Romantic Ireland; volume 1/2

who had Ireland's welfare most at heart deplored the fact that "her greatness was still practically u

ivated, as Ireland is known by tradition to be a seat of piety and learning, ... and surely it woul

ting like the snow: he lingers in little patches in the corner of the field, and hands are stretched on

hey have existed in the past, and as they exist to no small exten

it is impossible for any one to state; but, at all events, it is

perhaps the fifth century until the coming of Henry II. of England-there was little connection betw

our kingdoms of Ireland as a Roman Catholic whole. He had already sent three bishops to Rome, and its most famous

t that one approaches with dread. So much so, that it had best be a

Ireland of the past-or of the present, for tha

here can be no question, though it smacks not a

indecently rich and large. Out of the dirt and decay they rise always proud and sometimes ugly and substantial, as though

he wastes of the west, will not cavil at the fact that the first thing to break the monotony of the horizon is a church spire or tower, or that it towers over a little group of cottages huddled about it. Sometimes, indeed, these church buildings are poor and rough; but these are becoming

ncrease of chapels and religious buildings side by side with the increase of poverty. This may have existed

DOUL

ed the "religious vocation" is n

sense of nationality, and to guide its energies into industrial and intellectual channels. This movement, from within and without, is d

with Ireland, and yet how little is really known of the land and its people, in spite of all t

ravelled in Ireland. Its existence, to a very large extent, is undeniable; and, in times of stress and strife, it has even become virulent; but ragged dress, frugal fare, and mean houses do not always indicate actual distress. The trouble see

ions have since changed but little,-there was often no apparent haggardness or lack of nourishment to be observed; the children notably, like the children of the slums in great citie

opulation equal to that of Limerick, the fourth largest Irish municipality, and greater than that of at least one Irish county (Carlo

t mercantile marine as exist on the eastern coast from Londonderry and Antrim to Waterford and Cork, and Belfast to-day contains one of the world's greatest and most able ship-builders. There is, it is said, no part of the country which stands at a greater distance from a waterway to the sea than four and twenty miles. The country has immense stores of iron, still unutilized, mainly because of the scarcity of native coal; but some day, in this epoch of cheap and rapid transportation, they will yield a rich harvest. There was once a considerable industry carried on in the copper-mines of counties Waterford, Wicklow, and Cork, but of late it has greatly declined. So it is

-CHO

contented Irela

a good omen, and its effects may turn out to have been far-reaching. At its least, it stimulates good-will on either side, and does its own quota of work in the inspiration of a hopeful spirit in a natively buoyant people, who have long chafe

of "flunkeyism," but rests on a sound business basis, which, after all, if a sordid view, is an essentially practical one. Such a court would promote trade, and trade would feed industries that are now starving; and, while it would carry th

eland "oft doomed to death, is fated not to die;" and of "the Exodus." Yet, after all, these affairs of apparent

ars has indeed been vivid. So has the history of

The corn laws had come into effect in England, and the tax on foreign corn, which gave to Ireland a real advantage with respect to grain, was withdrawn. The economists advised cattle-raising as a substitute, and pointed to the fact that,

e presumed, and was the real cause of the impetus given

last the Irish question would be settled! Now at last England would be at ease. Now at last this turbulent, disaffected, untamable race would be

le, and, assuredly, in more instances than one, qu

safe card to play, if one wants notoriety merely, not only for as i

ices, accordingly, were raised to deplore this calamity; to appeal to England; to warn her that evil would come of it in the future. But England did not see this; at least, did not see it then. There were philosopher-statesmen ready at hand to argue that the flying thousands were "surplus population." This was the cold-blooded official way of expressing it; but t

s of assassination and murder. So complete is the rush of departing marauders, whose lives were profitably

rtial review of events as they really were; but even then the story would not be told, an

hich sparkle in the glens, the lakes which bosom themselves in the mountains, and the bowers of fairyland with which every Irish wood is endowed; but,

not wholly a detriment. The area of Ireland is comparatively small, its productiveness limited, and its populatio

of those who are left behind-provided, of course, that home conditions are sufficiently encouraging to the tillers of the fields, the cattle-growers,

OF IREL

r the native products, ought in a

ide of tourist travel will turn toward Ireland, and that, in time, it will become as

o be desired, from many points o

the idea should be fostered that the people of Ireland have the same king as Britain across the Channel. Some there be, in both islands, who would hav

's king has also the words "and Ireland" attached to his title. At the end of a recent visit of King Edward, the London

ut there was a sting in it which the Irish t

h cannot be ignored, and has given great conc

of Ireland and the present-day aspect and conditions of life there; nor can it by even the "butterfly" tourist, who does the round of Killarney's fair lakes in a

g the rights and wrongs out of it-was

annot always b

AND,

case. There is, or is supposed to be, another very large class of holdings in the poorest districts, which cannot even produce a bare subsistence for an average family. It is possible that the demerits of bog-land are greatly exaggerated.

