The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 48
Ireland
Ireland.
Hume begins his great work—his "History of England"—with these words: "The curiosity, entertained by all civilized nations, of enquiring into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly exercise a regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction. Ingenious men, possessed of leisure, are apt to push their researches beyond the period in which literary monuments are framed or preserved, without reflecting that the history of past events is immediately lost or disfigured when entrusted to memory and oral tradition, and that the adventures of barbarous nations, even if they were recorded, could afford little or no entertainment to men born in a more civilized age." "It is rather fortunate for letters," Hume observes, "that these adventures," as he calls them, "are buried in silence and oblivion." The "fables" regarding prehistoric things, Hume adds: "which are commonly employed to supply the place of true history, ought entirely to be disregarded."*
So writes Hume, and for the century in which he lived, and in the case of a mind constituted as his was, it could hardly have been expected that he would have written otherwise. Happily, in our day another spirit than that of Hume's prevails in relation to such questions as he refers to in the passage from his history, which I have quoted. The matters which he says ought entirely to be disregarded, are, in our day, the very matters which, perhaps, of all others, are paid the most attention to, and which are found to be possessed of an interest second to no others. The greatest philosophers that the world now possesses have occupied themselves with enquiries about our prehistoric ancestors, and have traced them back, not merely to the times alluded to by Hume, but even to the times when they existed, as it is often now represented, in the form of anthropoid apes; aye, even to the times when the germs of them existed in the nebulæ or fire mist of eternity.
* Cæsar tells us that it took twenty years to complete the education of a Druid, and that during all that long course of training he was principally occupied in committing to memory. Now Druidism flourished in Ireland, probably to a greater extent than anywhere else. This is evident, for example, from the Round Towers of Ireland—the grand old monuments that Druidism has left behind it. When we know then that Ireland was a grand centre of Druidism, and when we recollect what Cæsar tells us about the scholastic exercise of the Druidical memory, it must be manifest that what the Druids handed down orally from generation to generation cannot be undeserving of attention. Much of this is still in existence.
The first reliable accounts—or, perhaps I should say, semi-reliable accounts—that we have of the peopling of Ireland, are that Ireland was first peopled by the Firbolgs, who came from somewhere in the East, and who are said to have embarked for Ireland in the Euxine. In process of time, the Firbolgs were expelled by a people, who also came from the East, namely, the Tuath de Danaan. These) though an Eastern race, are believed to have come to Ireland by the way of Scandinavia, as the name Tuath de Danaan itself signifies, which simply means the Northern people, or, as the word came afterwards to be used, the Norsemen. The Tuath de Danaan were themselves, in process of time, conquered by another Eastern race, who are said, this time, to have come to Ireland by the way of Spain. They were called Milesians, from Milesius, the King of Spain, and they were sometimes also called Scots, which means the wanderers, from their migratory propensities—propensities which, we all know, are, to this day, inherent in their descendants, and especially in those descendants of them who still bear the original appellation.
Ireland was inhabited before ever the Firbolgs, the Tuath de Danaan, or the Milesians made their appearance, and some relics of this ancient people are now being discovered in burial mounds, and other things; but the Firbolgs, the Tuath de Danaan, and Milesians or Scots are the only people about whose early introduction into Ireland we can ever know much. Indeed, the light that history can throw upon them even is considerably dim. We know that they were of the old Aryan stock, whose original rooftree was somewhere in Central Asia; and that their language was Erse or Gaelic. Their language was one which was, at one time, spoken over the whole of Europe. There are traces of it in all European tongues; it has left its mark in the names of hills and rivers, and in other places and things in all European countries; and it is still spoken in Wales, in the Highlands of Scotland, and in Ireland; and it is preserved in the Sanscrit of India—the language in which the sacred writings of the Hindus are preserved. The language of the Gael or Celt is thus seen to be manifestly a most interesting tongue. However, I shall have time, at present, to say nothing more about it, but that it is, in our day, beginning to receive the attention that its merits warrant—of which the erection of the chair in Edinburgh is an example—and that, now that scholars in Ireland, in Scotland, in England, and in Germany are engaged in its study, we may expect results to arise that will be of the highest consequence, results that will throw light upon the origin of speech, and even upon the origin of humanity itself.
