•*•* ^ '."^li^ ' ..*^ •^^. ". V ^» # / s *v^. -eumas MacMauus' first touch, which made the world look his way. ^,^.^^_^__ Presidettit Chase, Bates College: This intensely iuterestinj; book helped me to understand, to appreciate, to love, and to admire the Irish people to a degree that has enriched my own miud, and made more tender my own heart. (Jhief Justice of Canada, Sir Charles Fitzpatrick: I thank Seumas MacManus for giving me here the key to all the charm of the Irish people. Chancellor McCoimick, University of Pittsburgh: I wonder whether Seumas MacManus himself realizes what a fine piece of work he has here done. 1 dare anyone to spend an hour reading this book and not rise from it a kinder, gentler, finer soul. The worlds when it comes to know the book, will thank Seumas MacManus for it as I thank him. Price (including postage) $1.65. THE MANAGEMENT, SEUMAS MacMANUS Box 1313, New York City A Lad of the O'Friels By SEUMAS MacMANUS. Fiona MacLeod says: An admirable piece k)f work, true to life, true in sentiment, true in touch, with vivid actuality and thp breath of romance, and a very real and appealing winsome charm. ... It gave me sincere and deep pleasure to read this delightful book. Kew Ireland Review: The poetry of Irish homely life has never been more faithfully and more vtouchingly portrayed than In this book. It is a powerful (piece of work. Boston Transcript: This book is a landmark, showing the height of excellence to which the flood of fiction may rise. Punch: A charming book sure of lasting fame and popularity. To-Day: It grips and enthrals the reader, Dundee Courier: A more delightful book than "A Lad of the O'Friels'* has not left the press for a long time. Pall Mall OazGtte: A literary achievement of great dlstlnc> tlon. Irish Independent: Of all novels of Irish life„ "A Lad of the O'Friels" sings truest. Price (including postage) $1.K. FROM THE MacMANUS MANAGEMENT Box 1313. New York Cltj IRELAND'S Case SEUMAS MacMANUS New York The Irish Publishing Co. P. O. Box 1313 Copyright 1017, by SEUMAS MacMANUS JiiAsia Copright, ISIT, Bj Beumai MacManus S)Cf.A4T98 5 /1^ . I To JOHN DEVOY Because you bestowed yourself on a forlorn cause- without seeking reward or honor — and without getting them: t Because, when the night was blackest, and the way was loneliest, with few workers to cheer, but alas! many lurkers to sneer, you, unheeding, toiled faithfully on : Because though the faint-hearted failed you, saying the Day could never dawn, and the false-hearted assailed you, saying it should never dawn, you still kept your determined way: And because now, with the brave band which you took safely through the traps and treacheries of the Night, you, vindicated, stand at the threshold of the Dawn, whence you see the spears of ;the Resurrection morn strike the sky: I would lend lustre to this little book by writing down at its beginning — even without your permission — ^your worthy name — And the golden name of THE CLAN-na-nGAODHAL. S. M. M. Order of Chapters I. Before England Came. II. Elizabeth Civilizes Ireland, III. And Then Came Cromwell. IV. England Fosters Irish Industries. V. The Penal Laws. VI. Still the Penal Laws. VII. The British Garrison in Ireland. VIII. Resources of English Civilization. IX. The Union— God Bless It. X. Our English Land Laws. XI. The Last Century in Ireland. XII. England's Present-day System^ XIII. Has the Leopard Changed His Spots? XVI. The Summing Up. FOREWORD In the course of my lecture tour last winter I was due to talk to a certain large Woman's Club in a Pacific Coast City. The women were dis- cussing the subject on which I should be aske/S to address them. One of the members made claim that they should have, from me, an histori- cal talk upon Ireland. The President of the Club, a truly cultured woman, looked sympa- thetically through her lorgnette at the member who had spoken, and patiently pointed out to the ignorant one, "But, my dear, you must know that Ireland hasn't any history." My continuous peregrinations through Ameri- ca have shown me that Americans know nothing of Irish history. Irish-Americans know probably double as much as do Americans. So you can credit them with double 'ought on the subject. And you may, at the same time, conservatively credit five or six times 'ought to the purely Irish here. In the case of the Irish this is criminal ignor- ance. In Americans it is largely the fault of English historians who, through the generation?, have done their best to shed abundant darkness upon the subject of Ireland — and of theK coun- try's relations with Ireland. And it is partly due to the lack of a good, gripping, readable, Irish history being popularized here. It is a century since Plowden was moved in his honesty to protest against his brother historians* continuous and persistent misrepresentation and beclouding of Ireland's story. But honest Plow- den's protesting was about as effective as the badger's trying to blow the breeze from his door. Except in rare instances, English historians have ever since stuck to their traditional policy of either ignoring Ireland's wonderful history or gaibling and misrepresenting it. This little book is compiled for the purpose of enlightening all who need it, only upon the fear- fully tragic story of Ireland's connection with England. And even in that it only touches some of the high spots. It is the duty of every man and woman of