Chapter XXX: Part 30

In 1841, O'Connell "left England and went to Ireland, and
devoted himself there to the work of organization. A
succession of monster meetings were held all over the country,
the far-famed one on Tara Hill being, as is credibly asserted,
attended by no less than a quarter of a million of people.
Over this vast multitude gathered together around him the
magic tones of the great orator's voice swept triumphantly;
awakening anger, grief, passion, delight, laughter, tears, at
its own pleasure. They were astonishing triumphs, but they
were dearly bought. The position was, in fact, an impossible
one to maintain long. O'Connell had carried the whole mass of
the people with him up to the very brink of the precipice, but
how to bring them safely and successfully down again was more
than even he could accomplish. Resistance he had always
steadily denounced, yet every day his own words seemed to be
bringing the inevitable moment of collision nearer and nearer.
The crisis came on October the 5th. A meeting had been
summoned to meet at Clontarf, near Dublin, and on the
afternoon of the 4th the Government suddenly came to the
resolution of issuing a proclamation forbidding it to
assemble. The risk was a formidable one for responsible men to
run. Many of the people were already on their way, and only
O'Connell's own rapid and vigorous measures in sending out in
all directions to intercept them hindered the actual shedding
of blood. His prosecution and that of some of his principal
adherents was the next important event. By a Dublin jury he
was found guilty, sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and
conveyed to prison, still earnestly entreating the people to
remain quiet, an order which they strictly obeyed. The jury by
which he had been condemned was known to be strongly biassed
against him, and an appeal had been forwarded against his
sentence to the House of Lords. So strong there, too, was the
feeling against O'Connell, that little expectation was
entertained of its being favourably received. Greatly to its
honour, however, the sentence was reversed and he was set
free. … The enthusiasm shown at his release was frantic and
delirious. None the less those months in Richmond prison
proved the death-knell of his power. He was an old man by this
time; he was already weakened in health, and that buoyancy
which had hitherto carried him over any and every obstacle
never again revived. The 'Young Ireland' party, the members of
which had in the first instance been his allies and
lieutenants, had now formed a distinct section, and upon the
vital question of resistance were in fierce hostility to all
his most cherished principles. The state of the country, too,
preyed visibly upon his mind. By 1846 had begun that
succession of disastrous seasons which, by destroying the
feeble barrier which stood between the peasant and a cruel
death, brought about a national tragedy, the most terrible
perhaps with which modern Europe has been confronted. This
tragedy, though he did not live to see the whole of it,
O'Connell—himself the incarnation of the people—felt
acutely.
{1788}
Deep despondency took hold of him. He retired, to a great
degree, from public life, leaving the conduct of his
organization in the hands of others. … In 1847 he resolved
to leave Ireland, and to end his days in Rome. His last public
appearance was in the House of Commons, where an attentive and
deeply respectful audience hung upon the faltering and barely
articulate accents which fell from his lips. In a few deeply
moving words he appealed for aid and sympathy for his
suffering countrymen, and left the House. … The camp and
council chamber of the 'Young Ireland' party was the editor's
room of 'The Nation' newspaper. There it found its
inspiration, and there its plans were matured—so far, that
is, as they can be said to have been ever matured. For an
eminently readable and all things considered a wonderfully
impartial account of this movement, the reader cannot do
better than consult Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's 'Four Years of
Irish History,' which has the immense advantage of being
history taken at first hand, written that is by one who
himself took a prominent part in the scenes which he
describes. The most interesting figure in the party had,
however, died before those memorable four years began. Thomas
Davis, who was only thirty at the time of his death in 1845,
was a man of large gifts, nay, might fairly be called a man of
genius. … The whole movement in fact was, in the first
instance; a literary quite as much as a political one. Nearly
all who took part in it Gavan Duffy, John Mitchell, Meagher,
Dillon, Davis himself—were very young men, many fresh from
college, all filled with zeal for the cause of liberty and
nationality. The graver side of the movement only showed
itself when the struggle with O'Connell began. At first no
idea of deposing, or even seriously opposing the great leader
seems to have been intended. The attempt on O'Connell's part
to carry a formal declaration against the employment under any
circumstances of physical force was, the origin of that
division, and what the younger spirits considered 'truckling
to the Whigs' helped to widen the breach. When, too, O'Connell
had partially retired into the background, his place was
filled by his son, John O'Connell, the 'Head conciliator,'
between whom and the 'Young Irelanders' there waged a fierce
war, which in the end led to the indignant withdrawal of the
latter from the Repeal council. Before matters reached this
point, the younger camp had been strengthened by the adhesion
of Smith O'Brien, who, though not a man of much intellectual
calibre, carried no little weight in Ireland. … Early in
January, 1847, O'Connell left on that journey of his which was
never completed, and by the middle of May Ireland was suddenly
startled by the news that her great leader was dead. The
effect of his death was to produce a sudden and immense
reaction. A vast revulsion of love and reverence sprang up all
over the country; an immense sense of his incomparable
services, and with it a vehement anger against all who had
opposed him. Upon the 'Young Ireland' party, as was
inevitable, the weight of that anger fell chiefly, and from
the moment of O'Connell's death whatever claim they had to
call themselves a national party vanished utterly. The men
'who killed the Liberator' could never again hope to carry
with them the suffrages of any number of their countrymen.
This contumely, to a great degree undeserved, naturally
reacted upon the subjects of it. The taunt of treachery and
ingratitude flung at them wherever they went stung and
nettled. In the general reaction of gratitude and affection
for O'Connell, his son John succeeded easily to the position
of leader. The older members of the Repeal Association
thereupon rallied about him, and the split between them and
the younger men grew deeper and wider. A wild, impracticable
visionary now came to play a part in the movement. A deformed
misanthrope, called James Lalor, endowed with a considerable
command of vague, passionate rhetoric, began to write
incentives to revolt in 'The Nation.' These growing more and
more violent were by the editor at length prudently
suppressed. The seed, however, had already sown itself in
another mind. John Mitchell is described by Mr. Justin
McCarthy as 'the one formidable man amongst the rebels of '48;
the one man who distinctly knew what he wanted, and was
prepared to run any risk to get it.' … To him it was
intolerable that any human being should be willing to go
further and to dare more in the cause of Ireland than himself,
and the result was that after awhile he broke away from his
connection with The Nation,' and started a new organ under
the name of 'The United Irishmen,' one definitely pledged from
the first to the policy of action. From this point matters
gathered speedily to a head. Mitchell's newspaper proceeded to
fling out challenge after challenge to the Government, calling
upon the people to gather and to 'sweep-this island clear of
the English name and nation.' For some months these challenges
remained unanswered. It was now, however, '48,' and nearly all
Europe was in revolution. The necessity of taking some step
began to be evident, and a Bill making all written incitement
of insurrection felony was hurried through the House of
Commons, and almost immediately after Mitchell was arrested.
Even then he seems to have believed that the country would
rise to liberate him. The country, however, showed no
disposition to do anything of the sort. He was tried in
Dublin, found guilty, sentenced to fourteen years'
transportation, and a few days afterwards put on board a
vessel in the harbour and conveyed to Spike Island, whence he
was sent to Bermuda, and the following April in a convict
vessel to the Cape, and finally to Tasmania. The other 'Young
Irelanders,' stung apparently by their own previous inaction,
thereupon rushed frantically into rebellion. The
leaders—Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and others—went
about the country holding reviews of 'Confederates,' as they
now called themselves, a proceeding which caused the
Government to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to issue a
warrant for their arrest. A few more gatherings took place in
different parts of the country, a few more ineffectual
attempts were made to induce the people to rise, one very
small collision with the police occurred, and then the whole
thing was over. All the leaders in the course of a few days
were arrested and Smith O'Brien and Meagher were sentenced to
death, a sentence which was speedily changed into
transportation. Gavan Duffy was arrested and several times
tried, but the jury always disagreed, and in the end his
prosecution was abandoned. The 'Young Ireland' movement,
however, was dead, and never again revived."

