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
Passing through the Counties of Louth, Dublin, Londonderry, Monaghan,
Tyrone, Donegal, and Fermanagh, I met with many farmers whose
statements amply confirmed the words of the descendant of the great
Sir Boyle Roche. These unhappy men had been divested of their last
grievance, stripped of their burning wrongs, heartlessly robbed of
their long-cherished injuries. It was bad enough before, when Irishmen
had nothing except grievances, but at least they had these, handed
down from father to son, from generation to generation, along with the
family physiognomy, two precious, priceless heirlooms, remarkable as
being the only hereditary possessions upon which the brutal Saxon
failed to cast his blood-shot, covetous eye. And now the grievances
are taken away, the _Lares_ and _Penates_ of the farmer's cabin are
ruthlessly removed, and the melancholy peasant looks around for the
immaterial antiquities bequeathed by his long-lost forefathers. "Ah;
don't the days seem lank and long, When all goes right and nothing
goes wrong, And isn't our life extremely flat, When we've nothing
whatever to grumble at." The Irish farmer is with the poet, who hits
his harrowing anguish to a hair. He folds his hands and looks about,
uncertain what to do next. His rent has been lowered by 35 per cent.,
he has compensation for improvements, fixity of tenure, and may borrow
money to buy the land outright at a percentage, which will amount to
less than his immortal Rint. What is the unhappy man to do? His
grievances have been his sole theme from boyhood's happy days, the
basis of his conversation, his actuating motive, the very backbone of
his personal entity. Now they are gone, the fine gold has become dim,
and the weapons of war have perished. Once he could walk abroad with
the proud consciousness that he was a wronged man, a martyr, a brave
patriot struggling nobly against the adverse fates, a broth of a boy,
whose melancholy position was noted by the gods, and whose manly
bearing under proffered slavery established a complete claim to high
consideration in Olympus. But now, with heart bowed down with grief
and woe, he walks heavily, and even as a man who mourneth for his
mother, over the enfranchised unfamiliar turf. He peeps into the
bog-hole, and does not recognise himself. He could pay the rent twice
over, but he hates conventionalities, and would rather keep the money.
He is constructed to run on grievances, and in no other grooves, and
the strangeness of his present position is embarrassing. The tenants
of Lord Leitrim, Lord Lifford, and the Duke of Abercorn make no
complaint of their landlords. On the contrary, they distinctly state
that all are individually kind and reasonable men, and while
attributing their own improved position to the various Land Acts given
to Ireland, which leave the actual possessor of the land small option
in the matter, they freely admit that these gentlemen willingly do
more than is ordained by any act of Parliament, and that over and
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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