The Tuath de Danaan were either Norsemen themselves, or they acquired, in their Scandinavian sojourn, Norse habits. If they were conquered themselves, they were no doubt not exterminated, and they possessed themselves, and imparted to the surrounding tribes, the old Norse love of fighting, which, indeed, their descendants preserve to the present day. The result of this was that great warriors arose in Ireland, whose achievements the old Irish chroniclers and bards delight in singing. Such was Conn, of the hundred battles; and Fingal, as they page 5 call him in Scotland, or Finn MacCumhaill, as he is called in his own country. There was one of these warriors, however, that, above all others, was the terror of Europe. He is said to have carried his victorious arms as far as the Alps, and he was called Niall of the Nine Hostages, from the number of hostages belonging to conquered kingdoms that he kept in captivity. In one of his raids, he took captive a youth called Succoth, who remained in Ireland for many years, in a servile condition. At length he escaped, but was recaptured, and ultimately came to Ireland of his own free will, as a Christian missionary. Succoth's name came afterwards to be changed, and he is now known by the name which he has rendered glorious and immortal—the name of St. Patrick.*
There are many curious and interesting things in the history of St. Patrick. One curious and interesting thing is that people of so many denominations claim him as their own. Roman Catholics assure us that he was a Roman Catholic, Episcopalians of the Anglican Communion assure us that he was an Episcopalian, and Presbyterians most positively affirm that he was a Presbyterian. I would like to push my claim to him, and demonstrate to you that the good old saint belonged to my church.† But I have not time to do it at present, and I feel that if I had, to-night is not exactly a suitable occasion. All I will say about the matter just now is, that this desire, manifested by all the denominations, to claim St. Patrick, is the highest testimony that could be borne to his worth.
* St. Patrick resembles Homer in the number of places that contend for the honour of having given him birth. Ireland does so; so do Wales, Scotland, and France. To France, however, as is now all but universally allowed, belongs that honour. In his Confession, which is a sort of autibiography of the saint, he tells us he was born in Britannia; but no part of Scotland was called by that name in St. Patrick's day. A part, however, of Northern Gaul was so called. There are several other evidences that might be brought forward to show that France was St. Patrick's birthplace—evidences that have convinced such men as Dr. Lanigan, Dr. Reid, of the University of Glasgow, Dr. Killen, of Belfast, and Dr. Petrie, the great Irish antiquary. When Dr. Petrie came to the conclusion that France was the country that gave St. Patrick birth, those who know anything about Petrie, know that this of itself is about sufficient to settle the question.
† A great deal of discussion has taken place as to the amount of the population of Ireland in St. Patrick's day—a discussion which has an important bearing upon the point I have referred to above. St. Patrick established some hundreds of bishoprics in Ireland—between three and four hundred. The question then, as to whether these were Episcopal sees or parochial charges, must obviously be affected by the estimate we form of the amount of the population. Dr. Killen in his "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," makes the population of Ireland in the time of St. Patrick, to have been about half a million, or somewhat less; while Professor Sullivan makes it to have been about three millions.
It seems strange to me that no one has thought of looking for a solution of this question into the "Leabhar na g-Ceart, or Book of Rights." This book is an old bardic relic of the Druids. It was handed down by oral tradition, and was reduced to writing by St. Benian, a disciple of St. Patrick. It was, however, revised by Cormac MacCuileannain, Bishop-King of Caiseal in the ninth century. It gives an account of the rents or dues paid by the people of all Ireland to their chiefs and kings, and is undoubtedly one of the most interesting relics of antiquity anywhere in existence.
I have looked into the "Book of Rights" in reference to the statistics of my own native valley, the Magh Itha of ancient Tyrconnell, or as it is now called, the Finn Valley of Donegal; and, judging of the rest of Ireland by it, I must say that the estimate of the population of Ireland as given by Professor Sullivan is much nearer the truth than that of my own teacher of Church history, Professor Killen. In fact, the "Leabhar na g-Ceart" demonstrates that Ireland, in the time it speaks of, was a populous and prosperous land.
St. Patrick has been called the Apostle of Ireland, and he deserves the title. He was not the first to preach the gospel in Ireland. Christianity appears to have reached Ireland in the end of the second, or the beginning of the third century, and St. Patrick's labours were carried on in it in the fifth century. But, although St. Patrick was not the first to introduce Christianity into Ireland, he was the first whose labours were crowned with any great measure of success. Patrick was a most indefatigable worker. The field in which he first worked was the kingdom of the Dalridians, in the North of Ireland; but he went everywhere, and everywhere he went he triumphed. God was with him, and the powers of darkness quailed before him, and Druidism, the ancient religion of the land, became in St. Patrick's day almost extinct.
It is said by some that St. Patrick was successful in accomplishing the conversion of Laoghaire, the son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, and the chief monarch of Ireland. The ancient hymn* is still extant that Patrick is said to have chanted as he went up to Tara to attempt his conversion; but it is more than doubtful whether Laoghaire ever became a Christian. At all events this is certain, that if he lived at all the life of a Christian, he died the death of a Pagan. His last words were that he should be buried on the ramparts of Tara, standing on his feet erect, clad in complete armour, with his sword drawn, and his face towards his enemies, the men of Leinster; and the wish of the grim, old warrier was, we are told, complied with to the letter.