_E. Lawless,
The Story of Ireland,
chapters 55-56._

ALSO IN:
_Sir C. G. Duffy,
Young Ireland._

_Sir C. G. Duffy,
Four Years of Irish History, 1845-1849._

_Sir C. G. Duffy,
Thomas Davis: Memoirs of an Irish Patriot, 1840-1846._

{1789}

IRELAND: A. D. 1843-1848.
The Devon Commission.
The Encumbered Estates Act.

In 1843, Mr. Sharman Crawford "succeeded in obtaining the
appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the
'occupation of land in Ireland.' This Commission, known from
its chairman, Lord Devon, as the Devon Commission, marks a
great epoch in the Irish land question. The Commissioners, in
their Report, brought out strongly the facts that great misery
existed in Ireland, and that the cause of the misery was the
system of land tenure. The following extract from the Report
indicates the general nature of its conclusions: 'A reference
to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that the
agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the
greatest privations and hardships; that he continues to depend
upon casual and precarious employment for subsistence; that he
is badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for
his labour. Our personal experience and observations during
our enquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of
these statements, and we cannot forbear expressing our strong
sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes
have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe,
than the people of any other country in Europe have to
sustain.' And the remedy for the evil is to be found,
continues the Report, in 'an increased and improved
cultivation of the soil,' to be gained by securing for the
tenant' fair remuneration for the outlay of his capital and
labour.' No sooner was this Report issued than great numbers
of petitions were presented to the House of Lords, and
supported by Lord Devon, praying for legislative reform of the
land evils; and in June, 1845, a bill was introduced into the
House of Lords by Lord Stanley, on behalf of the government of
Sir Robert Peel, for 'the purpose of providing compensation to
tenants in Ireland, in certain cases, on being dispossessed of
their holdings, for such improvements as they may have made
during their tenancy.' By the selfish opposition of the Irish
landlords this bill was thrown out. Two days after its
rejection in the House of Lords Mr. Sharman Crawford brought
into the House of Commons a Tenant Right Bill, and met with as
little success. In 1846 a government bill was introduced,
bearing a strong resemblance to that of Lord Stanley; but the
ministry was overthrown, and the bill was dropped. A Liberal
ministry under Lord John Russell came into power in July,
1846, and Irish hopes again began to rise. In 1847 the
indefatigable Mr. Crawford brought in a bill, whose purpose
was to extend the Ulster custom to the whole of Ireland; it
was thrown out. A well-meant but in the end unsuccessful
attempt to relieve the burdens of embarrassed landlords
without redressing the grievances of rack-rented tenants, was
made in 1848 by the measure well known as the Encumbered
Estates Act. This Act had for its object to restore capital to
the land; but with capital it brought in a class of
proprietors who lacked the virtues as well as the vices of
their predecessors, and were even more oppressive to the
tenantry."

_E. Thursfield,
England and Ireland,
chapter 10._

ALSO IN:
_H. L. Jephson,
Notes on Irish Questions,
chapter 15._

_D. B. King,
The Irish Question,
chapter 9._

IRELAND: A. D. 1844.
The Maynooth Grant.