Irish blood, first to study and digest for themselves the following papers, and next to force them on the notice of the purely American people — ^to make Americans study and digest them likewise — thus opening their eyes to a revelation that wiH shock 8 them out of their present unwitting ignorance and unblamable indifference. If Irish-American readers do this perseveringly and conscientiously, Ireland's cause will get new, forceful allies. I suppose it is superfluous to point out that the persecuting English Protestant who will be so often mentioned in these chapters, is no nearer kin to the reader's sincere Protestant neighbor, whom he knows and loves, than is the politician to the patriot. I may say that I hope the present little work, a preliminary canter into Irish history, is the forerunner of a far more ambitious one. The STORY OF THE IRISH RACE, on which I am working, and which, within two years, I may» with God's help, be able to present to Am- ericans and to Irish alike. New York, July i, 1917. 9 BEFORE ENGLAND CAME CHAPTER I. It was in the year of Our Lord, 1172 that England's army of invasion landed in Ireland. Some of my readers know— but I fear many of them do not know — that for hundreds of years before that, the little Island sitting on the West- ern Ocean, was a hive of learning. For many centuries it had been the school of Europe. In his "Age of the Saints," Borlase says, *'Ire- land was the center of all the religious and liter- ary life of the North. Thither every peaceful scholar and every philosopher fled for refuge, be- fore the Pagan hordes which swooped over Eur- ope." And M. Darmesteter says, "Ireland was the asylum of the higher learning which took refuge there from the uncultured states of Europe. The Renaissance began in Ireland 700 years before it was known in Italy. At one time Armagh, the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, was the metro- polis of civilization." Though Ireland's schools had been heard of on the Continent of Europe before Saint Patrick II IRELAND'S CASE brought Christianity to Ireland in 432, it was under the stimulus of the new faith that the great schools multiplied in Ireland — in the sixth and seventh centuries — and fixed the eyes of Europe. They attracted crowds of hungering scholars from the Continent, to whom, as testified by the ancient Saxon chronicler, the Venerable Bede, Ireland gave food and shelter, the use of her books, ajid the service of her famous teachers, gratis. The sixteenth century Briton, Camden, treat- ing; of the manner in which the English in the early centuries had flocked to the Irish schools— and of the distinction conferred upon a foreigner who could boast an Irish education says: "Hence it is frequently read in our histories of holy men, 'He has been sent to Ireland to school.* *' The Reverend Dr. Milner in his history of the English Church, says, "The Irish clergy were then the luminaries of the Western World. To them we are indebted for the preservation of the Bible, the Fathers, and the Classics. Then, a residence in Ireland, like a residence now at a university, was almost essential to establish a literary reputation." We have record of seven Egyptian monks dy- ing in Ireland in the eighth century. And also we 13 SEFOkE ENGLAND CAME find fifty natives of Rome "attracted to Ireland by the repute of the people for piety and learn- ing, and especially for knowledge of the Sacred Scripture." And still again we find an account of 150 people, natives of Rome and Italy, sailing in company to Ireland the renowned. The School of Glendalough in the County of Wicklow, was attended by two thousand stu- dents. The School of Clonard on the Boyne was attended by three thousand students. King Dagobert II. of France was educated there. From this school, Ussher tells usi "Scholars came out in as great numbers as Greeks from the side of the horse of Troy." The School of Bangor in the County Down, one of the most famous of the Irish Schools, was attend- ed by three thousand students. The g^eat School of Clonmacnoise, founded by St. Ciaran in the sixth century, was attended by six thousand students. A great university city grew up around it. St. Seananus tells how he, in one day, saw no less than seven ships carrying scholars from the Continent of Europe, tail up the River Shannon, bound for the School of Clonfert, on an Island in the river. And through those early centuries the Irish schools were not only receiving and educating 13 mELAMD'S CASE schollars from the Continent, but, year after year, they were sending forth to .t^^e Continent of Eur- ope learned men and holy men who went travel- ling in bands, bearing the light of learning and the torch of faith to the barbarous and semi-bar- barous nations of the Continent, founding schools, churches, and monasteries wherever they went. The Irish saints of those days are the patron saints of many corners of Europe which they evangelized. Saint Columbanus evangelized Burgundy and Lombardy in the sixth century. He founded an Irish monastery at Luxeuil in France and a school at Bobbio in Italy where he died.