Whether Patrick was successful or not in converting the chief monarch of Ireland, one thing, however, is certain, that his success as a missionary was, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of Christianity. On this point Moore, the Irish historian and poet, says: "While in other countries Christianity has been the slow work of time .... in Ireland, on the contrary, by the influence of one humble, but zealous missionary, and with little previous preparation of the soil by other hands, Christianity burst forth at the first ray of apostolic light; and, with the sudden ripeness of a northern summer, at once covered the whole land. Kings and princes, when not themselves in the ranks of the converted, saw their sons and daughters joining in the train. Chiefs, at variance in all else, agreed in meeting beneath the Christian banner, and the proud Druid and bard laid their superstitions meekly at the foot of the cross."
* This hymn is very interesting. A translation of it, from the original Irish, may be seen in Dr. Todds' admirable "Life of St. Patrick," page 426. Dr. Petrie speaks of it as "the oldest undoubted monument of the Irish language remaining."
Ireland, it may be safely asserted, became, about the period I am referring to, distinguished, above all the nations of Europe, for its religion and enlightenment. It was called the Isle of Saints, and no seat of learning throughout Europe was considered to be thoroughly equipped until it numbered among its teachers one or more Irishmen. Most European noblemen and monarchs had Irishmen as tutors in their families, and many European princes—among others, Alfred the Great—resorted to Ireland for the completion of their education. Englishmen of all ranks flocked to Ireland, with this end in view; and, as the Venerable Bede tells us: "The Scots willingly received them all, and took care to supply them with food, as also to furnish them with books to read, and tuition, and all gratuitously."*
Mosheim, the great ecclesiastical historian, in speaking about this period of Irish history, says: "Irishmen, who, in that age, were called Scots,"—he is speaking of the eighth and ninth centuries—"Irishmen, in that age, cultivated and amassed learning, beyond the other nations of Europe. They travelled over various countries of Europe, for the purpose of learning, but still more for that of teaching. They were to be met with everywhere—in France, Germany, and Italy—discharging the functions of teachers, with applause." "None," he says, again, "but Irish scholars, in that age, employed philosophy (which others detested) in the explanation of religious doctrines." Mosheim winds up his eulogistic account of Ireland by adding that "there were none but Irishmen who, in that age, deserved the name of Philosophers." Indeed, I may add, that there were Irishmen even then, dark as the age was, who, were they living even now, would not be considered undeserving of that appellation. Such was Marianus Scotus, the author of the celebrated "Chronicon"; such was Fergal, abbot of Saltzburgh, surnamed the Geometer, who, in the eighth century, taught the sphericity of the earth and the existence of the antipodes; and such, above all, was Johanes Scotus Erigina, one of the very greatest of the school-men—a man who might contest the palm with the angelic doctor himself, Thomas Acquinas.
* About this time 7,000 students were in one year in attendance at the colleges in Armagh, and 5,000 at Cashel. Dr. Killen, in his "Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," says:—"This resort of students to Ireland did not fail to excite jealousy on the part of Anglican Churchmen. Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmsbury, writing about the end of the seventh century, can scarcely express himself with calmness, when adverting to their continued migration. "Why," said he, "should Ireland—whither troops of students are carried in fleets from this country—enjoy any such ineffable distinction; as if here, in the rich soil of England, Greek masters or Roman chiefs cannot be found?" Vet Adhelm was himself educated in Ireland,
"On she went, and her maiden smile
In safety lighted her round the Green Isle.
And blest for ever is she, who relied
Upon Erin's honour, and Erin's pride."
We need not go to legends, however, for the confirmation of what I am now speaking of. There are plenty of facts, in addition to what I have already referred to, that attest the greatness and prosperity of ancient Ireland. For one thing, I may mention that there is more wrought gold in the British Museum, procured from Ireland, and that belonged to the period of Ireland's ancient history, than there is from England or Scotland, or from any other European country; and, for another thing, I may mention that, at a time when the Scandinavian hordes had conquered a considerable portion of France, and were all but dominant in England, Brian Boru, the chief monarch of Ireland, encountered the Norseman in full force, at Clontarf, overthrew them, and gained such a complete victory over them that they never afterwards presumed to disturb the peace of Ireland.
I have presented you with the bright side of the picture.* It has a dark side, however, as you all know, and it I must now proceed to present you with. In the twelfth century, a dark cloud gathered over Ireland, which hung over it for centuries, and which, in our day—if even in our day—is only beginning to be uplifted.
Ireland's decline and fall date from the day when Adrian IV, the only Englishman that ever occupied the Papal chair, in his famous Bull, handed over Ireland to Henry II. But I must hasten on, and not forget that I am only giving a lecture upon Ireland, and not writing the history of the country.