Towards the close of the session of Parliament in 1844, Sir
Robert Peel undertook a measure "dealing with higher education
in Ireland. Means were to be found, in some way, for the
education of the upper classes of the Irish, and for the more
efficient education of candidates for the Roman Catholic
priesthood. Some provision already existed for the education
of the Irish people. Trinity College, with its considerable
endowments, afforded opportunities to wealthy Irish. The
National Board, which Stanley had instituted, had under its
control 3,153 schools, and 395,000 scholars. But Trinity
College retained most of its advantages for the benefit of its
Protestant students, and the 395,000 scholars, whom the
National Board was educating, did not, after all, include one
person in every twenty alive in Ireland. The Roman Catholic,
since 1793, had been allowed to graduate at Trinity; but he
could hold neither scholarship nor professorship. … Some
steps had, indeed, been taken for the education of the Roman
Catholic priesthood. In 1795, Fitzwilliam had proposed, and
his successor, Camden, had approved, the appropriation of an
annual sum of money to a college formed at Maynooth for the
education of Roman Catholic priests. The Irish parliament had
readily sanctioned the scheme; the payment of the grant had
been continued, after the Union, by the Parliament of the
United Kingdom, and, though the sums voted had been reduced to
£9,000 a year in 1808, this amount had been thenceforward
regularly allotted to Maynooth. In some respects the grant was
actually disadvantageous to the college; it was too small to
maintain the institution; it was large enough to discourage
voluntary contributions. The surroundings of the college were
squalid; its professors were wretchedly paid; it was even
impossible to assign to each of the 440 students a separate
room; it was dubbed by Macaulay, in a memorable speech, a
'miserable Dotheboys' Hall,' and it was Peel's deliberate
opinion that the absolute withdrawal of the grant would be
better than the continuance of the niggardly allowance." The
Government "asked Parliament to vote a sum of £30,000 to
improve the buildings at Maynooth; it proposed that the Board
of Works should in future be responsible for keeping them in
repair; it suggested that the salaries of professors should be
more than doubled; that the position of the students should be
improved; that the annual grant should be raised from about
£9,000 to about £26,000, and that this sum, instead of being
subject to the approval of the legislature once a year, should
be placed on the Consolidated Fund. Then arose a series of
debates which have no parallel in the history of the British
Parliament. … 'The Orangeman raises his howl,' said
Macaulay, 'and Exeter Hall sets up its bray, and Mr. MacNeile
is horrified to think that a still larger grant is intended
for the priests of Baal at the table of Jezebel, and the
Protestant operatives of Dublin call for the impeachment of
Ministers in exceedingly bad English.'
{1790}
A few years later a man, who was both a Christian and a
gentleman, declared the Irish famine to be a dispensation of
Providence in return for the Maynooth grant. … Night after
night it rained petitions; 298 petitions against the bill were
presented on the 3rd of April, when Peel explained his scheme;
148 on the 8th; 254 on the 9th; 552 on the 10th; 2,262 on the
11th, when the bill was put down for a second reading; 662 on
the 14th; 581 on the 15th; 420 on the 16th; 335 on the 17th;
371 on the 18th. The petitions hardly allowed a doubt to
remain as to the opinion of the country. Peel, indeed, was
again exposed to the full force of the strongest power which
any British Minister can encounter. The Mussulman, driven to
his last defence, raises the standard of the Prophet, and
proclaims a holy war. But the Englishman, if Protestantism be
in danger, shouts, 'No Popery!' and creates equal enthusiasm.
… Yet, vast as was the storm which the Minister had
provoked, the issues which he had directly raised were of the
smallest proportions. Hardly anyone ventured to propose that
the original vote to Maynooth should be withdrawn. A grant,
indeed, which had been sanctioned by George III., which had
been fixed by Perceval, which had been voted in an unreformed
Parliament, almost without debate, and which had been
continued for fifty years, could not be withdrawn. Peel's
opponents, therefore, were compelled to argue that there was
no harm in sacrificing £9,000 a year to Baal, but that a
sacrifice of £26,000 was full of harm. … They debated the
second reading of the bill for six nights, the third reading
for three nights, and they seized other opportunities for
protracting the discussion. Even the Lords forgot their
customary habits and sat up till a late hour on three
successive evenings to discuss an amendment for inquiring into
the class of books used at Maynooth. But this unusual display
of zeal proved useless. A majority in both Houses steadily
supported the Minister, and zealous Protestants and
old-fashioned Tories were unable to defeat a scheme which was
proposed by Peel and supported by Russell."

_S. Walpole,
History of England from 1815,
chapter 19 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN;
_H. Martineau,
History of the Thirty Years' Peace,
book 6, chapter 8._

IRELAND: A. D. 1845-1847.
The Famine.

