Читать книгу Ireland as It Is, and as It Would Be Under Home Rule - Robert John Buckley - Страница 21

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nce again the difference between Ireland and England is forcibly exemplified. It was certain that several moonlighting expeditions had recently been perpetrated in the neighbourhood of Limerick, which is only divided by the Shannon from the County Clare. You walk over a bridge in the centre of the city and you change your county, but nobody in Limerick seems to know anything about the matter. The local papers hush up the outrages when they hear of them, which is seldom or never. The people who know anything will not, dare not tell, and even the police have the utmost difficulty in establishing the bare facts of any given case. English publicity is entirely unknown. Local correspondents do not always exist in country towns, and the distances are so great, in comparison with the facilities for travel, that newspaper-men seldom or never visit the scene of the occurrence. And besides the awkward and remote position of the country hamlets and mountain farms, there are other excellent reasons for journalistic reticence. The people do not wish to read such news, the editors do not wish to print these discreditable records, and the police, although eminently and invariably civil and obliging, are debarred by their official position from disclosing what they know. The very victims themselves are often silent, refusing to give details, and almost always declining to give evidence. That the sufferers usually know and could easily identify the cowardly ruffians who so cruelly maltreat them is a well-ascertained fact. That they usually declare they have no clue to the offenders is equally well known. The difficulty of arresting suspected men is enhanced by the fact that the moonlighters have a complete system of scouts who in this bare and thinly populated district, descry the police when miles away, giving timely warning to the marauders; these, besides, are readily concealed by their neighbours and friends, who in this display an ingenuity and enthusiasm worthy a better cause. Suppose the villains are caught red-handed; even then the difficulties are by no means over. In Ireland a felon once in the hands of the police, by that one circumstance at once and for ever becomes a hero, a martyr, a man to be excused, to be prayed for, to be worshipped. No matter how black his offence, the touch of the constabulary washes him whiter than snow, purifies him from every earthly taint, surrounds him with a halo of sanctity. Those whom he has injured will not bear witness against him, because their temerity might cost them their lives, the loss of their property, the esteem of their fellow-men. What this means we shall shortly see. The cases I have examined will speak for themselves. And let it be remembered that close proximity to the scenes described produces an incomparably stronger effect than any description, however minute, however painstaking. The utter lawlessness of the districts I have visited since penning Monday's letter has produced a profound, an indelible impression. I pass over the means employed to get over the ground, merely stating that horseflesh has borne the brunt of the business. That and pedestrianism are the only means available, with untold patience and perseverance to worm out the true story. People will not show the way, or will direct you wrongly. Their ignorance, that is, their assumed ignorance, is wonderful, incredible. They are all sthrangers in those parts. They never knew a family of that name, never heard of any moonlighting, swear that the amusement is unknown thereabouts, assert that the whole thing is a fabrication of the police. All the people round are decent, honest, hard-working folks, without a fault; pious, virtuous, immaculate. You push on, and your friend runs after you. Stay a moment, something has struck him. Just at the last distressing hour, his brain displayed amazing power. Now he comes to think of it, something was said to have happened over there, at Ballygammon, ten miles in the opposite direction. A stack was fired, and they said it was the Boys. It was the police who burnt the hay, but they deny it "av coorse." He is suspiciously anxious to afford all the information he can. Ballygammon is the spot, and Tim Mugphiller your man. Mention Mike Delany and you will get every information, and—have ye a screw of tobacky these hard times. You pursue your way certain that at last you are on the right track, and Mike's jaw drops to his knees. Too late he sees that his only chance of altering your course was to point out the right one.

Dropping for once scenery and surroundings, let us at once plunge, as Horace advises, in medias res. The district in Mr. Balfour's time was pleasant and peaceable. Curiously enough its troubles commenced with the change of Government. From March 18 to April 18 the police of Newcastlewest received tidings of fifteen outrages. How many have been perpetrated no man living can tell, for people often think it wisest to hold their peace. Ireland is often said to be almost free from crime, except of the agrarian kind, and moonlighting is partly condoned by reason of its alleged cause. How must we class the following case?

