EPOCHS IN IRISHHISTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 1956, 20 August 1891, Page 35

EPOCHS IN IRISHHISTORY.

By R. N. Adams.

No. XLVIII.

WINTER AND SPRING OF 1690 AND

1691. IN THE ENQLISH PALE.

Ireland was almost equally divided between the two contending races when William left for England in the August of 1690. The division, although irregular, and not well delimitated, was a border line between the order of djsorganised civil life and of lawless confusion. It was impossible that the English pale could immediately after its release from so tyrannical an oppression restore itself to a state of organic regularity. Still, in the cities of Dublin, Waterford, Derry, Drogheda, and Belfast, the normal state of things as they existed prior to the advent of Tyrconnel, was gradually resolving itself out of the terrible chaos of the last two years. The civil affairs of the country were presided over by two lord's lattices, Ooningsby and Porter, who were alsisted by a Privy Council appointed by King William, and these were located in Dublin Castle. The other towns had their judges, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and other officers requisite for .the due administration of the ordinary affairs of civil life. A powerful and well-organised militia had been formed of the Protestant colonists, which was commanded by officera holding commissions from the Crown. Dublin was well defended by a garrison of about 3000 men. The King's birthday, the 4th, and the anniversary of his landing at Torbay on the sth of November, were days of great pomp and festivity among the Protestants, in celebration of their relief from the oppression and terror in which they had lived during the turbulent preceding period. The churches were decorated, and the services were attended by crowded congregations ; the bells were rung with vigour, bonfires were set ablaze from scores of hilltops and fireworks exhibited at night.

BEVIVAL OF TBADE. With the usual regularity, trade resumed its activity with the return of Protestant rule. Old homesteads were rebuilt, old fields were again tilled, pasture lands were once more covered with cattle and sheep, wrecked shops were refitted, overthrown houses re-erected, and blighted industries received new life. Thousands of those who had fled to England for refuge from the violence of the times returned; ships laden with merchandise and with current cash at their comonand were daily finding their way across the channel to different parts of the English portion of the country, and there commencing, in the spirit of trade and enterprise, to reestablish the former commerce with outside places. The base brass coins of James were soon banished, and a solid value currency was the medium of exchange. Every port along the eastern coast of Ireland from Cork to Londonderry was once again alive with busy vessels constantly coming and going with oargoes and passengers. The customhouse officials, whose calling had almost Ceased for some time, now .found themselves busier than ever they had been, and the public exchequer was soon put into a healthy condition.

VEBY NATUBAL.

Within its own limits the English pale was again in the ascendant. The people whom Tyroonnel had deprived of arms both public and private, whom* he had disfranchised, whose corporative' charters he had wrested from them, whose homes had been placed by him at the option of an untrained and abandoned soldiery, whose appeal to law he had destroyed, whose money he had permitted to be unjustly taken from them by unprincipled measures, and whose names had been inserted in the monstrous Bill of Attainder and condgmned, unheard, for high treason— these people were now able to formulate and administer the laws for the country. There were of the Irish race of Milesian descent f still remaining within the English borders, and they continued to show in many ways their deep resenjiment of Saxon rule. Their hearts seemed bent on revenge. They sought and found many opportunities for showing how determined they were not to permit any amicable settlement of their grievances. Incendiarism was common ; houses, bams, fields of corn were burned to the ground ; murders were often committed in the most outrageous manner; banditi broke into villages, murdering, theiving, plundering, and destroying property as well as life, and it was next to impossible to find any evidence by which to bring the culprits to justice. Was it not natural that the Saxon population who had power to make their own laws should endeavour to legislate so as to check effectually this flood of crime which seemed to be the chief business and enterprise of the party lately in power? It would have been greatly to their discredit had they not adopted what commended itself to them as the best course to put an end to the crimes which were being daily committed. As legislators it was a duty forced upon them to pass such measures as were likely to secure the safety of their fellow colonists, and to restrain the hands of the Milesian Irish from deeds of blood and rapine. It ie true the supervision which the colonists exercised over their Irish neighbours was excessively strict when looked at from our nineteenth century standard of toleration. But were r? we able to enter into the real character of F the times in which the actors in the events we are relating lived we might see other colours in the ;prism. In the experience of many then living the Irish had made two desperate attempts to exterminate the whole Saxon population of the island. They had committed all kinds of outrage upon unoffending and industrious settlers, and had reduced the country to desolation to carry out their purppse. They had been vanquished, and were driven from the towns and districts which the Saxons bad held for centuries as their own, and now the ruling race determined to rule with such care in the 'best interests of all, as to avoid if possible any further recurrence of the evils of the past 50 years. The Irish were deprived of the possession of either sword or gun. A man known to be a Catholic was not allowed to go mora than three railed from/his home exoept on market . day, nor might h* live within 10 miles of the

frontier. Under the circumstances these were not unjust or harsh restraints, for there was danger of such a man travelling far to give information to the banditi, or Tories, and of rendering them such assistance as might ensure them success in their expeditions, or of making his house a place of resort for bands of that character. To such a degree were these very actions carried on that it was indeed found necessary to impose a law which made the Catholic inhabitants responsible for any loss sustained by Protestants through these bands of marauders. It cannot be claimed that the conduct of the English soldiers or civilians was perfect. It is admitted they were actuated by passions more than by reason, more by the spirit of resentment than of conciliation. They were not better than might be expected of human nature trained in the customs of that imperfect age.

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE PICTUBE.