"In 1841 the population of Ireland was 8,175,124 souls. By
1845 it had probably reached to nearly nine millions. … To
anyone looking beneath the surface the condition of the
country was painfully precarious. Nine millions of a
population living at best in a light-hearted and hopeful
hand-to-mouth contentment, totally dependent on the hazards of
one crop, destitute of manufacturing industries, and utterly
without reserve or resource to fall back upon in time of
reverse; what did all this mean but a state of things critical
and alarming in the extreme? Yet no one seemed conscious of
danger. The potato crop had been abundant for four or five
years, and respite from dearth and distress was comparative
happiness and prosperity. Moreover, the temperance movement
[of Father Mathew] had come to make the 'good times' still
better. Everything looked bright. No one concerned himself to
discover how slender and treacherous was the foundation for
this general hopefulness and confidence. Yet signs of the
coming storm had been given. Partial famine caused by failing
harvests had indeed been intermittent in Ireland, and, quite
recently, warnings that ought not to have been mistaken or
neglected had given notice that the esculent which formed the
sole dependence of the peasant millions was subject to some
mysterious blight. In 1844 it was stricken in America, but in
Ireland the yield was healthy and plentiful as ever. The
harvest of 1845 promised to be the richest gathered for many
years. Suddenly, in one short month, in one week it might be
said, the withering breath of a simoom seemed to sweep the
land, blasting all in its path. I myself saw whole tracts of
potato growth changed in one night from smiling luxuriance to
a shrivelled and blackened waste. A shout of alarm arose. But
the buoyant nature of the Celtic peasant did not yet give way.
The crop was so profuse that it was expected the healthy
portion would reach an average result. Winter revealed the
alarming fact that the tubers had rotted in pit and
store-house. Nevertheless the farmers, like hapless men who
double their stakes to recover losses, made only the more
strenuous exertions to till a larger breadth in 1846. Although
already feeling the pinch of sore distress, if not actual
famine, they worked as if for dear life; they begged and
borrowed on any terms the means whereby to crop the land once
more. The pawn-offices were choked with the humble finery that
had shone at the village dance or the christening feast; the
banks and local money-lenders were besieged with appeals for
credit. Meals were stinted, backs were bared. Anything,
anything to tide over the interval to the harvest of
'Forty-six.' O God, it is a dreadful thought that all this
effort was but more surely leading them to ruin! It was this
harvest of Forty-six that sealed their doom. Not partially but
completely, utterly, hopelessly, it perished. As in the
previous year, all promised brightly up to the close of July.
Then, suddenly, in a night, whole areas were blighted; and
this time, alas! no portion of the crop escaped. A cry of
agony and despair went up all over the land. The last
desperate stake for life had been played, and all was lost.
The doomed people realised but too well what was before them.
Last year's premonitory sufferings had exhausted them, and
now?—they must die! My native district figures largely in the
gloomy record of that dreadful time. I saw the horrible
phantasmagoria—would God it were but that!—pass before my
eyes. Blank stolid dismay, a sort of stupor, fell upon the
people, contrasting remarkably with the fierce energy put
forth a year before. It was no uncommon sight to see the
cottier and his little family seated on the garden fence
gazing all day long in moody silence at the blighted plot that
had been their last hope. Nothing could arouse them. You
spoke; they answered not. You tried to cheer them; they shook
their heads. I never saw so sudden and so terrible a
transformation. When first in the autumn of 1845 the partial
blight appeared, wise voices were raised in warning to the
Government that a frightful catastrophe was at hand; yet even
then began that fatal circumlocution and inaptness which it
maddens one to think of. It would be utter injustice to deny
that the Government made exertions which judged by ordinary
emergencies would be prompt and considerable.
{1791}
But judged by the awful magnitude of the evil then at hand or
actually befallen, they were fatally tardy and inadequate.
When at length the executive did hurry, the blunders of
precipitancy outdid the disasters of excessive deliberation.
… In October 1845 the Irish Mansion House Relief Committee
implored the Government to call Parliament together and throw
open the ports. The Government refused. Again and again the
terrible urgency of the case, the magnitude of the disaster at
hand, was pressed on the executive. It was the obstinate
refusal of Lord John Russell to listen to these remonstrances
and entreaties, and the sad verification subsequently of these
apprehensions, that implanted in the Irish mind the bitter
memories which still occasionally find vent in passionate
accusation of 'England.' Not but the Government had many and
weighty arguments in behalf of the course they took. … The
situation bristled with difficulties. … At first the
establishment of public soup-kitchens under local relief
committees, subsidised by Government, was relied upon to
arrest the famine. I doubt if the world ever saw so huge a
demoralisation, so great a degradation, visited upon a once
high-spirited and sensitive people. All over the country large
iron boilers were set up, in which what was called 'soup' was
concocted; later on Indian-meal stirabout was boiled. Around
these boilers on the roadside there daily moaned and shrieked
and fought and scuffled crowds of gaunt, cadaverous creatures
that once had been men and women made in the image of God. The
feeding of dogs in a kennel was far more decent and orderly.
… I frequently stood and watched the scene till tears
blinded me and I almost choked with grief and passion. … The
conduct of the Irish landlords throughout the famine period
has been variously described, and has been, I believe,
generally condemned. I consider the censure visited on them
too sweeping. … On many of them no blame too heavy could
possibly fall. A large number were permanent absentees; their
ranks were swelled by several who early fled the post of duty
at home—cowardly and selfish deserters of a brave and
faithful people. Of those who remained, some may have grown
callous; it is impossible to contest authentic instances of
brutal heartlessness here and there. But … the overwhelming
balance is the other way. The bulk of the resident Irish
landlords manfully did their best in that dread hour. … In
the autumn of 1846 relief works were set on foot, the
Government having received parliamentary authority to grant
baronial loans for such undertakings. There might have been
found many ways of applying these funds in reproductive
employment, but the modes decided on were draining and
road-making. … The result was in every sense deplorable
failure. The wretched people were by this time too wasted and
emaciated to work. The endeavour to do so under an inclement
winter sky only hastened death. They tottered at day-break to
the roll-call; vainly tried to wheel the barrow or ply the
pick, but fainted away on the 'cutting,' or lay down on the
wayside to rise no more. As for the roads on which so much
money was wasted, and on which so many lives were sacrificed,
hardly any of them were finished. Miles of grass-grown earth
works throughout the country now mark their course and
commemorate for posterity one of the gigantic blunders of the
famine time. The first remarkable sign of the havoc which
death was making was the decline, and disappearance of
funerals. … Soon, alas! neither coffin nor shroud could be
supplied. Daily in the street and on the footway some poor
creature lay down as if to sleep, and presently was stiff and
stark. In our district it was a common occurrence to find, on
opening the front door in early morning, leaning against it,
the corpse of some victim who in the night-time had 'rested'
in its shelter. We raised a public subscription, and employed
two men with horse and cart to go around each day and gather
up the dead. One by one they were taken to a great pit at
Ardnabrahair Abbey and dropped through the hinged bottom of a
'trap-coffin' into a common grave below. In the remoter rural
districts even this rude sepulture was impossible. In the
field and by the ditchside the victims lay as they fell, till
some charitable hand was found to cover them with the adjacent
soil. It was the fever which supervened on the famine that
wrought the greatest slaughter and spread the greatest terror.
… To come within the reach of this contagion was certain
death. Whole families perished unvisited and unassisted. By
levelling above their corpses the sheeling in which they died,
the neighbours gave them a grave."