* This picture it is necessary to have before us when we try to understand Ireland's present condition. The Celtic memory is tenaceous of the past, and it causes the Irishman to bear worse his present miseries, when he remembers, as he always does most vividly, the happiness and prosperity his country once possessed.
It would have been well for Ireland had Edward Bruce succeeded in liberating her. When he did not, it would have been well for her even that the Normans had conquered her outright. But they did not. They contented themselves at first with only obtaining a footing in the country, and planting in it a small semi-military colony. Not until four hundred years after their first attacking it could they be said to have subjugated the country. Had the Normans subjugated Ireland at once, as they did England, by a single battle, the Irish would have seen the uselessness of further struggle, and would have settled down in peace, and both races would have joined together, and become, as the Normans and Saxons did in England, a united and contented people.
The conquest of Ireland, as I have said, was long protracted, and hence centuries of struggle and turmoil. Hence centuries of continuous outbreak on the part of the native race, and centuries of continuous effort to put down these outbreaks on the part of the invaders. There was one thing, I may remark, that invariably characterised these efforts of the English to put down these outbreaks of the native race, and that was the most barbarous cruelty. Regarding some of these outbreaks, and the way in which they were attempted to be put down, Mr. Lecky—a most impartial historian,—in his late book, says: "The suppression of the native race, in the wars against Shane O'Neil, Desmond, and Tyrone, were carried on with a ferocity which surpassed that of Alva, in the Netherlands."
That of Mr. Lecky's is a strong statement; for Alva, to my mind, as nearly resembled the devil as almost any man I ever read about; but I do not think, nevertheless, that the statement is too strong. The facts of the case too terribly warrant it, and it is confirmed by another distinguished historian of our own day. Mr. Froude says: "The English nation were shuddering over the atrocities of the Duke of Alva. The children in the nurseries were being inflamed to patriotic rage and madness by tales of Spanish tyranny. Yet Alva's bloody sword never touched the young, the defenceless, or those whose sex even dogs can recognise."
* Spenser in his "View of the State of Ireland," says:—"The chiefest caveat and provision in reformation of the north of Ireland, must be to keep out those Scottes." The Scots, however, were not to be kept out. The Scots came often, even after Bruce's day, to the assistance of their oppressed kinsmen. In the time of Elizabeth a large force of Scotch, under the command of Donald Gorm MacDonald and McLeod of Ara, arrived in the Foyle. They came as auxiliaries of Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone.
It was a common practice on the part of the English, in suppressing the outbreaks to which I am referring, and especially that of Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, in the time of Elizabeth—it was, I say, a common practice with them to take up little children on the points of their spears, and to twirl them aloft in their death agony. Women with child were ripped up, and many others were hung on trees, with the infants who were at their breasts strangled in their hair. That the native race might be utterly exterminated, their harvests were, year after year, systematically burned. The utter extermination of the Gael in Ireland well nigh resulted. Here is Spencer's account of what the country was brought to—a man who, though one of the noblest of our poets, hated the Irish with a savage hatred. He lived in one of the confiscated castles of the land, and was an eye-witness of what he describes, and, strange as it may seem, rejoiced at it:—"Out of every comer of the woods and glynnes they (the Irish) came, creeping forth upon their hands, for their legges could not beare them: they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy when they could find them, yea, and one another soon after, insomuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and, if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked, as to a feast, for the time, yet not able long to continue therewithal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left voyde of man and beast."*
I could present you with many more pictures to the like effect as Spencer's, but I must not sicken you too much. The reading of Irish history about this period is like entering a charnel-house or a chamber of horrors.
You have all heard of Glencoe. Have you not? Of course you have,—the Glencoe of Scotland. But many of you, I believe, have never heard of the Glencoes of Ireland; and yet they existed, and existed in no solitary instances. Here is one of them, and I shall tell you of it in the words of an unimpassioned historian, Mr. Lecky: "Essex accepted the hospitality of Sir Brian O'Neil. After a banquet, when the Irish chief had retired unsuspiciously to sleep, the English general surrounded the house with soldiers, captured his host, with his wife and his brother, sent them all to Dublin for execution, and massacred the whole body of his friends and retainers."
* This is a picture that it might be supposed could hardly be paralleled, but what in regard to horror could not be paralleled in Ireland's history? This, for example, comes up to it. "A party, in the time of Cromwell, hunting for Tories on a dark night, discovered a light. They thought it was a fire, which the Tories usually made in those waste countries to dress their food and warm themselves. Drawing near, they found a ruined cabin, and, besetting it round, some alighted and peeped in at the window. There they saw a great fire of wood, and, sitting round about it a great company of miserable old women and children, and betwixt them and the fire a dead corpse lay broiling, which, as the fire roasted, they cut off collops and ate."—Pendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland," page 150.