* The Irish Saint Cathal (Cathaldus), after whom San Cataldo in Italy is named, is the patron saint of Tarentum in Italy of which he was Bishop. Saint Fergal (Virgilius) Irish geometer, who, in the eighth century preached the sphericity of the earth, was Bishop of Salz- burg. Saint Colman is the patron saint of Lower Austria. Saint Gall, who founded the famous Irish School and monastery named after him in Switzerland, is the great Swiss saint. Saint * I would advise my readers to get Mrs, Tomas O'Concannon's very fine Life of St. Co- lumban, 14 BEFORE ENGLAND CAME Fiacra did wonderful work for Christianity in France. Saint Kilian is the saint of Franconia. The Irish monks, Aidan and his fellows, dis- ciples of Saint Colmcille, going forth from Colm- cille's school on lona, went down through Britain, evangelizing and teaching. It is said that, about the middle of the seventh century there was only one Bishop in all England not of Irish consecration, namely. Bishop Agilberct of Wes- sex. Yet he was trained in Ireland. Good St. Bernard testified, "Ireland poured out swarms of Saints, like an inundation, upon foreign countries." Antissiodorus, of old, said, "It may be super- fluous to relate how all Ireland, as it were, emi- grated to our shores with her swarms of philoso- phers." The Continental scholars admit that St. Co- lumbanus, evangelizer of Burgundy and Lom- bardy, was head and shoulders above all scholars of his day in Europe. The Emperor Charle- magne, gathered to his court great numbers of the Irish scholars. The court tutor Qement was an Irishman. The great Irish astronomer. Dun- gall, who explained for the Emperor (in a docu- ment still preserved, dated 8ii), the eclipses of the sun which occurred in 8io and which had IS IRELATTD^S CASE terrified Charlemagne's subjects, came to reside at the Imperial Court, at the request of Charle- magne. Charlemagne's grandson, Lothajre, had Dungail found the School of Pavia in Italy for civilizing the Lombards. Some of the old writers relate the quaint story of how in Charlemagne's day there arrived in the royal City two men from Ireland, who, go- ing to the market-place, took a prominent stand there, and to the gaping, wondering crowds an- nounced knowledge for sale. When word of their strange proceedings was carried to the Em- peror he ordered the men from Ireland to be fetched to his Palace — where he asked them their price for knowledge. They answered, "A shel- tering roof, food and clothing, and eager-minded pupils." This price he readily and quickly ordered to be paid to the Irish knowledge ven- dors. Sxaliger Le Jeune, the French critic, says that in Charlemagne's day, almost all the learned men in Europe were Irishmen. In Charles the Bald's time it was said on the Continent that every man there who knew Greek was either an Irishman, or the pupil of an Irishman. That wonderful Irish scholar, Johannes Scotus Erigena, always referred to by the Continental i6 BEFORE ENGLAND CAME scholars, as "The Master/' and described as "a miracle of learning" — poet, philosopher and the- ologian- — was brought over by King Charles the Bald, and made head of his School in Paris. Professor Stokes enumerates in the tenth cen- tury twenty-four Irish schools in France, eighteen in Germany, not to mention the many in Italy, Switzerland and the Lowlands. The German philosopher. Professor Goerres says, "To Ireland the affrighted spirit of truth had flown during the Gothic irruptions in Europe, and there made its abode in safety until Eurc^pe returned to repose, when these hospitable philosophers, who had given it an asylum, were called by Europe to re- store its effulgent light over her bedarkened forests." In their address to Daniel O'Connell in the time of his Repeal agitation, the German College men said: "We never can forget to look upon your beloved country as our mother in religion, that already, at the reimotest periods of the Christian era. commiserated our people, and readily sent forth her spiritual sons to rescue our pagan an- cestors from idolatry at the sacrifice of her own property and blood, and to entail upon them the blessings of the Christian faith." Hieric in his biography of Saint Germanus, 17 IRELAND'S CASE written in the latter part of the ninth century, says in the course of his dedication of the book to the Emperor, "Need I remind Ireland that she sent troops of philosophers over land and sea to our distant shores, that her most learned sons offered gifts of wisdom of their own free will, in the service of our learned King, oar Solomon/* The eminent Celtologist, the late Professor Zimmer (of the University of Berlin) says: "Ire- land can not only boast of having been the birth- place and abode of high culture in the fifth and sixth centuries, but ilso of having made stren- uous efforts in the seventh century to spread her learning among the German and Romance peo- ples, thus forming the actual foundations of our present Continental civilization." Their love of faith and their love of learning were two passions— -or was it one passion? which thrilled the souls of the Irish people. And they were consumed with eagerness to share with the unfortunate ones abroad, the blessing that Heav- en had so bountifully bestowed on them at home. Hence, for long centuries, there was pouring out from Ireland and spreading everywhere, from Ice- land to Africa, from Biscay to Syria, a steady stieam of fiery crusaders armed with Bible and Cross, and girded with stylus and tablets, who BEFORE ENGLAND CAME knew not rest nor ease while still any corner of the darkened Continent yearned for the light of faith. In wave after wave they came, dispers- ing themselves over many lands, and lavishing, wherever they went, their golden treasure — till Ireland became known throughout the Continent of Europe by the phrase Insula Sanctorum et Doctorum, Island of Saints and Scholars ; and the name of Eire became in the mouths of the Eu- jpean populace a holy name, as well as a name of mystery and wonder. 