_A. M. Sullivan,
New Ireland,
chapter 6._

"In July 1847 as many as three millions of persons were
actually receiving separate rations. A loan of £8,000,000 was
contracted by the Government, expressly to supply such wants,
and every step was taken by two successive administrations,
Sir Robert Peel's and Lord John Russell's, to alleviate the
sufferings of the people. Nor was private benevolence lacking.
The Society of Friends, always ready in acts of charity and
love, was foremost in the good work. A British Association was
formed for the relief of Ireland, including Jones Lloyd (Lord
Overstone), Thomas Baring, and Baron Rothschild. A Queen's
letter was issued. … Subscriptions were received from almost
every quarter of the world. The Queen's letter alone produced
£171,533. The British Association collected £263,000; the
Society of Friends £43,000; and £168,000 more were entrusted
to the Dublin Society of Friends. The Sultan of Turkey sent
£1,000. The Queen gave £2,000, and £500 more to the British
Ladies' Clothing Fund. Prince Albert gave £500. The National
Club collected £17,930. America sent two ships of war, the
'Jamestown' and the 'Macedonian,' full of provisions; and the
Irish residents in the United States sent upwards of £200,000
to their relatives, to allow them to emigrate."

_L. Levi,
History of British Commerce,
part 4, chapter 4._

"By the end of 1847 cheap supplies of food began to be brought
into the country by the ordinary operation of the laws of
supply and demand, at far cheaper rates, owing to an abundant
harvest abroad, than if the Government had tried to constitute
itself the sole distributor. The potato harvest of 1847, if
not bountiful, was at least comparatively good. … By March,
1848, the third and last period of the famine may be said to
have terminated. But, though the direct period of distress was
over, the economic problems which remained for solution were
of overwhelming magnitude. … A million and a half of the
people had disappeared. The land was devastated with fever and
the diseases which dog the steps of famine. … The waters of the
great deep were indeed going down, but the land was seen to be
without form and void."

_Lord E. Fitzmaurice and J. R. Thursfield,
Two Centuries of Irish History,
part 4, chapter 4._

{1792}

"The famine and plague of 1846-47 was accompanied, and
succeeded, by a wholesale clearance of congested districts and
by cruel evictions. The new landlords [who had acquired
property under the Encumbered Estates Act], bent on
consolidating their property, turned out their tenants by
regiments, and in the autumn of 1847 enormous numbers were
deported. It is absolutely necessary to bear this strictly in
mind, if we would judge of the intense hatred which prevails
amongst the Irish in America to Great Britain. The children of
many of those who were exiled then have raised themselves to
positions of affluence and prosperity in the United States.
But they have often heard from their fathers, and some of them
may perhaps recall, the circumstances under which they were
driven from their old homes in Ireland. … But there is a
further and awful memory connected with that time. The people
who had been suffering from fever carried the plague with them
on board, and the vessels sometimes became floating
charnel-houses. During the year 1847, out of 106,000 emigrants
who crossed the Atlantic for Canada and New Brunswick, 6,100
perished on the ocean, 4,100 immediately on landing, 5,200
subsequently in the hospitals, and 1,900 in the towns to which
they repaired. … Undoubtedly, historical circumstances have
… had much to do with the political hatred to Great Britain;
but its newly acquired intensity is owing to the still fresh
remembrances of what took place after the famine, and to the
fact that the wholesale clearances of Irish estates were, to
say the least, not discouraged in the writings and speeches of
English lawgivers, economists and statesmen."

_Sir R. Blennerhassett,
Ireland ("Reign of Queen Victoria,"
edited by T. H. Ward,
volume 1, pages 563-565)._

"The deaths from fever in the year 1846 were 17,145, in the
following year 57,000, to which 27,000 by dysentery must be
added."

_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
period 4, page 164._

"Between the years 1847 and 1851 (both inclusive) the almost
incredible number of over one million Irish—men, women, and
children—were conveyed in emigrant ships to America—a
whole population. In 1847, 215,444 emigrated; in 1849,
218,842, and in 1851, 249,721."