But if the persecution of the Irish did not commence with the introduction of Protestantism, Protestantism, I am sorry to have to acknowledge, did nothing for more than a century after its introduction to mitigate the rigours of that persecution. On the other hand, I am obliged to confess that it aggravated them. The period I am referring to was, as we all know, an era of intolerance in regard to religious opinion, and the Protestantism of Ireland was thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the age.
"Take care," said Queen Mary, in writing to William III., "of the Church in Ireland. Everybody agrees that it is the worst in Christendom." And everybody agrees now in believing that the vox populi was, in this case, the vox Dei. Dean Swift, himself a dignitary of the Irish Church, had his own way of putting it, as to how the hierarchy of that Church came to be what they were. He says that men, in every way qualified for the hierarchical offices, were appointed to them in England; but, as they set out from London for their fields of labour, they were one and all murdered on Hounslow Heath, and that the highwaymen took possession of their papers, assumed their names, went on to Ireland and occupied their places.* Yet, because the Irish would not conform to such a Church as this, they suffered a persecution that well nigh equalled the persecution of Nero. A Penal Code was enacted of a most extraordinary nature, in order to oblige the Roman Catholics to apostatise. Regarding this Code, the great Protestant statesman, Edmund Burke, says:—"It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degredation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."
* Such as this Church was in the days of William III and of Swift, such was it in the time of Spenser. He says, "The most part of such English ministers as come over thither, were either unlearned, or men of some bad note, for which they have forsaken England." He knew them well, and he accused them among other things of "grosse simony, greedy coveteousness, fleshly incontinency, carelesse sloath, and generally all disordered life." These were men that were well fitted to work a reformation in religion ! See a full account of them in Spenser's "View of the State of Ireland (Routledge's Edition," page 530.
There were, however, in this church, even from the very outset, some remarkably good men, such as the Apostolic Usher, the sainted Bedell, and the heavenly-minded Jeremy Taylor. The heavenly-mindedness of Taylor, though, did not keep him from being an ardent disciple of Laud, and from persecuting the Presbyterians relentlessly.
One does not wonder much, after reading horrors like these, that the Irish should have risen up as they did in 1641, and massacred multitudes who were engaged in their oppression, or who were even only of the race of their oppressors. As Mr. Lecky again puts it, "The pent up fury of a people, brutalised by long oppression, broke out at last. They fought as men will fight, who had been despoiled of their property, whose religion was under the ban of the law, who expected no quarter from their adversaries, and whose parents had been hunted down like wild beasts."†
Remember, too, that all the time that the Irish were suffering, in the way that I have shown—suffering for their non-conformity to the religion that was being imposed upon them, the very language that they spoke was under a ban. The Bible was not allowed to be translated into Irish, and Elizabeth enacted that the services of the Church, which the Irish were being compelled to join, should, in no case, and under no circumstances, be conducted in the only tongue which the great bulk of the native race understood. Do you wonder that the Irish remained attached to the Romish communion? I do not. The marvel would have been if they had deserted it.
From what I have put before you, you will see that Mr. Froude speaks correctly, when he speaks as he does in the following passage. He is usually no friend of the Celt, but he says: "The Irish were not to be blamed if they looked to the Pope, to Spain, to France; to any friend in earth or heaven to deliver them from a power which discharged no single duty that rulers owe to subjects."‡
* I have designedly given quotations about these matters from Protestant writers. Any one who wishes to see a full account, given by a Roman Catholic historian of the martyrdom of Archbishop Hurley, may see it in O'Sullivan's "Historiae Catholicae Ibernae Compendium," page 123. This book of O'Sullivan's is very interesting. It was written in Spain, whither the author, who was of an illustrious old Irish family, was driven in the days of Elizabeth.
† Some attempt to deny that any such massacre, as that of 1641 is usually regarded as being, ever took place. But some people will attempt to deny anything. There were undoubtedly great cruelties committed by the Irish in this uprising; but there is this to be borne in mind, that these cruelties were committed by a people roused to madness by oppression; while the oppression they suffered was inflicted upon them systematically, and by a powerful government.
‡ It would have protracted this lecture too much had I gone on, as I intended to do, to speak of what took place in Ireland during the reign of Cromwell. The horrors inflicted upon the Irish during that period perhaps exceeded all others. So deeply has the memory of them impressed itself on the popular mind that, to this day, in many parts of the country, one of the worst things that an Irish peasant can say to another is, "The curse of Cromwell on you." Regarding Cromwell and Ireland, Lord Macaulay, in his history, says: "In a few months Cromwell subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been subjugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. He gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, and smote the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so that great cities were left without inhabitants." Ths reader who wishes to know all about the horrors of this period is referred to Pendergast's "Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland."