A glance at the state of the country in which James was still acknowledged king, may serve to relieve the hard impressions people will be apt to entertain concerning the laws and conduct of those who had proclaimed for William. In Western Ireland there was neither military nor civil government; law was powerless, property unprotected; no man's rights could be defined, much less protected; men lived where they could and as they listed ; Roman Catholics had flocked from the north and east, driving with them what flocks they could gather after the two terrible years of confusion aod destruction ; they neglected the pursuit of agriculture; — indeed, the insecurity of their position rendered such work both impossible and foolish; they carried no seed with them, they were destitute of money wherewith to buy it, and then they were uncertain as to how long they might be permitted to stay where they had built their huts. Nobles in the west were more wretched than peasants in the east. Their only coin was lumps o| base metal, which were by courtesy termed "crowns" and "shillings," but no name, however good, could convert them into value for goods received. Few of the people could even succeed in providing themselves with a supply of this spurious money. In Limerick and Qalway, the only two towna of any note in the possession of the Irish, the shopkeepers suffered the severest oppression. A nominal value was fixed for those tokens, and the trader was compelled to part with his goods at prices named, no matter whether he could replace them or not. The result was ruin to the majority, while those who escaped did so only by flying with what they could carry away, and taking refuge among the hated Saxons, where every man was permitted to buy or sell in accordance with general commercial customs. In Limerick and Qalway ware bouses were broken into by ruffians by daylight on pretence of being commissioned to procure stores for some company or other of soldiers, or the public service, as some called it, and in return for what they took they gave bags and boxes of rubbish. The valuable contents of stores were thus carried off, while nothing of equivalent value was left to enable the owner to replenish bis stock. The ports of those two towns became "nests of pirates," so that when vessels arrived with cargoes of stores, which might have been of great use to the inhabitants had the authorities taken charge of the distribution, these vessels were boarded by gangs of ruffians, who took possession by force and carried away the goods, leaving as payment " such quantities of cowhides, tallow, and wool as they pleased." This treatment drove all the foreign trade away from the entire west | coast. Hence, while there was a constant t stream of foreign supply pouring into, the Saxon ports of Garrickfergus, Londonderry, Dublin, Waterford, and others, the west was totally cut off from traffic, and the result was want. This led to men being forced to adopt other and illegal means to supply their natural necessities. The previous two years had emphasised the notion that to rob a heretic was no sin. If indeed they might take with impunity the goods of their fellow Catholics, there was much greater reason for considering that to despoil heretics was a work of virtue. The Irish soldier had all through history looked upon his profession as giving him a title to anything belonging to those who were outside his clan if he could get a hold of it. The same sentiment still .ruled, and spread beyond the soldiers among the peasantry, who organised themselves into bands for the purpose of making incursions into the territories of the Protestant Saxons, and carrying off any property of value to them in their destitution. These men were prepared for woik in the most primitive fashion. Their clothing was scant, and for armour and warmth they wrapped themselves in plaited or twisted straw bands, and carried generally a gun and some other weapon for defence. In such a guise they stole by night or by some secret way into the English territory and committed all sorts of outrages— sacking, pillaging, and burning, and with their booty hastening back into their own possessions. Themembersof such an expedition, if successful, were always greeted on their return with demonstrations of publio applause, until it became looked upon as indeed a thing of great merit to carry out a raid of devastation and violence upon some unguarded Saxon settlement. A troop engaged in such an expedition could as a rule find friends, guides, and protectors wherever they found a Catholic family. It was to their advantage to have scattered over all the different parts of the English pale houses that they knew were places of refuge and sources of information. With their aid they carried out many a successful marauding campaign which would otherwise have proved a failure. It was against this business that the English were compelled to pass such stringent laws j and to hedge round the Irish residents in the Protestant counties with so many guards and penalties.

HOW IT WAS MANAGED.

In former years the Irish rapperees were 3mall bands not very numerous, but now it became the common profession of the foot soldiers, who had been turned adrift, to live as best- they could until required for the campaign next summer. The whole frontier line between the two races was infested with them, and their depredations were of daily occurrence. It was a difficult matter for the English authorities to catch them or take suoh measures as would stop their ex-

peditions. Sometimes these bands did run the risk of being captured, but with little trouble, and in a very short space of time they were able to assume such a disguise as to elude the detection of their pursuers. When danger was apparent they would disperse, and sometimes crouch down in the long grass, sometimes plunge into a stream or pool of water, and remain there with nothing exposed but month and nostrils. In other instances a whole band has been known to convert themselves into harmless labourers in search of work by pulling their guns to pieces, hiding the lock beneath their olothe3, putting a stopper in the touch hole and a cork in the muzzle, and then flinging the whole of their weapons into a pool, stream, or bog, after which with a crouching gate they would move on quite unconcerned as an innocent band of rustics beyond suspicion.

So soon as they were out of the danger which threatened them they returned to the spot, fished up their guns, &c, and made off again on their errand. The families which lived " within the pale " acted as spies, and by arrangements carefully attended to conveyed the useful information to the rapperees, to warn or direct them in their operations. Occasionally the English succeeded in capturing gangs of these marauders, and as might be expected from the character of the times every kern so taken was at once put to death.

THE IBISH ARMY. ■•* Lawlessness ruled the Irish army throughout the winter, and produced its natural result. The officers were not agreed among themselves. Tyrconnel had gone to France to consult with James, and to urge the granting of a further supply by the French king. He had appointed Berwick, James' natural son, to the command of the army, and set up a council of regency to control the civil affairs. Both became unpopular. Berwick had no power in his sphere. He was not an Irishman, and the Irish resented his authority. The council was declared unconstitutional, and its authority condemned. There was therefore no centre of government, and nothing legal could be done by anyone. The disputes grew more bitter, and aggravating circumstances cropped up, until an appeal was sent to James to authorise some form of government, since by Tyrsonnel's absence the king's appointment was invalidated. Confusion waxed confounded, and almost a state of anarchy followed until the arrival of Tyrconnel, who reduced it to a state of comparative order.