Here and There in Ireland.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4266, 2 September 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

Here and There in Ireland.

By James Eedpath.

WHAT TWO ENGLISH MINERS SAW IN GALWAY. The " Durham Miners' Association" and the " Northumberland Miners' Association " sent over two representatives to see for them and report to them the condition of the peasantry of the west of Ireland. Mr W. H. Patterson represented the Durham miners, and Mr John Bryson represented the Northumbrians. They travelled together. Shortly afterwards the " Cleaveland Miners' Associa* Association," a Yorkshire society, sent over two of their officers on a similar mission. There were other intelligent deputations from two English democratic organisations. I met most of them in Dublin, and had long conversations with them. They were all astonished at the condition of the Irish people. They all went back to England to plead their cause. Let me tell one or two of their experiences as they related them in ray presence, or to their English friends. I took the pains to authenticate the truth of their reports. Mr Patterson said that before he set foot in Galway he began to get revelations as to the true character of Irish landlordism, from the conversations of his fellow passengers in the cars. He met one tenant farmer who bad just given up his place after struggling to hold it for 10 years.

•'This man," said Mr Patterson, " lived on a farm which had been in the occupation of his forefathers ' for at least a hundred years. On it bis father had spent the money he had earned in cultivation in improving the land and farm buildings, which were rendered as good as possible; * but not one farthing did the 1 owner of the land lay out upon it,' his agent merely meeting him upon term day and taking the rent, or paying flying visits to the land to see how it is looking. About 10 years ago his father had died, and it (hen became necessary to have the name of the son inserted in the agreement of the occupant of the farm. Instead of congratulating him upon the improvement made in the land, and exhorting himself to • walk in®the footsteps of his sireland,' taking care of his lordships property, the agent told his visitor that, as his land was in good condition, he would have to submit to an increase of 59 per cent, in his rent! In other words, he would have to submit to an increase of 12s for every acre be tilled, and what his father paid 16s 6d per acre for the son would now have to pay 28s 6d for—in fact, the position was that, had this man's father put the profit he had derived from his farm into his own pocket, he would have been able to leave it to his own son to start him either on the .farm, or in some other pursuit, with capital in his hand. Having, however, put it into the land, he had not only handed it over to the landlord, but had actually furnished the landlord witinin excuse for harassing and impoverishing his son! Much as lie felt the hardship of the treatment he had received, the narrator could not make up his mind to leave the home of his forefathers, and he accordingly set himself to work to see whether be could not succeed in wringing a competency from the land at the high rent he had to encounter. Ten years' hard struggling had, however, failed to solve the problem, and, after working bard and living poorly, he found himself where he began, and could scarcely earn a subsistence."

Although Mr Patterson was surprised at this man's story, it was not an exceptional case of hardship, but a representative illustration of the legal and traditional relation of landlords and tenants in the west of Ireland—not now, only, but for the last 300 years. What makes this relation still more galling is the fact that these tenants know that most of their forefathers were the original owners of the soil, and that many of the forefathers of the present owners get their title because their sisters or mothers were women of infamous character, and receired these lands as the price of their shame, or that they are the descendants of fathers who confiscated the land because their Catholic owners would not be false to the religion in which they were trained. Vast tracts of land in every part of Ireland, were taken from their owners because they would not swear that they regarded the most sacred rite cf their Church as an idolatrous abomination.

A STONY COUNTRY. Mr Patterson gives a truthful description of the country around the city of Galway and along the greater part of the County Galway coast. "We had ap. parently left the boggy country far inland," he wrote, " But in its place we had something infinitely worse in the shape of a stony, sterile land, which presented the appearance of there having been, at some far distant time, or other, a deluge in which it had rained free stones and whin stones. Ploughs, for cultivation, are here useless at the present time, as every foot of earth has not only to be rescued from beneath its stony covering, but stones of every size and description permeate the soil to a considerable depth, and have to be rooted out with the spade. To rescue the land from its stony cuirass the tillers of the soil have by hand apparently cleared off the stones from the surface and piled them up as rude boundary walls, enclosing small plots of grounds of usually about eight or ten square yards. The sort of thing had apparently been accomplished only at an outlay of very severe labor, but not always successfully, for there were boulders whose^dimenstons defied the puny efforts of human being, unaided by mechanical appliances or of draught animals to remove them. Through a land like this went our car for about three miles, when the village of Barna was reached." The Cleveland miners subsequently visited this stony district, and corroborated Mr Patterson's account of it. Speaking of his description of the character of the country, the Cleveland miners, reported to their English comrades : " Our first sight of Barna convinced us that Mr Patterson was right when he said that it bore the appearance of having, at some far distant time, suffered from a deluge of stones. Our impressions were similar—with this addition: that the next shower was again composed of stones!"

COLLECTING RENT ON A STONY ESTATE. This description reminds me of a story told to me in Donegal by a young Galway landlord whom I met at the house of a mutual friend. He agreed to write it out I for me, and here it is— " When recently going to Galway on public business a friend said to me—By the way, , would you mind when in Galway, seeing my bailiff and agent? I will write to him to call at your hotel. He is a very decent fellow, but be tells me that he can get no rent. You know my mother owns a couple of townlands, out towards Oughterard but she has not got any rent for two years, and things are getting rather tight. I believe the people are well disposed to us, but whether they have the rent or not they won't pay." " The property in question is situated in a very rough and stony part of the County Galway, and consists chiefly of grass and stones, on both of which products sheep appear to exist well enough. " After my arrival in Galway, Barney —, the agont, called to see me; and, after I bad corrected the mistake I at first made oi mistaking him for one of my witnesses, by ordering the requisite quantity of Rrog, I said to him, " Mrs —— asked me as I was down here to see you, and hear how the tenants are getting on, and if there's a chance of getting her a little money?"

" Well, your honor," says Barney (a very fine specimen of the downtrodden race, about six feet in height), " shure I wint down to see thim some time since, for they were always friendly and well natnred towards me and the family, and says Ito them,' Boys,' says I,' will you be able to send the ould mistress a thrifle of her money now,' says I (for I dare not use the word rint) for the times is getting bad with them up in Dublin,' says I, • and she wants a little relief ?'

" Well, I declare to my God, your honor, I had hardly said the word till they all ' ups ' at me, and I took to my heels like a mountain hare; and, be the powers, 'twas well I did, for before I had run a conple of hundred yards or so, the divils 'had thro wed half the estate at me.'"