19 CHAPTER It ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND Though the Danes had ravaged many quarters of Ireland in the ninth and tenth centuries — un- til they were cast out by King Brian Boru in IC14 — the schools were again flourishing, beauti- ful churches and monasteries were being erected, and Ireland was holding aloft once more the torch of learning whose light had for so long lighted the world's path, when the English, in 1172 be- gan the conquest which it took long and terrible centuries to consummate — if it was ever con- summated. Conquering Ireland, inch by inch, it took up- wards of four hundred fearful years before they had extended their rule to the country's four cor- ners. During all of those more than four cen- turies, Ireland got but few moments of respite from war. Though to name it respite is, after all, bitter irony. For when Ireland was not shaken by war, it was racked by infinitely worse than war. Mrs. Green (widow of the English historian 20 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND Green) says, ''At a prodigious price, at any con- ceivable cost of human woe, the purging ot the soil from the Irish race was begun. There was no protection for any soul — the old, sick, infants, women or scholars. No quarter was allowed, no fcith kept, and no truce given. Chiefs were made to draw and carry, to abase them — poets and historians were slaughtered, and their books of genealogies burned." Under Elizabeth, Ireland almost touched the depths. Her troops butchered and burned, car- ried fire and sword to the ends of the Island — and left the hitherto smiling and fruitful province of Munster, a blackened and desolate waste. The old English chronicler, HoUinshed, vividly de- scribes this desolation — "The land which before was populous," he says, "and rich in all the good blessings of God; plenteous of corn; full of cat- tle; well-stored with fruits and other commodi- ties ; is now waste and barren, yielding no fruit, the pastures no cattle, the fields no corn, the air no birds. Finally, every way, the curse of God is so great and the land become so barren — both of man and beast, that whoever did travel from one end of Munster to the other, over six score miles, would not meet any man or child, save in 21 IRELAND'S CASE towns and cities; nor yet see any beasts save wolves, dogs and other ravening things." It was the curse of God observe, not that of Elizabeth, whicli had fallen upon Ireland. Always, to the good Briton, when England curses God applauds. And of the stricken survivors of Elizabeth's Wars in the South, the English poet, Edmund Spenser, who came as Chief Secretary to Ireland, says "At that time, out of the woods and glyns came creeping forth upon their hands (being un- able to stand upright, from starvation), things that looked like anatomies of death, that chattered like ghosts risen out of their graves. And they did eat the carrions, happy where they could find them/' The English General, Sir Richard Perrin, ex- ultingly wrote that he left "neither corn^ nor horn, nor house unburnt, between Kinsale and Ross/' And the Irish chroniclers, the Four Masters, writing of one of the vast tracts of Munster over which the civilizers had swept — under date, 1582. say "Neither the lowing of a cov/, nor the voice of a plowman was, this year, to be heard here." Sir Henry Sidney (Deputy) at length informed Elizabeth, "There are not, I am sure, in any re- 22 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND gion where the name of Christ is professed such horrible spectacles as are here to be beheld — ^yea the view of bones and skulls, of dead who, partly by murder and partly by famine, have died in the fields, is such that hardly any Christian can with dry eye behold." Elizabeth did not content herself with merely civilizing. She also evangelized in the most per- suasive Christian way. In the twenty-seventh year of the reign of Elizabeth it was enacted that ''Every Romish priest found in the Island is deemed guilty of rebellion. He shall be hanged till half dead, then his head taken off, his bowels drawn out and burnt, and his head fixed on a pole in some pub- lic place." While the criminal who would shel- ter a priest was to have all his goods confiscated, and for his flagrant crime die upon the gallows. This Act of course was only meant as a rough working basis for the introduction of Christian light and love into the souls of the benighted Irish. The authorities were required to improve upon it by working out practical details. In the case of Archbishop O'Hurley of Cashel, for in- stance, the sublime beauty of true Christianity was brought home to him and to those whom he misled, by the simple but effective device of put- 23 IRELAND'S CASE ting his legs into loose jack boots which were then filled with quick lime and water; and letting him meditate upon the wondrous splendor of the English religion, while his legs were being slowly e^ten to the bone — after which other ingenious persuasions were practised on him, before his be- ing hung upon the gallows. A Protestant his- torian, revolting