_H. L. Jephson,
Notes on Irish Questions,
page 298._

"The population of Ireland by March 30, 1851, at the same
ratio of increase as held in England and Wales, would have
been 9,018,799—it was 6,552,385. It was the calculation of
the Census Commissioners that the deficit, independently of
the emigration, represented by the mortality in the five
famine years, was 985,366."

_T. P. O'Connor,
The Parnell Movement,
page 125._

IRELAND: A. D. 1846.
Defeat of Peel's Coercion Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.

IRELAND: A. D. 1848-1852.
Tenant organizations.
The Ulster Tenant Right.
The Tenant League.

"The famine … and the evictions that followed it made the
people more discontented than ever with the land system. The
Democratic Association, organized about this time, adopted as
its rallying cry, 'the land for the people.' … This
association, whose aims are said to have been 'largely
communistic and revolutionary,' opposed the Irish Alliance,
the Nationalist Society organized by Charles Gavan Duffy. …
During the years '49 and '50 numerous Tenant Protection
Societies were formed throughout the country, the
Presbyterians of Ulster taking quite as active a part as the
Celtic Catholics of the other provinces. In May, 1850, the
Presbyterian Synod of Ulster … resolved, against the
protest, it is true, of the more conservative men, to petition
Parliament to extend to the rest of Ireland the benefits of
rights and securities similar to those of the Ulster custom.
… The Ulster tenant right … has occupied an important
place in the Irish land question for a long time. … The
right differs much on different estates. On no two does it
seem to be precisely the same. It is therefore not a right
capable of being strictly defined. Nor did it have any legal
sanction until the year 1870. The law did not recognize it.
One of its chief incidents was that the tenant was entitled to
live on his farm from year to year indefinitely on condition
of acting properly, and paying his rent, which the landlord
might raise from time to time to a reasonable extent, but not
so as to extinguish the tenant's interest. In the second
place, if the tenant got in debt, and could not pay the rent,
or wished for any other reason to leave the holding, he could
sell his interest, but the landlord had a right to be
consulted, and could object to the purchaser. In the third
place, the landlord, if he wanted to take the land for his own
purposes, must pay the tenant a fair sum for his tenant-right.
In the fourth place, all arrears of rent must be paid before
the interest was transferred. These are said to be universal
characteristics of every Ulster tenant-right custom. There
were often additional restrictions or provisions, usually in
limitation of the tenant's right to sell, or of the landlord's
right to raise the rent, veto the sale of land, or take it for
his own use. There were commonly established usages in
reference to fixing a fair rent. Valuators were generally
employed, and on their estimates, and not on competition in
open market, the rent was fixed. … The Irish Tenant League
was organized August 6, 1850, in Dublin. Among the resolutions
adopted was one, calling for 'a fair valuation of rent between
landlord and tenant in Ireland,' and another, 'that the tenant
should not be disturbed in his holding as long as he paid his
rent.' The question of arrears received a great deal of
attention. The great majority of the tenants of Ireland were
in arrears, owing to the successive failures of the crops, and
were of course liable to eviction. … The Tenant League was a
very popular one and spread throughout the country. There was
much agitation, and in the general election in 1852, when the
excitement was at its height, fifty-eight Tenant Leaguers were
elected to Parliament. The Tenant League members resolved to
hold themselves 'independent of and in opposition to all
governments which do not make it a part of their policy' to
give the tenants a measure of relief such as the League
desired. It looked as though the party would hold the balance
of power and be able to secure its objects. When however
Sadlier and Keogh, two of the most prominent men in the party
and men of great influence, accepted positions in the new
government, 'bribed by office,' it has always been charged by
the Irish, 'to betray the cause to which they had been most
solemnly pledged,' the party was broken up without
accomplishing its purpose."

_D. B. King,
The Irish Question,
chapters 5 and 9._

ALSO IN:
_Sir C. G. Duffy,
League of the North and South._

_A. M. Sullivan,
New Ireland,
chapter 13._

_J. Godkin,
The Land War in Ireland,
chapter 17._

{1793}

IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867.
The Fenian Movement.

