, 31 Rutland, Duke of, 170
St. Leger, Sir William, 51, 55,
246
Sarsfield, Patrick, 66 Saurin, William, 187 Scandinavian raids, 13, 15, 202 Scullabogue, 91, 104 Settlement, Acts of, 146, 147, 160 Shannon, Lord, 79 Sheridan, R. B., 185, 189 Shrule Bridge, 55 Sligo, ] 17
Spenser, Edmund, 32, 65, 118 Stratford, Earl of, Thomas Went-
worth, 45, 47, 144, 145 Swift, Jonathan, 149
INDEX
285
Tandy,, Napper, 76, 77
Three Rocks, 96, 98, 99, 100
Tithe Commutation Act, 190
Tone, Wolfe, 74-77, 86
Trade. See Commerce
Tribal System, 5, 7, 8, 17, 18,
22, 23, 34, 42, 206, 230, 234,
249 Tyrone, Earl of. See O'Neill,
Conn
"Undertakers," 69, 70
Union, Act of, 1800, 106, 137,
173, 180, 185-189, 208, 214,
261, 262, 266 early Irish projects for, 168-
171
arguments for, 171-173 opposition to, 173-177 consequences of, 177 180 differences between that with
Scotland and with Ireland,
178, 179 the constitutional issue, 180-
183 extent of popular hostility
uncertain, bribery un- doubted, 183-185 repeal of, impossible, 263-265
Union under the Commonwealth,
128, 145-146, 178 "United Irishmen," 74, 76, 77,
79, 80, 85, 89, 94, 102-103, 185
Vikings in Ireland, the, 115 Vinegar Hill, 96, 97, 98, 100 Volunteer movement of 1779, 133, 151-154, 157, 185, 251
Wars in Ireland, their transitory,
physical, and enduring moral
effect, 33, 34
Waterford, 31, 55, 117, 123 Wentworth, Thomas, afterwards
Earl of Strafford. See Stratford,
Earl of Wexford, 90, 91, 92, 95-99, 100,
117, 184
Whig Club, the, 79, 80 " Whiteboys," 71, 72 William III., King of England,
65, 78, 130, 147 Williamson, Rev., 94 Wilmot, Sir Charles, 31 Wyndham's Act. See Land Act of
1903
Youghal, 117
Young, Arthur, 70, 208-213, 235
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The Times upon the Constitutional Conference. By " Pacificus." Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. net.
"They are marked by insight, imagination, discernment, and ripeness of knowledge. . . . Written from a fresh and original standpoint, and entirely detached from party, this book is a valuable contribution to the study of current constitutional problems, and contains suggestive ideas as to the probable trend of political development in this country." — Daily Chronicle.
ANCIENT AND MODERN IMPERIALISM.
An Address delivered to the Classical Association in January, 1910, By the Earl of Gromer, G.C.B., O.M., G.G.M.G. Third Impression. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. net.
Mr. ROOSEVELT, in his Guildhall speech, said: — "Those of you who know Lord Cromer's excellent book in which he compares Ancient and Modern Imperialism need no words from me to prove that the dominion of modern civilised nations over the dark places of the earth has been fraught with widespread good for mankind."
THE PEOPLE'S PROGRESS. A Study of the
Facts of National Wealth and some Answers to Socialists. By Frank Ireson, B.A. Demy Svo. 2s. 6d.
"As a text-book of political economy Mr. Ireson's little volume will be cordially welcomed. As a scathing exposure of Fabian absurdities it has few if any equals." — Globe.
UNIVERSITIES AND NATIONAL LIFE. By
the Viscount Haldane of Gloan. Crown Svo. 2s. 6d. net.
" The subjects dealt with in these papers are of far wider scope than would be imagined from their title. So far as it is possible to summarise the lesson which they teach, they may be said to describe from various standpoints the ideal character, and to sketch out the best methods of developing it."
Spectator.
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