at this, describes the torture as "The most horrible torture known to humanity." That was a sample out of thousands of the evangelizing methods of Elizabeth in Ireland. Let us note some samples of the civilizing — say the massacres of Smerwick, Clannaboy and Mul- laghmast. A garrison of Spanish allies of the Irish, who held Smerwick Fort in Kerry, was attacked by English troops under the Deputy, Lord Grey. On promise of mercy, the Spaniards surrendered. After their arms had been collected from them Grey sent into the fort a company of English .soldiers under Sir Walter Raleigh to give these I fellows a taste of English mercy. Every Span- ^ iard was butchered in cold blood. Sir Walter Raleigh was rewarded with a grant of forty thou- sand acres (of other people's property of course), in County Cork. It should be noted that the gen- 24 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND tie poet, Edmund Spenser, made public defence of the Smerwick massacre. In this connection I would pause to emphasize the essential and unconscious brutality of the Saxon nature when we find even the most beau- tiful minded of the race — one who had such lofty- imagination, sweet fancy, and rare poetic soul as Edmund Spenser, not only defending this hor- rible deed, but actually advocating, as he did, that since the Irish nation could not be made amenable to fire and sword, the race could be wiped out (to make room for good Englishmen) by creating famine and pestilence among them. "The end will (I assure me) ' be very short." Spenser says in his State of Ireland: "Although there should none fall by the sword nor be slain by the soldier ... by this hard restraint they would quietly consume themselves, and devour one another." The massacre of Mullaghmast is probably a still better illustration of Elizabeth's forcible and effective civilizing strokes in Ireland. To the Rath of Mullaghmast were invited by English proclamation, some hundreds of the leading men among the Irish within the Pale — chiefly men of the clans O'Connor and O'More — invited for a friendly interview. When they were collected, 25 IRELAND'S CASE they were surrounded by three or four lines of horse and foot, fallen upon, and murdered to the last man. No single soul was permitted to escape from the dreadful Rath of Mullaghmast. And then Clannaboy. The Earl of Essex in- duced the Chief, Brian O'Neill of Clannaboy, to make peace with him. But a dead O^Neill was always a more comfortable sight to the English than a live one. To celebrate the peace-making the Earl with a great troop of retainers visited O'Neill. Well, and purposely, armed they attended the banquet given to Brian in his castle — to which banquet Brian had invited many of his fellows of note. In the middle of the banquet, when all the Irish were off their guard, at a given signal the English drew their weapons and massacred all of the Irish present with the exception of O'Neill, his wife, and his brother, who were carried to Dublin and there cut in quarters — as a stimulus to the Irish nation to respect, imitate, and adopt English civiliza'don. This massacre of Clanuaboy is treated by Ethna Carbery in one of her most stirring ballads — 26 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND THE BETRAYAL OF CLANNABUIDHE* (Belfast Castle, November, 1574) From Brian O'Neill in his Northern home Went swiftly a panting vassal, Bidding the lord of Essex come To a feast in his forded castle, To a friendly feast where the gleaming foam Of the wine-cup crowned the wassail. To Brian O'Neill came his gentle wife. And wild were her eyes of warning; "A banquet-chamber of blood and strife, I dreamt of 'twixt night and morning, And a voice that keened for a Chieftain's life"— But he laughed as he kissed her, scorning. "In peace have I bidden the strangers here, And not to the note of battle; My flagons await them with bubbling cheer, I have slaughtered my choicest cattle; And sweetest of harpings shall greet thine ear, Aroon ! o'er the goblet's rattle/' In pride he hath entered his banquet hall, Unwitting what may betide him, ♦From Ethna Carbery's "The Four Winds of Eirfnn (Funk, Wagnalls Co.) M IRELAND'S CASE Girded round by his clansmen tall, And his lady fair beside him ; From his lips sweet snatches of music fall, And none hath the heart to chide him. Hath he forgotten his trust betrayed In the bitterest hour of trial? Hath he forgotten his prayer half-stayed At the Viceroy's grim denial? And the bloody track of the Saxon raid On the fertile lands of Niall? Essex hath coveted Massareene, And Toome by the Bann's wide border, Edenhucarrig s dark towers — the scene Of hard-won fight's disorder; And Castlereagh, set in a maze of green Tall trees, like a watchful warder. Brian O'Neill he hath gazed adown Where the small waves, one by one, met The sward that sloped from the hilltops thrown Dusky against the sunset; Sighed in his soul for his lost renown, And the rush of an Irish onset. 