"The Fenian movement differed from nearly all previous
movements of the same kind in Ireland, in the fact that it
arose and grew into strength without the patronage or the help
of any of those who might be called the natural leaders of the
people. … Its leaders were not men of high position, or
distinguished name, or proved ability. They were not of
aristocratic birth; they were not orators; they were not
powerful writers. It was not the impulse of the American Civil
War that engendered Fenianism; although that war had great
influence on the manner in which Fenianism shaped its course.
Fenianism had been in existence, in fact, although it had not
got its peculiar name, long before the American War created a
new race of Irishmen—the Irish-American soldiers—to turn
their energies and their military inclination to a new
purpose. … The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, in
consequence of the 1848 movement, led, as a matter of course,
to secret association. Before the trials of the Irish leaders
were well over in that year, a secret association was formed
by a large number of young Irishmen in cities and towns. …
After two or three attempts to arrange for a simultaneous
rising had failed, or had ended only in little abortive and
isolated ebullitions, the young men became discouraged. Some
of the leaders went to France, some to the United States, some
actually to England; and the association melted away. … Some
years after this, the 'Phœnix' clubs began to be formed in
Ireland. They were for the most part associations of the
peasant class, and were on that account, perhaps, the more
formidable and earnest. … The Phœnix clubs led to some of
the ordinary prosecutions and convictions; and that was all.
… After the Phœnix associations came the Fenians. 'This is a
serious business now,' said a clever English literary man when
he heard of the Fenian organisation; 'the Irish have got hold
of a good name this time; the Fenians will last.' The Fenians
are said to have been the ancient Irish militia. … There was
an air of Celtic antiquity and of mystery about the name of
Fenian which merited the artistic approval given to it by the
impartial English writer whose observation has just been
quoted. The Fenian agitation began about 1858, and it came to
perfection about the middle of the American Civil War. It was
ingeniously arranged on a system by which all authority
converged towards one centre [called the Head-Centre], and
those farthest away from the seat of direction knew
proportionately less and less about the nature of the plans.
They had to obey instructions only, and it was hoped that by
this means weak or doubtful men would not have it in their
power prematurely to reveal, to betray, or to thwart the
purposes of their leaders. A convention was held in America,
and the Fenian Association was resolved into a regular
organised institution. A provisional government was
established in the neighbourhood of Union Square, New York,
with all the array and the mechanism of an actual working
administration. … The Civil War had introduced a new figure
to the world's stage. This was the Irish-American soldier. …
Many of these men—thousands of them—were as sincerely
patriotic in their way as they were simple and brave. It is
needless to say that they were fastened on in some instances
by adventurers, who fomented the Fenian movement out of the
merest and the meanest self-seeking. … Some were making a
living out of the organisation—out of that, and apparently
nothing else. The contributions given by poor Irish
hack-drivers and servant girls, in the sincere belief that
they were helping to man the ranks of an Irish army of
independence, enabled some of these self-appointed leaders to
wear fine clothes and to order expensive dinners. … But in
the main it is only fair to say that the Fenian movement in
the United States was got up, organised and manned by persons
who … were single-hearted, unselfish, and faithfully devoted
to their cause. … After a while things went so far that the
Fenian leaders in the United States issued an address,
announcing that their officers were going to Ireland to raise
an army there for the recovery of the country's independence.
Of course the Government here were soon quite prepared to
receive them; and indeed the authorities easily managed to
keep themselves informed by means of spies of all that was
going on in Ireland. … Meanwhile the Head Centre of
Fenianism in America, James Stephens, who had borne a part in
the movement of 1848, arrived in Ireland. He was arrested …
[and] committed to Richmond Prison, Dublin, early in November,
1865; but before many days had passed the country was startled
by the news that he had contrived to make his escape. The
escape was planned with skill and daring. For a time it helped
to strengthen the impression on the mind of the Irish
peasantry that in Stephens there had at last been found an
insurgent leader of adequate courage, craft, and good fortune.
Stephens disappeared for a moment from the stage. In the
meantime disputes and dissensions had arisen among the Fenians
in America. The schism had gone so far as to lead to the
setting up of two separate associations. There were of course
distracted plans. One party was for an invasion of Canada;
another pressed for operations in Ireland itself. The Canadian
attempt actually was made. …

See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

Then Stephens came to the front again. It was only for a
moment. He had returned to New York, and he now announced that
he was determined to strike a blow in Ireland. Before long the
impression was spread abroad that he had actually left the
States to return to the scene of his proposed insurrection.
The American-Irish kept streaming across the Atlantic, even in
the stormy winter months, in the firm belief that before the
winter had passed away, or at the farthest while the spring
was yet young, Stephens would appear in Ireland at the head of
an insurgent army. … Stephens did not reappear in Ireland.
He made no attempt to keep his warlike promise. He may be said
to have disappeared from the history of Fenianism. But the
preparations had gone too far to be suddenly stopped. … It
was hastily decided that something should be done. One venture
was a scheme for the capture of Chester Castle [and the arms
it contained]. … The Government were fully informed of the
plot in advance; the police were actually on the look-out for
the arrival of strangers in Chester, and the enterprise melted
away.
{1794}
In March, 1867, an attempt at a general rising was made in
Ireland. It was a total failure; the one thing on which the
country had to be congratulated was that it failed so
completely and so quickly as to cause little bloodshed. Every
influence combined to minimise the waste of life. The snow
fell that spring as it had scarcely ever fallen before in the
soft, mild climate of Ireland. … It made the gorges of the
mountains untenable, and the gorges of the mountains were to
be the encampments and the retreats of the Fenian insurgents.
The snow fell for many days and nights, and when it ceased
falling the insurrectionary movement was over. The
insurrection was literally buried in that unlooked-for snow.
There were some attacks on police barracks in various places
—in Cork, in Kerry, in Limerick, in Tipperary, in Louth;
there were some conflicts with the police; there were some
shots fired, many captures made, a few lives lost; and then
for the time at least all was over. The Fenian attempt thus
made had not from the beginning a shadow of hope to excuse
it." Some months afterwards a daring rescue of Fenian
prisoners at Manchester stirred up a fresh excitement in
Fenian circles. A policeman was killed in the affair, and
three of the rescuers were hanged for his murder. On the 13th
of December, 1867, an attempt was made to blow up the
Clerkenwell House of Detention, where two Fenian prisoners
were confined. "Six persons were killed on the spot; about six
more died from the effects of the injuries they received; some
120 persons were wounded. … It is not necessary to follow
out the steps of the Fenian movement any further. There were
many isolated attempts; there were many arrests, trials,
imprisonments, banishments. The effect of all this, it must be
stated as a mere historical fact, was only to increase the
intensity of dissatisfaction and discontent among the Irish
peasantry. … There were some public men who saw that the
time had come when mere repression must no longer be relied
upon as a cure for Irish discontent."

_J. McCarthy,
History of Our Own Times,
chapter 53 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN:
_T. P. O'Connor,
The Parnell Movement,
chapters 7._

_G. P. Macdonell,
Fenianism,
Two Centuries of Irish History,
part 5, chapter 4._

IRELAND: A. D. 1868.
Parliamentary Reform.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.