The Presbyterians, also, of Ireland, were persecuted for their religion, and persecuted with great severity, although with nothing like the severity of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen. One result of it all was that multitudes fled from the country—the Roman Catholics principally to the Continent of Europe (40,000 of them were, at one time, in the service of Spain), and the Presbyterians principally to America. In the lands to which they fled, they showed that the memory of what they endured in their fatherland did not soon die out. The Roman Catholics showed that it did not, as the English learned to their cost in the bloody field of Fontenoy;* and the Presbyterians showed that it did not, by their action in the revolutionary war in America. "America has been lost to England," said Lord Mountjoy, "through the Irish emigrants," and in bringing about that loss none of the Irish, as is well known, contributed so much as the Presbyterians. Several of them sat in the first Parliament of the United States, and some of them had the honour of signing the Declaration of Independence.
But I must pass on to other matters. I remember Sir Hercules Robinson, our late Governor, in a speech he made in New Zealand, referred to some Irish lady, a relative of his, who once visited England, and who returned to her own land fancying that she had found a remedy for the ills of Ireland. Her remedy was this: That the British Government should establish all over Ireland manufactories, such as she had seen in England. Well, I shall tell you something of what the British Government did for Irish manufactures, and I shall tell it to you in the words of Lord Dufferin, the late Governor of Canada, and now British Ambassador in St. Petersburg. Lord Dufferin, in his book on "The State of Ireland," published in 1866, says: "From Queen Elizabeth's reign until a few years of the Union (the Parliamentary Union of Ireland with Great Britain), the various commercial confraternities of Great Britain never for a moment relaxed their relentless grip on the trades of Ireland. One by one, each of our nascent industries was strangled in its birth, until, at last, every fountain of wealth was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions of commercial enterprise have perished through desuetude.
* It was after Fontenoy that George II said, in reference to the penal laws against the Irish Catholics: "Cursed be the laws that deprive me of such subjects."
* The present excellent Lord Mayor of London, the Right Hon. William McArthur, is the only Irishman who ever was Lord Mayor of that city. When he was in New Zealand, two years ago, he was a London Alderman, and he told myself he was the only Irishman who had ever occupied that position. Ireland has no reason to be ashamed of the position she has occupied in the armies of Britain, in the ranks of British statesmanship, and in the field of British literature. That her sons have not attained to the highest civic dignities of the Empire is, in some measure, the result of accident; wherein it is not, is, I believe, explicable on the grounds stated in the above extract from Lord Dufferin.
From the "North British Review," for 1868, I quote the following passage:—"We alienated the hearts of our fellow citizens, by iniquity and oppression, generations ago, and now it is too late for either repentance or reform to win them back. The mischief is done, and we are forced, like so many other offenders, to sit down in the midst of our new-born virtue, and our sincere aspirations after a better life, and mourn over the irreparable." There is much truth in that, but I do not believe that it is too late to amend, or that things, in this case, are irreparable. The condition into which Ireland, through ages of misgovernment, has been brought, is bad; but I do not believe that there is no remedy for it.
But what is the remedy? Here the doctors, in countless numbers, rush forward, and each has his own diagnosis of the case, and each prescribes his own nostrum.† A great many Irish doctors are of opinion that there is no remedy for Ireland but amputation—entire separation from England. It is not to be wondered at, looking, as we have done to-night, at the past history of Ireland and her connection with England, that many should be of this opinion. But it is an opinion, nevertheless, that I, for my part, do not entertain. England, in her day, used Ireland horribly ill, but I believe that the destinies of Ireland are now inseparably connected with Great Britain; and I believe, moreover, that British statesmen are now just as much disposed to do justice to Ireland as to any other portion of the Empire.‡
Bishop Selwyn, in his speech in the House of Lords, on the Irish Church Bill, said: "The real difficulty in Ireland is the land and anyone, who knows anything about the subject, knows that this is the case. The great remedy that Ireland needs she needs to have applied to her in this direction.
* It was actually made one of the conditions upon which a peace was patched up between Hugh O'Neill and Queen Elizabeth, that O'Neill should oblige his people to abandon the use of the cloak or plaid, and cause them to cut their hair in the new fashion. For an account of the laws passed in the reign of Henry VIII, regarding the ladies' garment—the most extraordinary sumptuary law, I believe, ever passed—see "Encyclopaedia Britannica," second edition—article, Ireland.
† This is the remedy prescribed by the Toronto Weekly Mail of October last: "Perhaps the only cure for the ills which afflict this unhappy land is in emigration. Let the tenant follow the landlord's example, and become an absentee. In this country Irishmen, no matter what their creed, prosper—which is pretty good proof that their failure at home is not altogether their own fault." This is a remedy, but it is obviously only a partial one. The whole Irish nation cannot emigrate.