28 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND Woe ! he is leagued with his father's foe, Hath buried the ancient fever Of hate, while he watches his birthright go Away from his hands for ever; No longer Clan-Niall deals blow for blow. His country's bonds to sever. I|t 3»C * 3|( 4^ « Over the Ford to his castle grey They troop with their pennons flying — (Was that the ring of a far hurrah, Or the banshee eerily crying?) In glittering glory the gallant array Spurs hard up the strand, low-lying. Three swift-speeding days with the castle's lord They had hunted his woods and valleys ; Three revelling nights while the huge logs roared, And the bard with his harp-string dallies, Freely they quaffed of the rich wine, poured As meed of the courtly sallies. (Yet one fair face in the laughing crowd Grew wan as the mirth waxed faster. Her blue eyes saw but a spectral shroud, And a spectral host that passed her; Her ears heard only the banshee's loud Wild prescience of disaster.) 29 IRELAND'S CASE Gaily the voice of the chieftain rang, Deeply his warriors blended In chant of the jubilant song they sang Ere the hours of the feasting ended; Eut hark ! Why that ominous clash and clang? And what hath that shout portended? What Speech uncourteous this clamor provokes. Through the midst of the banter faring? Forth flashes the steel from the festal cloaks, Vengeful and swift, unsparing — And Clannabuidhe's bravest reel *neath the strokes, Strive blindly, and die despairing! O'Gilmore sprang to his Tanist's side Shrilling his war-cry madly — Ah ! far are the kerns who at morning-tide Would flock to the summons gladly ; The echoes break on the rafters wide, And sink into silence sadly. Captive and bleeding he stands — the lord Of the faithful dead around him; Captive and bleeding — the victor horde In their traitorous might surround him; 30 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND From his turrets is waving their flag abhorred, And their cruel thongs have bound him. « ♦ 4t * * « Cold are the fires in the banqueting hall, Withered the flowers that graced it, Silent for ever the clansmen tall Who stately and proudly paced it; Gloom broods like a pall o'er each lofty wall For the foul deed that disgraced it. There is grief by the shores of the Northern sea, And grief in the woodlands shady, There is wailing for warriors stout to see, Of the sinewy arm and steady; There is woe for the Chieftain of Clannabuidhe, And tears for his gentle lady. The honest Scottish Protestant Dr. Smiles sums up the Elizabethan work in Ireland, "Men, women and children wherever found were put in- discriminately to death. The soldiery was mad for blood. Priests were murdered at the altar, chil- dren at their mother's breast. The beauty of woman, the venerableness of age, the innocence of youth was no protection against these san- guinary demons in human form." And old Hollinshed enthusiastically sets down, 31 IRELAND'S CASE "The soldiers in the camps were so hot upon the spur, and so eager upon the vile rebels, that they spared neither man, woman or child. They put all to the sword." Cox, an English writer of the old time, tells with much relish, "They performed their duty so effectually and brought the rebels to so low a con- dition that they saw three children eating the en- trails of their dead mother, on whose flesh they had fed many days." The historian Lecky (a bitter anti-Home Ruler, and staunch upholder of British power in Ire- land), admits in the preface to his "History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century." "The slaugh- ter of Irishmen was looked upon as literally the slaughter of wild beasts. Not only men, but even v/omen and children who fell into the hands of the English, were deliberately and systematically butchered. Bands of soldiers traversed great tracts of country, slaying every living thing they met." And he also says, "The suppression of the native race was carried on with a ferocity which surpassed that of Alva in the Netherlands, and which has seldom been exceeded in the pages of history.*' It is no wonder that in a short time one of her soldier courtiers was able to convey to Eliza- 32 ELIZABETH CIVILIZES IRELAND bcth the gratifying Intelligence. "There is now little left in Ireland for your Majesty to reign over, but carcasses and ashes." And Sir George Carew — after doing his fearful share, with rack and torch and sword, in reducing Ireland almost to a solitude — wiped his sword, took up his pen, and leisurely wrote his Hibernia Pacata — Ireland Pacified ! The only other quality in an Englishman's makeup that is at all comparable with his un- conscious brutality, is his unconscious humor. CHAPTER III. AND THEN CAME CROMWELL Elizabeth's worthy work of introducing Brit- ish civilization to the benighted Irish met with marked success. But the good work probably reached its cli- max under Cromwell, who scourged, tortured and butchered the population, and drenched the land in a deluge of blood. For Cromwell, the ground was well prepared. Five Northern Counties had been depopulated thirty years before, to make room for James's Scotchmen. The wretched Irish survivors of the depopulation campaign, those who had been robbed of their houses and lands, and bereaved o'i kith and kin, were hunted like animals in the hills to which they had fled. On the 23rd of Oct. 1641 there was a general rising of the hunt- ed ones. They swooped back over the lands where their plunderers had been fattening in ease and plenty. England was aroused by frightful reports of a general massacre of almost all the British in Ireland! AND THEN CAME CROMWELL It would not have been strange if these poor wretches — plundered, harried, hounded, and driv- en to frenzy — had wreaked terrible vengeance on, and exterminated, their merciless tyrants. But the Protestant Minister, Rev. Ferdinand