THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20263, 24 May 1929, Page 8

THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

REMINISCENCES OF *'T.P."

(IRELAND'S .UNHAPP.Y STATE.;

REGIME OF LORD SPENCER.

[TRAGEDIES AND EXECUTIONS,

(Copyright.) No. XXXIV. In the midst of these violent convulsions, continuous party attacks and heated divisions, Ireland still obstinately obtruded itself. Even at tho end of a debate reaching to the small hours of tho morning the House, after it had already listened to violent diatribes against tho Egyptian policy of the Government, had to sit listening to equally violent diatribes against tho policy of the same Government in Ireland. Things there, indeed, continued to bo in a bad way, and though externally there was less disordor, there was a terriblo picture of force on the one side and bloody reprisals on the pther. Lord Spencer, as Cabinet Minister, had really the chief responsibility for tha regime which followed that of Forster. . . Many of tho criminals were tracked down successfully; many of them were convicted ; and yet it was a ghastly tale at tho end of it all. 1 cannot better sum up what the regime of Lord Spencer in Ireland involved than in these two figures: tho country was once moro halfconquered, but nothing was advanced; and the other half of tho conquest was not any nearer. Ireland " Deep in Hostile Intent." Tho attitude of Ireland toward this regime was what might have bean expected. " Thero lay Ireland," sums up Mr. Morley, " squalid, dismal, sullen, dull, despondent, sunk deep in hostile intent.'- In spite of his being associated ■with such terrible events, Lord Spencer personally could not help making an appeal, even to those who hated him. I saw him once or twice by accident, riding •through the streets of Dublin at the time of his historic Vice-royalty. I did not know him then, though I came to know him very well afterwards, but even then I saw in the sad, almost deprecatory expression, a glimpse of not merely the anxieties, but all the sadness that accompanied his terriblo task. Lord Spencer went through the streets of Dublin just as a Russian Governor might go through the streets of 'Warsaw after a bloody victory over a Polish rebellion, surrounded on all sides by a bodyguard of cavalry, tho clank of whose armour echoed through the streets, and * Sn tho middle of them this man w:ith tho great red beard, the honest and candid face, the heavy lidded, anxious, sorrowful eyes—the husband of a beautiful but childless wife. But to the Irish people, with all this long talo of executions, he seemed no better than the English hangman sent to put down tho national aspirations of Ireland. Tho men who died on the scaffold were known to have done their terrible deeds, not under the impulse of personal greed or hatred, but as a blow in defending the liberties of their country. Some of them were known to be young men who, in ordinary life and until the dread hour of doing their deed came upon them, were gentle, disinterested, courageous, and high-minded. They were brave soldiers lost in a terrible and unequal battle. The Maamtrasna Murders. The methods by which these men were convicted, too, were notoriously those of sanguinary dictatorship, whose violence and irresponsibility were increased by the hypocritical pretences of constitutional government and fair trial. However terrible the crimes that Lord Spencer had to deal with—and some of them were very terrible—the scene on the scaffold tended to obliterate their horror except against tho Government that was responsible for such a regime. .All this great tide of national hatred, of national longing for revenge, was increased by rumours which, whether well or ill founded, obtained ready credulity among the exasperated and now helpless people. There were legends current which asseverated, and seemed in some cases almost to prove, that the executed men were tho innocent victims of judicial murder. Francis Hines, a Clare youth of respectable parentage and of a very attractive personality, was held to be innocent. There was one terrible murder at Maamtrasna, which spread horror even amid the Irish population themselves. Tho scene of these murders was what is known as the Joyces' country in Connemara, because nearly everybody there is named Joyce. Early in 1882 an old bailiff named Huddy and his grandson were sent into the Joyces' country to collect rents, and were never again seen alive. Lough Mask was dragged, and their bodies were found tied up in sacks. In the following August a party of disguised men entered the house of a family named Joyce, consisting of a man, his wife, mother, two sons and a daughter, and massacred them all, with the exception of one son, who was severely wounded. The Story of Miles Joyce. It appears that the Joyces knew something of the murder of the Huddys, and the murderers feared that they might betray them. In time the besotted miscreants who had been guilty of this dreadful and almost inconceivable murder were brought to trial, and several of them were hanged. It might well have been that the punishment for a murder so ghastly, unconnected with the agitation then proceeding in. Ireland, unconnected with the movement for national liberty, would have been received, if not with approval, certainly without any great outburst of indignation by the general body of the Irish people; but here came in that new feature which helped to spread tho horror and hatred of the Spencer regime—namely, a doubt as to the guilt of some of the executed men, and of one in particular. For months afterward the story of Miles Joyce was on every Irish lip. Mr. Timothy Harrington, the secretary of a Nationalist organisation called the National League, who was an effective and industrious propagandist, examined thoroughly into tho case and published letter after letter in defence of the plea that Miles Joyce was innocent. He backed this up, again with tho assent of his countrymen, by a description of the horrible details which accompanied the execution. Government's Unhappy Position. Thus, then, the unhappy Government, confronted by the insurmountable difficulties and the inevitable mistakes and mishaps in their Egyptian policy, were every day of tho session also confronted by this party of resolute and able men who followed Para ell, by every single motion, by every speech, by every vote that might embarrass and break down tho Government. The vindictiveness which is one of the features of Irish character had taken the place of calculation, of political balancing of ultimate conse. quences. It might ruin or it might help them that the Gladstone Ministry should fall, but the Irish members and the Irish people were determined that they should fall. All tho debates on Egypt gave them one opportunity after another of " feeding fat" their full revenge. I have already described how the forces behind Mr. Gladstone were hopelessly divided, and how on occasion ono might hope that a dexterously drafted vote of cen--Bur{ l ,on them might well send a large rit!? 1 i Gl i- leir su PPorters into the oppopened? Md thl3 is J ust ™hal; hap- | (To be continued daily.]