On February 19, 1893, four armed men with blackened faces and dressed as women, attacked the dwelling of T. Donoghue, of Boola, not far from Newcastle. They burst open the door and entered, not to revenge any real or fancied wrong, but purely and simply to obtain possession of a sum of £150, which Donoghue's daughter had brought from America. They believed they would have an easy prey, but they were mistaken; there were two or three men in the house, and the heroes decamped instanter, followed, unknown to themselves, by one of Donoghue's family. Having duly run them to earth, he informed the police, who caught them neatly enough, their shoes covered with fresh mud, and with every circumstance of guilt. The Donoghue folks identified them. The case was perfectly clear—that is the expressed opinion of everybody I have met, official and otherwise. It was tried at the Limerick Spring Assizes, and the jury returned a verdict of "Not guilty!" These patriotic jurors had doubtless much respect for their oaths, more for the interests of justice, more still for their own skins. This case is public property, and is only cited to prove that when the difficulty of arrest and the greater difficulty of obtaining evidence are with infinite pains overcome, the jury will not convict, no matter what the crime. Before he commences his career of crime, the moonlight marauder knows the chances of being caught are immensely in his favour, that should luck in this matter be against him, his very victim will decline to identify him, nay, will affirm that he is not the man, and that when the worst comes to the worst, no jury in the counties of Kerry, Clare, or Limerick will convict.

Here are some results of my researches. The particulars of these cases now first appear in print.

A man named James Dore, who keeps a public-house in Bridge Street, Newcastlewest—I can vouch for his beer—also held a small farm of forty-nine acres from the Earl of Devon, for which he paid the modest rent of £11 10s. per annum—the land maintaining sixteen cows and calves, which, on the usual local computation of £10 profit on each cow, would leave a gain of £148 10s.—not a bad investment, as Irish farming goes. So it was considered, and when the tenant-right was announced as for sale by auction, two cousins of Dore, who held farms contiguous, agreed to jointly bid for the tenant-right, and having secured the land, to arrange its partition between themselves. They went to £400, but this was not regarded as enough, and the tenant-right was for a specified time held over for purchase by private agreement. A farmer named William Quirke offered £590, which was accepted, and the money paid. After this, the two cousins came forward and said they would purchase the tenant-right, offering £40 more than Quirke had paid. They were told that they were too late, and the Earl's agent (Mr. Curling) said nothing could now be done. This was on the 13th of the present month of April. On the 14th, Mr. James Cooke, Lord Devon's bailiff, was seen showing the purchaser Quirke over the newly-acquired holding. Poor Quirke little knew what was at that moment hanging over him. He had not long to wait. The dastard demon of moonlight ruffianism was on his track.

Quirke had a son aged fourteen years, but looking two years younger, a simple peasant lad, who cannot have injured his country very much. He was tending a cow, which required watching, his father and mother taking their rest while the child sat out the lonely hours in the cowhouse. He heard something, and listened with all his ears. Not voices, but a subdued whispering. It was the dead hour of night, two or half-past two, and the boy was frightened. The place is lonely, seven miles or more from Newcastlewest, and up towards the mountains. He listened and listened, and again heard the mysterious sounds. He says he "thought it was the fairies." He stole from the byre and went to the house. A horrible dread had crept over him, and father and mother were there. As he opened the door a terrible blow from behind struck him down. He was not stunned, though felled by the butt-end of a gun. They beat and kicked him as he lay. He gave an anguished cry. The mother heard and recognised her boy's voice, and, waking the father, said "Go down, they're killing my lad." The old man, for he is an old man, went down the stairs naked and unarmed. The foul marauders met him half-way up, and served him as they had served the boy, throwing him down, kicking him, and beating him with butt-ends of guns; with one terrible blow breaking three of his ribs; and saying, "Give it up, give it up." He said he would "give it up"; promised by all he held sacred, begged hard for his life, and implored them at least to spare the young lad. Their reply to this was to fire a charge of shot into the boy's legs, a portion of the charge entering the limbs of an old woman—his grandmother, I think—who was feebly trying to shield the lad. This was such excellent sport that more was thought expedient. A charge of shot was fired into the father's legs, and as one knee-joint is injured, the elder Quirke's condition is precarious even without his broken ribs and other injuries. The cowardly hounds then left, in their horrid disguise adding a new terror to the lonely night. The evening's entertainment was not yet over. They crossed a couple of fields to a house where dwelt Quirke's married son. They burst open the door of his cottage and dragged the young fellow—he is about twenty-five—from his bed, beating him sorely, and in the presence of his wife firing a charge of shot into his legs. Then they went home, each man to his virtuous couch, to dream fair dreams of the coming Paradise, when they and their kind may work their own sweet will, free from the fear of a hireling constabulary, and under the ægis of a truly national senate, given to a grateful country by a Grand Old Man.