Warner in his ^'History of the Irish Rebellion," written a few years after the event, says, "It is easy enough to demonstrate the falsehood of the relation of every English historian of the re- bellion." And another celebrated Protestant historian, Dr. Taylor, in his "Civil Wars of Ire- land," says, "The Irish massacre of 1641 has been a phrase so often repeated, even in books of education, that one can scarcely conceal his surprise when he learns that the tale is apocryp- hal as the wildest fiction of romance." He says, "There were crimes committed owing to the wickedness of particular men. But it is only fair to add that all atrocities were not only dis- couraged, but punished, by the Irish nobility and gentry." To suppress this rebellion the whole pack of England's carefully nurtured savageries, and best trained savages, were unleashed against Ireland. Sir Charles Coote typical of the English gen- erals in this war employed rack, and dungeon IRELAND'S CASE and roasting to death for appeasing of the tur- bulent natives. He stopped at nothing — even hanging w^omen with child. Lord Clarendon in his narrative of the events of the time records, how, after Coote plundered and burned the town of Clontarf, he massacred townspeople, men and women, ''and three suck- ling infants." And in that same week, says Clarendon, men, women and children of the vil- lage of Bullock frightened of the fate of Clon- tarf, went to sea to shun the fury of the soldiers who came from Dublin under Colonel Clifford, ''Being pursued by the soldiers in boats and overtaken, they were all thrown overboard." Coote and Clifford were not better or worse than the average of the pacifiers of Ireland. I could quote here more instances of the blood- freezing kind than would fill a large book. But for my purpose one or two samples are as good as a thousand. Castlehaven sets down one in- cident characteristic of the humanity of the Eng- lish troopers. He tells how Sir Arthur Loftus, Governor of Naas, marched out with a party of horse, and being joined by a party sent by Or- mond from Dublin, "They both together killed such of the Irish as they met .... but th^ most considerable slaughter occurred in a g.-ai AND THEN CAME CROMWELL strait of furze, situated on a hill, where the peo- ple of several villages had fled for shelter." Sir Arthur surrounded the hill, fired the furze, and with the points of swords, drove back into the flames the burning men, women and children who tried to emerge — till the last child was burn- ed to a crisp. Says Castlehaven in his Memoirs, "I saw the bodies — and the furze still burning." For it should be particularly noted that the suckling infant aroused in the brave Britons the same noble, blood-thirst that did the fighting rebel. The butchering of infants was more dili- gently attended to during the Cromwellian per- iod, than in any previous or subsequent English excursion through Ireland. It is matter of rec- ord that in the presence, and with the tolera- tion, of their officers — in at least one case with the hearty approval of a leader — the common soldiers engaged in the sport of tossing Irish babes upon their spears. A noted old English historian, Dr. Nalson, in his account of the rebellion states (Introduction to his Second Vol- ume) "I have heard a relation of my own, who was a captain in that service (in Ireland), relate that .... little children were promiscuously sufferers with the guilty, and that when anyone who had some grains of compassion repreh^nd^ IRELAND'S CASE the soldiers for this unchristian inhumanity, they would scoffingly reply 'Why? nits will be lice!' and so despatch them." In countering this rebellion the Britsh opened the game with the fearful County Antrim horror known to history as the Massacre of Island Magee — where, after murdering a multitude in b'd, the women and children, screaming and begging for mercy, were driven before the troops' goading bayonets to the terrible Gobbins clififs — and thrown over the cliffs to fearful death below! The singer of Ireland's woes and Ireland's joys, Ethna Carbery, sang a fierce song of this terrible deed— BRIAN BOY MAGEE. I am Brian Boy Magee — My Father was Eoghain Ban — I was wakened from happy dreams By the shouts of my startled clan; And I saw through the leaping glare That marked where our homestead stood. My mother swing by her hair — And my brothers lie in their blood. In the creepy cold of the night The pitiless wolves came down — Scotch troops from that Castle grim Guarding Knockfergus Town; AND THEN CAME CROMWELL And they hacked and lashed and hewed, With musket and rope and sword, Till my murdered kin lay thick, In pools, by the Slaughter Ford! I fought by my father's side, And when we were fighting sore We saw a line of their steel With our shrieking women before ; The red-coats drove them on To the verge of the Gobbins gray. Hurried them — God, the sight! As the sea foamed up for its prey. Oh, tall were the Gobbin cliffs, And sharp were the rocks, my woe ! And tender the limbs that met Such terrible death below; Mother and babe and maid They clutched at the empty air. With eyeballs widened in fright. That hour of despair. (Sleep soft in your heaving bed, O little fair love of my heart! The bitter oath I have sworn Shall be of my life a part; 39 IRELAND'S CASE And for every piteous prayer You prayed on your way to die, May I hear an enemy plead, While