IRELAND: A. D. 1868-1870.
Disestablishment of the Irish Church.
Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.

IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1894.
The land question and the recent land laws.

"The reason for exceptional legislation in Ireland rested
chiefly on the essential difference between the landlord and
tenant systems in England and in Ireland. In 1845 the Devon
Royal Commission reported that the introduction of the English
system would be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. The
difference, it said, between the English and Irish systems
'consisted in this, that in Ireland the landlord builds
neither dwelling-house nor farm offices, nor puts fences,
gates, etc., into good order before he lets his land. In most
cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is
done by the tenant; and, in the ordinary language of the
country, houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences
are described by the general word "improvements," which is
thus employed to denote the necessary adjuncts to a farm
without which in England or Scotland no tenant would be found
to rent it.' Thirty years later, John Bright summarized the
matter by saying that if the land of Ireland were stripped of
the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier,
the face of the country would be 'as bare and naked as an
American prairie.' This fundamental difference between the
English and Irish land systems has never been fully
appreciated in England, where the landlord's expenditure on
buildings, fences, drainage, farm roads, etc., and on
maintenance absorbs a large part of the rental. Reform of the
Irish system began in 1870. Before that time little had been
done to protect the Irish tenant except to forbid evictions at
night, on Christmas Day, on Good Friday, and the pulling off
the roofs of houses until the inmates had been removed. The
Land Act of 1870 recognized, in principle, the tenant's
property in his improvements by giving him a right to claim
compensation if disturbed or evicted. This was not what the
tenants wanted, viz., security of tenure. The results of
compensation suits by 'disturbed' tenants were uncertain;
compensation for improvements was limited in various ways, and
the animus of the courts administering the act was distinctly
hostile to the tenants. Many works necessary to the existence
of tenants on small farms were not improvements in the eyes of
the landlord, of the law, or of the judges; it was often
impossible to adduce legal evidence of costly works done
little by little, and at intervals, representing the savings
of labor embodied in drainage, reclamation, or fencing.
Buildings and other works of a superior character might be
adjudged 'unsuitable' to small farms, and therefore not the
subject of any compensation; moreover, it was expressly laid
down that the use and enjoyment by the tenant of works
effected wholly at his expense were to be accounted
compensation to him by the landlord, and that, therefore, by
lapse of time, the tenant's improvements became the landlord's
property. The act of 1870 tended to make capricious and
heartless evictions expensive and therefore less common; but
it gave no security of tenure, and left the landlord still at
liberty to raise the rent of improving tenants. It left the
tenant still in a state of dependence and servility; it gave
him no security for his expenditure, for the landlord's right
to keep the rent continually rising was freely exercised. Even
if the act had been liberally administered, it would have
failed to give contentment, satisfy the demands of justice, or
encourage the expenditure of capital by tenant farmers.
Measure after measure proposed by Irish members for further
reforms were rejected by Parliament between 1870 and 1880, and
discontent continued to increase. … The Land Law Act of 1881
was based on the Report in 1880 of the Bessborough Royal
Commission, but many of the most useful suggestions made were
disregarded. This act purported to give the Irish yearly
tenants
(1) the right to sell their tenancies and improvements;
(2) the right to have a 'fair' rent fixed by the land courts
at intervals of fifteen years;
(3) security of tenure arising from this right to have the
rent fixed by the court instead of by the landlord.

{1795}

… No definition of what constituted a fair rent was embodied
in the act, but what is known as the Healy clause provided that
'no rent shall be allowed or made payable in respect of
improvements made by a tenant or his predecessors.' … When
the Irish courts came to interpret it, they held that the term
improvements' meant only that interest in his improvements for
which the tenant might have obtained compensation under the
Land Act of 1870 if he had been disturbed or evicted, and that
the time during which the tenant had had the use and enjoyment
of his own expenditure was still to be accounted compensation
made to him by his landlord, so that by mere lapse of time the
tenant's improvements became the landlord's property. … In
view of the continually falling prices of agricultural produce
and diminishing farm profits, the operation of the land laws
has not brought about peace between landlords and tenants. …
In 1887 the Cowper Commission reported that the 200,000 rents
which had been fixed were too high in consequence of the
continued fall in prices. As a result of the report of this
commission the fair-rent provisions of the law were extended
to leaseholders holding for less than sixty years; but the
courts still adhering to their former methods of
interpretation, numbers of leaseholders who had made and
maintained all the buildings, improvements, and equipments of
their farms found themselves either excluded on narrow and
technical points, or expressly rented on their own
expenditure. In 1891 the fair-rent provisions were further
extended to leaseholders holding for more than sixty years by
the Redemption of Rent Act, under which long leasehold tenants
could compel their landlords either to sell to them, or allow
a fair rent to be fixed on their farms. … Concurrently with
these attempts to place the relations of landlord and tenant
on a peaceful and equitable basis, a system of State loans to
enable tenants to buy their farms has been in operation. …
It is now proposed to have an inquiry by a select committee of
the House of Commons into

(1) the principles adopted in fixing fair rents, particularly
with respect to tenants' improvements;
(2) the system of purchase and security offered for the loans
of public money;
(3) the organization and administrative work of the Land
Commission

—a department which has cost the country about £100,000 a
year since 1881. The popular demand for inquiry and reform
comes as much from the Protestant North as from the Catholic
South."

_The Nation,
February 15, 1894._

IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879.
The Home Rule Movement.
Organization of the Land League.