Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
Derry is a charming town, unique, indescribable. Take equal parts of
Amsterdam and Antwerp, add the Rhine at Cologne, and Waterloo Bridge,
mix with the wall of Chester and the old guns of Peel Castle, throw in
a strong infusion of Wales, with about twenty Nottingham lace
factories, stir up well and allow to settle, and you will get the
general effect. The bit of history resulting in the raising of the
siege still influences Derry conduct and opinions. The 'Prentice Boys
of Derry, eight hundred strong, are ardent loyalists, and having once
beaten an army twenty-five thousand strong, believe that for the good
of the country, like the orator who had often "gone widout a male,"
they too could "do it again." They do not expect to be confronted with
the necessity, but both the Boys and the Orangemen of Derry, with all
their co-religionists, are deeply pledged to resist a Dublin
Parliament. "We would not take the initiative, but would merely stand
on our own defence, and offer a dogged resistance. We have a tolerable
store of arms, although this place was long a proclaimed district, and
we have fifteen modern cannon, two of which are six-pounders, the rest
mostly four-pounders, and one or two two-pounders, which are snugly
stored away, for fear of accident." Thus spake one who certainly
knows, and his words were amply confirmed from another quarter.
Derry makes shirts. The industrious Derryans make much money, and in
many ways. They catch big salmon in the middle of the town, and
outside it they have what Mr. Gladstone would call a "plethora" of
rivers. They ship unnumbered emigrants to the Far West, and carry the
produce of the surrounding agriculturists to Glasgow and Liverpool.
They also make collars and cuffs, but this is mere sport. Their real
vocation is the making of shirts, which they turn out by the million,
mostly of high quality. Numbers of great London houses have their
works at Derry. Welch, Margeston and Co. among others. The Derry
partner, Mr. Robert Greer, an Englishman forty years resident in the
town, favoured me with his views _re_ Home Rule, thus:--
"The bill would be ruinous to Ireland, but not to the same extent as
to England. Being an Englishman, I may be regarded as free from the
sectarian animosity which actuates the opposing parties, but I cannot
close my eyes to the results of the bill, results of which no sane
person, in a position to give an opinion, can have any doubt. We are
so convinced that the bill would render our business difficult, not to
say impracticable, that our London partners say they will remove the
works, plant, machinery, and all, to the West of Scotland or
elsewhere.
"About 1,200 girls are employed in the mill, and 3,000 to 4,000 women
at their own homes all over the surrounding country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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