Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
Our luncheon was excellent--so good, in fact, that we felt a kind of
remorse as if we had selfishly quartered ourselves upon a beleaguered
garrison. But Mr. Olphert said he had no fear of being starved out.
Personally he was, and always had been, on the best terms with the
people of Falcarragh. The older tenants, even now, if he met them
walking in the fields when no one was in sight, would come up and salute
him, and say how "disgusted" they were with what was going on. It was
the younger generation who were troublesome--more troublesome, he added,
to their own parish priest than they were to him. Three or four years
ago a returned American Irishman, an avowed unbeliever, but an active
Nationalist and one of Mr. Forster's "suspects," had come into the
neighbourhood and done his worst to break up the parish. He used to come
to Falcarragh on a Sunday, and get up on a stone outside the chapel
while Father M'Fadden was saying Mass or preaching, and harangue such
people as would listen to him, and caricature the priest and the sermon
going on within sound of his own voice. "I am myself a Protestant,"
said Mr. Olphert, "but I have a great respect for priests who do their
duty; and the conduct of Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, in countenancing
this man, who tried to overthrow the authority of Father M'Fadden of
Glena, excited my indignation. As to what is going on now," said Mr.
Olphert, "it is to Father M'Fadden of Gweedore, and to Father Stephens
here, that the trouble is chiefly to be charged." This tallies with what
I heard at Gweedore from my Galwegian acquaintance. He thought Mr.
Olphert, and Mr. Hewson, the agent, ought to have made peace on the
terms which Father Stephens said he was willing to accept for the
tenants, these being a reduction of 3s. 4d. in the pound, if Mr. Olphert
would extend the reduction to the whole year. My Galwegian thought this
reasonable, because in this region the rent, it appears, is only
collected once a year. With this impartial temper, my Galwegian still
maintained that but for the two priests--the parish priest of Gweedore
and the curate of Falcarragh--there need have been no trouble at
Falcarragh. There had been no "evictions." When the tenants first went
to Mr. Olphert they asked a reduction of 4s. in the pound on the
non-judicial rents, and this Mr. Olphert at once agreed to give them.
The tenants had regularly paid their rents for ten years before. That
they are not going down in the world would appear from the fact that the
P.O. Savings Banks' deposits at Falcarragh, which stood at £62, 15s.
10d. in 1880, rose in 1887 to £494, 10s. 8d. A small number of them had
gone into Court and had judicial rents fixed; and it was on the
contention promoted by the two priests, through these judicial tenants,
he said, that all the difficulty hinged. Father M'Fadden of Glena, who
thought the quarrel unjustifiable and silly, had an interview with Mr.
Blane, M.P., and with Father Stephens, and tried to arrange it all. He
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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