The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through IrelandNorah
History
The Letters of "Norah" on Her Tour Through Ireland
Norah
Ireland -- Description and travel
After I had listened to the farmer's wrongs and heard of others who also
had a complaint to make, I was obliged to think that their case was not
yet so hard as the case of those who suffered from the
_eccentricities_ of Lord Leitrim. Still, it is a hard case when we
consider that the man's whole life and so much money also sunk in rent,
purchase, improvements, and when unable to pay a rent raised beyond the
possibility of paying, to lose all and begin life again without money or
youth and hope, at sixty years of age. People with exasperated minds are
driven to join the Land League, in hope that union will be strength, and
that ears deaf to petition of right will grant concessions to agitation.
I began to feel afraid that I was hearing too much on one side and too
little on the other, and I requested to be introduced to some who had
ranged themselves on the side of the landlords. I was, as a consequence,
introduced to several gentlemen at different times, but I got no light
on the subject from any of them. They were so very sure that everything
was just as it should be, and nothing short of treason would induce any
one to find fault. Still when the question was asked squarely, "Are
there no reasons for wishing for reform of the land laws?" the answer
was, "We would not go quite so far as that?" There was a vague
acknowledgment that, generally speaking, some reform was needed, and yet
every particular thing was defended as all right on the whole, or not
very far wrong.
XXIII.
A MODEL LANDLORD--ERIN'S SONS IN OTHER LANDS.
I have, at last, heard of a model landlord; not that I have not heard
of good landlords before, as Mr. Humphreys and Mr. Stewart, of Ards, in
Donegal. I have seen also the effects of good landlordism. When passing
through the Galgorm estate I saw the beneficial changes wrought on that
place by Mr. Young; but I have heard of many hard landlords, seen much
misery as the result of the present land tenure, and I did feel glad to
hear men praising a landlord without measure. It was a pleasant change.
This landlord who has won such golden opinions is Lord Belmore, of
Castle Coole. "The Land League has gained no adherents on his estate,"
says one to me, "because he is such a just man. He is a man who will
decide for what he thinks right though he should decide to his own hurt.
Eviction has never occurred on his place; there is no rack rent, no
vexatious office rules."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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