Ireland Under Coercion - vol. 2 | Page 9

Mr. Hussey, to whom I had
sent a letter from Mr. Froude. Few men, I imagine, know this whole
region better than Mr. Hussey. Some gentlemen of the country joined
in the conversation, and curious stories were told of the difficulty of
getting evidence in criminal cases. What Froude says of the effect of
the prohibitive and protection policy in Ireland upon the morals of the
people as to smuggling must be said, I fear, of the effect of the Penal
Laws against Catholics upon their morals as to perjury. It is not
surprising that the peasants should have been educated into the state of
mind of the Irishman in the old American story, who, being solicited to
promise his vote when he landed in New York, asked whether the party
which sought it was for the Government or against it. Against it, he was
told, "Then begorra you shall have my vote, for I'm agin the
Government whatever it is." One shocking case was told of a notorious
and terrible murder here in Kerry. An old man and his son, so poor that
they lay naked in their beds, were taken out and shot by a party of
Moonlighters for breaking a boycott. They were left for dead, and their
bodies thrown upon a dunghill. The boy, however, was still alive when
they were found, and it was thought he might recover. The magistrates
questioned him as to his knowledge of the murderers. The boy's mother
stood behind the magistrate, and when the question was put, held up
her finger in a warning manner at the poor lad. She didn't wish him to
"peach," as, if he lived, the friends of the murderers would make it
impossible for them to keep their holding and live on it. The lad lied,
and died with the lie on his lips. Who shall sit in judgment on that
wretched mother and her son? But what rule can possibly be too stern
to crush out the terrorism which makes such things possible?
And what right have Englishmen to expect their dominion to stand in

Ireland when their party leaders for party ends shake hands with men
who wink at and use this terrorism? It has so wrought upon the
population here, that in another case, in which the truth needed by
justice and the fears of a poor family trembling for their substance and
their lives came thus into collision, an Irish Judge did not hesitate to
warn the jury against allowing themselves to be influenced by "the
usual family lie"!
A magistrate told us a curious story, which recalls a case noted by Sir
Walter Scott, about the detection of a murderer, who lay long in wait
for a certain police sergeant, obnoxious to the "Moonlighters," and
finally shot him dead in the public street of Loughrea, after dark on a
rainy night, as he was returning from the Post-Office on one side of the
street to the Police Barracks on the other. The town and the
neighbouring country were all agog about the matter, but no trace could
be got until the Dublin detectives came down three days after the
murder. It had rained more or less every one of these days, and the
pools of water were still standing in the street, as on the night of the
murder. One of the Dublin officers closely examining the highway saw
a heavy footprint in the coarse mud at the bottom of one of these pools.
He had the water drawn off, and made out clearly, from the print in the
mud, that the brogan worn by the foot which made it had a broken
sole-piece turned over under the foot. By this the murderer was
eventually traced, captured, tried, and found guilty.
Mr. Morphy, I find, is coming down from Dublin to conduct the
prosecution in the case of the Crown against the murderers of
Fitzmaurice, the old man, so brutally slain the other day near Lixnaw,
in the presence of his daughter, for taking and farming a farm given up
by his thriftless brother. "He will find," said one of the company, "the
mischief done in this instance also by prematurely pressing for
evidence. The girl Honora, who saw her father murdered, never ought
to have been subjected to any inquiry at first by any one, least of all by
the local priest. Her first thought inevitably was that if she intimated
who the men were, they would be screened, and she would suffer. Now
she is recovering her self-possession and coming round, and she will
tell the truth."

"Meanwhile," said a magistrate, "the girl and her family are all
'boycotted,' and that, mark you, by the priest, as well as by the people.
The girl's life would be in peril were