Disturbed Ireland

Disturbed Ireland, by Bernard H. Becker

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Title: Disturbed Ireland Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81.
Author: Bernard H. Becker
Release Date: September 2, 2006 [EBook #19160]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Note: | | | | Inconsistent hyphenation and unusual spelling in the | | original document has been preserved. | | | | A number of obvious typographical errors have been corrected | | in this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of | | this document. | | | +--------------------------------------------------------------+
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DISTURBED IRELAND:
BEING THE LETTERS WRITTEN DURING THE WINTER OF 1880-81.
BY BERNARD H. BECKER, SPECIAL COMMISSIONER OF THE "DAILY NEWS."
WITH ROUTE MAPS.
London: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1881.

LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.
Having been most cordially granted permission to republish these letters in a collected form, it is my duty to mention that my mission from the Daily News was absolutely unfettered, either by instructions or introductions. It was thought that an independent and impartial account of the present condition of the disturbed districts of Ireland would be best secured by sending thither a writer without either Irish politics or Irish friends--in short, one who might occupy the stand-point of the too-often-quoted "intelligent foreigner." Hence my little book is purely descriptive of the stirring scenes and deeply interesting people I have met with on my way through the counties of Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. It is neither a political treatise, nor a dissertation on the tenure of land, but a plain record of my experience of a strange phase of national life. I have simply endeavoured to reflect as accurately as might be the salient features of a social and economic upheaval, soon I fervently hope, to pass into the domain of history; and in offering my work to the public must ask indulgence for the errors of omission and commission so difficult to avoid while travelling and writing rapidly in a country which, even to its own people, is a complex problem.
B.H.B.
ARTS' CLUB, January 6th, 1881.

CONTENTS.
PAGE I. AT LOUGH MASK 1
II. AN AGRARIAN DIFFICULTY 18
III. LAND MEETINGS 26
IV. MISS GARDINER AND HER TENANTS 52
V. FROM MAYO TO CONNEMARA 70
VI. THE RELIEF OF MR. BOYCOTT 120
VII. MR. RICHARD STACPOOLE 153
VIII. PATRIOTS 160
IX. ON THE FERGUS 166
X. PALLAS AND THE PALLADIANS 191
XI. GOMBEEN 207
XII. THE RETAINER 215
XIII. CROPPED 225
XIV. IN KERRY 232
XV. THE "BOYCOTTING" OF MR. BENCE JONES 262
XVI. A CRUISE IN A GROWLER 279
XVII. "BOYCOTTED" AT CHRISTMASTIDE 307
XVIII. CHRISTMAS IN COUNTY CLARE 328
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[Illustration: (foldout Map of Ireland, showing author's route.)]
[Illustration: (foldout detail map of western Ireland, showing author's route.)]
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DISTURBED IRELAND.
I.
AT LOUGH MASK.
WESTPORT, CO. MAYO, Oct. 24.
The result of several days' incessant travelling in county Mayo is a very considerable modification of the opinion formed at the first glance at this, the most disaffected part of Ireland. On reaching Claremorris, in the heart of the most disturbed district, I certainly felt, and not for the first time, that as one approaches a spot in which law and order are supposed to be suspended the sense of alarm and insecurity diminishes, to put it mathematically, "as the square of the distances." Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that prevailing in Dublin. In the capital--outside of "the Castle," where moderate counsels prevail--the alarmists appear to have it all their own way. I was told gravely that there was no longer any security for life or property in the West; that county Mayo was like Tipperary in the old time, "only more so;" and that if I would go lurking about Lough Mask and Lough Corrib it was impossible to prevent me; but that the chances of return were, to say the least, remote. It was in vain that I pointed out that every stone wall did not hide an assassin, and that strangers and others not connected either directly or indirectly with the land were probably as safe, if not safer, on a high road in Mayo than in Sackville-street, Dublin. It was admitted that, theoretically, I was quite in the right; but that like many other theorists I might find my theory break down in practice. I was entertained with a full account of the way