‡ The following sentence, taken from Mr. Matthew Arnold's work upon "The Study of Celtic Literature," bears upon what is stated above, and is, I make no doubt, quite correct: "The sense of antipathy to the Irish people, of radical estrangement from them, has visibly abated among all the better part of us (Englishmen); the remorse for past ill treatment of them, the wish to make amends, to do them justice, to fairly unite, if possible, in one people with them, has visibly increased; hardly a book on Ireland is now published, hardly a debate on Ireland now passes in Parliament without this appearing."
Then again, the land in the North of Ireland is nearly all land that, in the reign of Elizabeth and her immediate successors, was confiscated. The confiscated land was given to scions of noble English and Scottish families, and other needy adventurers; but the ownership of it was not vested in them absolutely. They were bound by the charters, by which they held their estates, to exact from their tenants only a certain amount of dues or rent, usually to the value of a penny or twopence an acre. The confiscated properties are held still on these conditions, and, though these conditions are now disregarded by the landlords, it is the opinion of many, even of those who are best qualified to give an opinion, that the principle of them could still be enforced.* All trace of the rights of the people to the land in the confiscated estates is, however, not altogether obliterated. It exists in what is called the Ulster Custom—the custom of the occupier when he gives up his farm, selling often at as much as £10 an acre, and sometimes at as much as £20 or more even, his tenant right or goodwill of it.
Then, still further, we are to remember that, while in England and Scotland the permanent improvements upon the land and upon the farm buildings are effected by the landlord, these are, in Ireland, invariably effected by the tenant. The landlord in that unhappy country simply receives his rents, and, with the receipt of them, his duties towards the land, and towards the occupiers of it, terminate.
* This was the opinion of the late Dr. McKnight, editor of the Londonderry Standard, the ablest advocate of Tenant Right that Ireland ever produced. For his book upon this subject he received the degree of L.L.D. from one of the Scottish Universities.
* The above statement of Spenser's is not unlike that lately made by Mr. Foster, Chief Secretary for Ireland. He said "There are some circumstances in Ireland, as affecting landlords and tenants, which put them in such difficulty that the rules of political economy, as between buyer and seller, do not apply."
† Sir George Grey, in his pamphlet upon the "Irish Land Question," gives an account of one particular case of absentee landlordism. The case he speaks of is that of the descendants of the Earl of Essex, who, although Ireland has hardly ever been visited by any of them, receive from that county an enormous rental. Perhaps, however, the most extraordinary instance of this absenteeism exists in connection with the London companies. When the lands of the North of Ireland were confiscated, great estates were handed over to these companies—the Mercers, Drapers, Goldsmiths, Fishmongers, Ironmongers, Vintners, Clothworkers, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Skinners, and Salters. The revenues from these vast estates, as MacNevin, in his book on "The Confiscation of Ulster," remarks, are taken from the poorest country in Europe to be spent in its richest city: and they are spent in the most extraordinary manner, very much in great feasts, and in tours to Ireland, and in other ways after this fashion. Yet, when a friend of mine, the late Professor Smith, moved, in the House of Commons, for an enquiry into the way in which these estates are managed—they are supposed to be managed simply for the benefit of the occupiers of the soil—that enquiry was refused ! When one of these Merchant Tailors, or Fishmongers, or Skinners fails to get on in business in London, he is sometimes sent over to Ireland, to manage an estate, and I must say, from my own knowledge of them, that these "beggars on horseback" are about the most arbitrary landlords in Ireland.
Why could not these estates be taken from the London companies—who have so abused their trust—and be handed over to some local Irish body, and their revenues devoted to some object for the advancement of the welfare of the Irish people—education, for example?
‡ It is not through any peculiar inherent depravity in the Irish people that the murders that are now taking place in Ireland are committed. The Irish possess no such inherent depravity beyond what other nations possess. For one thing, as statistics show, and as Mr. Froude declares, in regard to morals, "Ireland, in proportion to its population, is the purest country in the world;" and, for another thing, no people possess such affection for their kindred as the Irish possess. We have a wonderful example of this in what poor Irish emigrants do for their poorer kindred at home. As Sir George Grey says, in the pamphlet already referred to, "To enable poor relations to escape from their wretchedness, the amount known to have been remitted (from the United States) from 1848 to 1868, not including the large amounts which cannot be traced, is about £14,000,000 sterling," which shows, as Sir George adds, "an affection and faithfulness, which would ennoble any race."
It is, of course, the peculiarity of the murders that are committed in Ireland that causes them to attract so much attention. They are nearly all of an agrarian character. Murders of any other kind are extremely rare in Ireland, and, indeed, murders of all kinds are much rarer in Ireland than in England, or in most European countries.