I laugh and deny.) In the dawn that was gold and red, Ay, red as the blood-choked stream, I crept to the perilous brink — Great Christ ! was the night a dream ? In all the Island of Gloom I only had life that day — Death covered the green hill-sides, And tossed in the Bay. I have vowed by the pride of my sires — By my mother's wandering ghost — By my kinsfolk's shattered bones Hurled on the cruel coast — By the sweet dead face of my love, And the wound in her gentle breast- To follow that murderous band, A sleuth-hound who knows no rest. I shall go to Phelim O'Neill With my sorrowful tale, and crave A blue-bright blade of Spain, In the ranks of his soldiers brave, 40 AND THEN CAME CROMWELL And God grant me the strength to wield That shining avenger well — ■ When the Gael shall sweep his foe Through the yawning gates of Hell. I am Brian Boy Mageel And my creed is a creed of hate; Love, Peace, I have cast aside — But Vengeance, Vengeance, I wait! Till I pay back the four-fold debt For the horrors I witnessed there, When my brothers moaned in their blood. And my mother swung by her hair. In 1644 the British Parliament ordered no quarter to Irish troops in Britain. Ormond shipt 150 Royalists from Galway to Bristol, under Wil- ioughby. Captain Swanley seized the ship, picked out from amongst the troops seventy whom he considered to be Irish and threw them overboard. The Journal of the English House of Commons for June of that year records that "Captain Swanley was called into the House of Commons and thanks given to him for his good service, and a chain of gold of two hundred pounds in value." In pursuance of the same admirable policy, Napier in his "Life of Montrose" says that, in 4* IRELAND'S CASE Scotland, in one day, eighty Irish women and children were thrown over a bridge, and drowned. Clarendon tells that the Earl of Warwick when he captured Irish frigates, used to tie the Irish sailors back to back, and fling them into the sea. So, a sympathetic atmosphere had been created for Cromwell's coming. And Cromwell quickly demonstrated that he deserved such preparation. In Wexford town alone, although negotiations for surrender had begun, Cromwell slew two thousand. Lingard in his "History of Eng- land" says, "Wexford was abandoned to the mercy of the assailants. The tragedy recently enacted at Drogheda was renewed. No distinc- tion was made between the defenceless inhabi- tants and the armed soldiers, nor could the shrieks and prayers of three hundred females who had gathered round the great Cross in the market-place, preserve them from the swords of these ruthless barbarians." Cromwell in explaining the matter to the com- plete satisfaction of his saintly self and the pious English nation, wrote, that he "thought it not right or good to restrain off the soldiers from their right of pillage, nor from doing execution on the enem;y" (From "Cromwell's Letters.") 4a AND THEN CAME CROMWELL Though, after the sack of Drogheda, he prob- ably could not surpass himself. In the five days massacre at Drogheda only thirty men out of a garrison of three thousand escaped the sword. And it is impossible to compute what other thou- sands, of non-combatants, men, women and chil- dren, were butchered. In the vaults, underneath the church, a great number of the finest women or the city sought refuge. But hardly one, if one, even of these, was left to tell the awful tale of unspeakable outrage and murder. And of all the men, women and children who had taken refuge in the church tower, none escaped. In the attack upon the church tower, the English soldiers made good use again of a device which they always practised when oppor- tunity ofiFered. They picked up children and carried them in front of them as bucklers. Arthur Wood the Historian of Oxford, gives us a narrative compiled from the account of his bjother who was an officer in Cromwell's army, and who had been through the siege and sack of Drogheda — a narrative that throws interesting sidelight upon the Christian methods of the Eng- lish army, and the quaint point of view of the most cultured of them. Wood's narrative says, ''Each of the assailants would take up a child 43 IRELAND^ CASE and use it as a buckler of defence to Iceep lilfli from being shot or brained. After they had killed all in the church they went into the vaults underneath, where all the choicest of women and ladies had hid themselves. One of these, a most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, knelt down to Wood with tears, and prayers, begging for her life, and being stricken with a profound pity, he did take her under his arm for protection, and went with her out of the church with intention to put her over the works, to shift for herself. But a soldier, perceiving his intention, ran his sword through her, whereupon Mr. Wood, seeing her gasping, took away her money, jewels etc., and flung her down over the works." The instincts of the English gentleman burst through the Christian crust in Mr. Wood. But hearken to how one of the greatest of Eng- lish Christians — ^perhaps the shining light of English Puritanism — at one stroke, both haloes his crime and honors God by giving God partner- ship with him in his most demoniac work. In his despatch to the Speaker of the House of Com- mons, after Drogheda, Cromwell says, "It has pleased God to bless our endeavor at Drogheda . . . the enemy were about 3,000 strong in th