-land, with the little cabins crowding close upon one another as far as the eye can see, which certainly indicates that there is a demand for this class of holding. Rents are not high, as rents go elsewhere; but they cannot be paid out of the land, and the sons and the daughters, in order to live, must leave it. In cottage

le great became the stimulus to emigration, and once again the old story of "me sons beyond the sea" is given out. In some sections there is scarce a young man or a young woman to be seen. The evictions, that throughout Ireland raise the countryside as noth

m is thus put in a nutshell by the e

ndustry of the people. It does nothing in return for the money it receives. It i

bers the vast proportion that

by one measure of reform and then by another, every cartridge has been withdrawn from the bandoliers of the garrison, which is now as powerless as it was once all-powerful. England is dealing with an absolutely crimeless country. White gloves are the order of the day, blank court calendars are reported all over the country, yet boycotting is wide-spread, and intimidation is rampant. A conspiracy to boycott is punishable, but boycotting is not in itself an o

ve seems a plausible opinion which has much to justify it, both in precedent

or the fact that it is the wish of the people at large that "the evening star of the Empire, shedding a sad light in

e secretaryship, it is thought by ma

es the Irish to take kindly to co?perative efforts for their welfare; and more stim

had for its object, or at least its main object, a pa

ter, while it leaves religion as

ancient language to its ancient dignity. The public-houses are shut up instead of being crowded. A new hope, a new motive, a new incentive,-a

ealthy one. How far the chief secretary's attitude actual

e of Common

d, was a good one; and he did not think the political consequences would be very harmful. If, as a result of such instruction, Irish lads in fifty years gave up the practice o

Kincora, is Br

beauty that o

princes and no

e halls and drin

true of most household gods, and yet a tutelary reverence for household gods had often nerved heart and hand for utilitarian contests. There was no heresy to the Union in permitting to Ireland that which they promoted in Scotland and in Wales; on the cont

He loves the Irish people. To him the witty and mercurial Celt is much more sympathetic than the more stolid Englishman. Ireland, like the fair

centuries long gone past, there was isolation in manners, customs, and forms of government. But then, Ireland being insular, the chances were that many people of a different race might have mixed their blood with that of the early set

G DA

tion which surrounds the very sho

e succinctly and with more feeling than it would perhaps be possi

ished Englishman once said that whereas in the inland counties of England he had found many a peasant who neither knew the name of the river within sight of his cottage, nor troubled hims

weak spot in the earlier novels,-the delineation of female character. He claims particularly (though the Irish novelist is not alone in this sinning) that the heroines, with a few excep

lasses, "the novels of the gentry" and "the novels of the peasantry," and

ll, and Samuel Lover. Among themselves they have apportioned the various types which we of a later generation have come to recognize as of the soil. The most notable, and one common t

e lived in barbaric and slovenly splendour, led devil-may-care lives,

andard of life, a wider knowledge, and a finer culture is broadcast. Nowhere is this more

rish novelist draws not with so firm a hand as his

ear only as retainers and as necessary adjuncts to the occupations of their betters. The Ireland of these writers, then, is a land of happy-go-lucky and thriftless enjoyment and cheerful impecuniosity, with an occasional glimpse of tragedy. Miss Katherine Tynan, t

of Ireland is yet, to the vast majority, an unopened book; and, paradoxically, it is in

istocratic as well as the most democratic country in the world. In the learned professions you will find the sons of butchers and publicans jostling the offspring of peers and gentlemen of lineage in the race for preferment, and, like enough, beating them at their own game. In Engla

m within, no doubt; from without, unlike English village life, it is, in Ireland, quite dramatic. It has been said that

e; but news of the outside world filters through and attracts the ingenious and soulful Irishman to the betterment of himself, and, truly enough, in many cases no doubt, to the poverty of Irelan

antic has his marshal's baton in his knotted handkerchief on the end of his blackthorn. It is a young race in modern deve

on,-that of the parish priest, the poor cleric who, with a parish of a few score of souls in some bar

travesties on the devoted and valiant fathers who are hidden away in innumer

as most to do is the Ireland which came more or le

d chieftains has left little but a vague impress upon Irish national life and sentiment, if we except a certain imagin

ish Pope, in 1159, a bull authorizing him "to enter Ireland and execute there

no end of internal troubles, which are to this day, if we are to bel

g their lowest ebb at the time of Henry VII. The Reformation, under Henry VIII., took place in 1536, and was in all respects the most remarkable era of Ireland's history, and from that time on-until the ev

sprang forward with leaps and bounds. Its estimated gr

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. . 1

. . 2

. . 3

. . 4

. . 5

ny divisions of Ireland, made at various times by the se

sions; some, indeed, may have been purely apocryphal, hence writers have mostly contented themselves

bdivided into thirty-two counties,

d from sea to sea. What has always rendered this province superior, in pros

the east. The writers of a century or more ago were prone to remark that here the inhabita

ng the counties of Mayo, Galway, and Sligo, through the city of Galway ea

east and west coasts. Its principal and most famous city is Cork, and the whole county a

th, called Meath, formed by a small part taken from each

s and harbours are better known to merchants than those of Bri

neighbourhood of the lakes of Killarney, and to have acquired the art o

as supposed to have been instigated by the export from Ir

ied on by the Ph?nicians, is deduced from the fact tha