In fact, as is well known, these agrarian murders are not—by those who commit them, and by the great bulk of the Irish people—accounted murders at all. They take place in this way: When a landlord is supposed to be guilty of what is considered a capital crime, he is tried by a secret tribunal, and if he is found guilty, one or more men are appointed to execute him. This is what gives to these murders their extraordinary peculiarity, and renders them so difficult to be detected and dealt with by the authorities.
Ireland can never have peace, then, and can never be prosperous until her land laws are regulated by wise legislative enactment. The power of arbitrary eviction, without compensation for improvements, must be done away with, and fixity of tenure, somehow or other, secured to the people. We may be told, and are told, that this will be interfering with the rights of property. But the principle of interference, in the direction I am speaking of, has already been established by the Irish Land Bill, passed by Mr. Gladstone in a former Parliament;† and I suppose that it is an axiom of political economy that all property, and especially all landed property, can only be held by individuals subject to the necessities of the State and the well being of the community.
* How like this to what takes place in Ireland even now. See the account of it in Macaulay's History of England, vol. I., page 13.
† The Compensation Bill of Mr. Gladstone, passed by the House of Commons during its last session, would have gone far to have settled the Irish land difficulty, if indeed, it would not have settled it altogether. This Bill, of course, was rejected by the House of Lords, and its rejection was the principal cause of that strong feeling against this House which the Empire has lately witnessed. It is hardly to be wondered at that the rejection of this Bill, in the present state of Ireland, should have caused an Irish member of Parliament, and those who supported him, to enquire, by a motion in the Commons, whether a House "hereditary and irresponsible" is an institution of the country that merits continuance. At all events, from the action taken by the Lords lately, and especially when a Liberal Government like the present one is in power, many will feel disposed to say of them as Edmund Burke, who was no Radical, said "I hold them to be of an absolute necessity in the Constitution; but I think they are only good when kept within their proper bounds."
There never will, then, I say, be peace in Ireland till this question is settled, and I may add, before concluding this lecture, that that peace never will be perfected till the secret societies of the Irish, Protestant and ante-Protestant, and their party hatreds and party processions are terminated. This latter, however, is a reform that I fear is not likely to be very soon effected. It is not, if we may judge, for example by what we see in New Zealand. It is sad to see this old, senseless party business introduced into this land, and fostered, as it often is, by men who ought to know better. I could say much upon this subject, but I shall say nothing more about it at present but this,—that if this party ism goes on, we in New Zealand shall reap the bitter fruits of it, as people have reaped them in all lands where it has prevailed.
"Great glorious and free,
First flower of the earth
And first gem of the sea."*
Shall anything like Irish landlordism ever arise in New Zealand? God forbid; and yet, perhaps, it may. At all events, this is certain, that the people of this country, who have still the matter, in a great measure, in their own hands, are giving facilities to those, who wish them, for the development of something of this kind such as are possessed by no other colony of the British Empire. Perhaps, and I hope before it is too late, Sir George Grey's warnings about this may be more heeded by the people of New Zealand, than they appear to be at present.
* I insert here a statement of Dr. Drew's, in reference to Irish landlordism. I may say that I knew Dr. Drew very well myself, and no man who knew him would ever suspect him of anything but fairness and honesty in the statement of anything. The extract that I give here is from a letter of Dr. Drew's, dated "Dundrum, County Down, 7th September, 1868." The letter was addressed to Isaac Butt, and, at the time Dr. Drew wrote it, he was Dean of Clonfert, Grand Chaplain to the Orange Society, and, about the same time, was Chaplain to the Lord Lieutenant. Dr. Drew says:—'I wish my lot had never been cast in rural places. I see the depression of the people; their sighs and groans are before me. They are brought so low as often to praise and glorify those who, in their secret hearts, are objects of abhorrence. All this came out gradually before me. Nor did I feel as I ought to feel in their behalf until, in my own person and purse, I became the victim of a system of tyranny which cries from earth to heaven for relief. There are good landlords—never a better than the late Lord Downshire, and beloved Lord Roden. But there are too many of another stale of feeling and action. There are estates in the North where the screw is never withdrawn from its circuitous and oppressive work. Here we have an election in prospect, and, in many counties, no farmer will be permitted to think or act for himself. What right any one man has to demand the surrender of another's vote I never could see. It is an act of sheer felony—a perfect 'stand and deliver' affair. To hear a man slavishly and timorously say, 'I must give my votes as the landlord wishes,' is an admission that the Legislature, which bestowed the right of voting on the tenant, should not sec him robbed of his right, or subsequently scourged and banished from house and land because he disregarded a landlord's nod, or the menace of a land agent. At no little hazard of losing the friendship of some who are high, and good, and kind, I write as I now do."