Robert John Buckley

“ The English people have seen the results of the influence exercised by the present Irish leaders. One would think that sensible Britons would decline to entrust such men with power. Did they not bring about the rule of the Land League, with its stories of foul murder which sound like a horrible dream of the tyranny of the Middle Ages? Are these men not hand and glove with the clerical party, which hates England as heretic and excommunicate? It is not proposed by Home Rule to put in office men who are the mere tools of the Catholic church, the most unyielding and intolerant system in the world! ”

“ English lukewarmness was hotly resented, but the certainty that England must herself receive a dangerous if not a mortal wound, was scant comfort to men who felt themselves on the eve of a hopeless struggle for political, nay, even for material existence. This was before the vast demonstrations of Belfast and Dublin, before the memorable function in the Albert Hall, London, before the hundreds of speakers sent forth by the Irish Unionist Alliance had visited England, spreading the light of accurate knowledge, returning to Ireland with tidings of comfort and joy. ”

“ Ask me to show that Home Rule will be bad for Ireland, and I will make but a slight departure from this formula. I say, on the supporters of Home Rule rests the onus probandi; they are the people who should show cause, let them prove their case in its favour. Here I am, quite satisfied with the laws as they now are. Show me, say I, how I shall benefit by the proposed change. That knocks them speechless. In England they may make a pretence of proving their case, but in this country they are dumb in the presence of Unionists. They cannot argue with enlightened people. ”

“ We have never occupied the time of the English Parliament, nor have we leagued ourselves with the enemies of England. We have maintained order, and taken care of English interests in Ireland, besides looking after our own personal affairs. We have not stood everlastingly hat in hand, crying, like the daughter of the horse-leech, Give, give. And great is our reward. We are to be handed over to a pack of Papist traitors and robbers, who for years have made the country a perfect Hell. Mr. Gladstone would fain give rich, industrious Ulster into the hands of lazy, improvident Connaught. ”

“ As Sir George Trevelyan said, 'We must never forget that there are two Irelands,' and as John Bright said, 'There are more loyal men and women in Ireland than the whole population of men and women in Wales.' Yet Mr. Gladstone is so very considerate of Wales. Ireland can point to fully one-third of the entire population, who view with abhorrence the very name of Home Rule, and are pledged to resist it to the last. These people have been and are the friends of England, and England can be proud of them as having flourished under her rule. ”

“ Everywhere laziness, ignorance, uncleanliness, dishonesty, disloyalty, ask for Home Rule. Everywhere industry, intelligence, cleanliness, honesty, loyalty, declare that to sanction Home Rule is to open the floodgates to an inrush of barbarism, to put back the clock for centuries, to put a premium on fetichism, superstition, crime of all kinds, to say nothing of roguery and rank laziness. What are Englishmen going to do? Which party will they prefer to believe? When will John Bull put on his biggest boots and kick the rascal faction to the moon? ”

“ The promenade is kerbed by a massive sea wall of limestone, and here and there flights of stone steps lead to the water's edge. Facing the sea are handsome villas, with flower gardens, tidy gravelled walks, shrubberies, snowy window blinds and other appurtenances of a desperately Protestant appearance. No large hotels, no villas with "Apartments" on a card in the fanlight, no boatmen plying for hire, no boats even, either ashore or afloat; no bathing-machines no anything the brutal Saxon mostly needs, except fresh air and blazing sunshine. ”

“ For seven hundred years we have rebelled, and as an Irishman I am proud of it. It shows a spirit that no tyranny can break. What tyranny do we now undergo? The tyranny of a master we do not like, and in whom we have no confidence. We never agreed to accept the yoke of England. Now all we ask is to be allowed to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, and after promising that we shall do so a bill is brought in which is a perfect farce, and which puts us in a far worse condition than ever. Some say that when once we get an Irish Parliament we can arrange these small details. ”

“ The great mass of the Irish electorate know nothing of all this. Tap them wherever you will, north, south, east, or west, and you find one dominant thought—that of pecuniary gain. They know nothing of the proposed bill, and are totally incapable of comprehending its scope and effect. The peasantry of Ireland are actuated by motives entirely different from those affecting the rural constituencies of England. The Briton is proud of his country, believes in its might, justice, supremacy; and despite occasional grumbling is satisfied that the powers that be will do him right in the long run. ”

“ As a good Catholic I am ashamed of myself when I think how little religion (comparatively) there is in me. Education has been a curse. How happy I should be if I had that old woman's simple, strong belief in the virtues of holy water, especially when carried home in a well-washed whiskey bottle. But, somehow, the more we Catholics know the less we believe. ”

“ The shopkeepers display their wares, waiting wearily for market day, and dismally hoping against hope for better times. Everybody is in the doleful dumps, everybody says the place is going down, everybody says that things grow worse, that the trade of the place grows smaller by degrees and gradually less, that enterprise is totally extinguished, that there is no employment for the people, and no prospect of any. Those whose heads are just above water are puzzled to know how those worse off than themselves contrive to exist at all, and look towards the future with gloomiest foreboding. ”

“ Touch them in their freedom and the secold Northerners become aflame. And while the Irish Kelts burn like straw—a flame and a puff of smoke, and there an end—these Scots settlers are like oaken logs, slow to take fire, but hard to extinguish. They prosper under the Union, and therefore, say they, the Union is good. What the poor Irish need is industry, not Acts of Parliament. The land is rich, the laws are just, the judges are honest, and industry is encouraged. The fault is in the people themselves, and in their pastors and masters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Education is fatal to the political power of Rome. Ireland is not educated, and suits her purpose admirably. You will not succeed in satisfying Ireland, because Rome will not allow the Irish to remain quiescent. Rome will not permit Ireland to rest and be thankful, to fraternise with England, to take the hand of friendship, and to work together for good. This would not do for the Church. Any Romish priest will tell you that his Church is destined to overspread and conquer every country in the world, and that of all possible events that is a thousand times the most desirable. ”

“ The country between Newry and Armagh is very beautiful from a pastoral point of view. After the savage deserts of the West it "Comes o'er my soul like the sweet south That breathes upon a bank of violets." Every yard of ground is going at its best pace. The valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and sing. Immense vistas of highly cultivated country unroll themselves in every direction. The land is richly timbered, and tall green hedges spring up everywhere. ”

“ The streets were full of pigs from the rural parts, and great was the bargaining and chaffering in Irish, a language which seemed to be composed of rolling r's and booming gutturals. A sustained conversation sounds like the jolting of a country cart over a rocky road, a sudden exclamation like the whirr of a covey of partridges, an oath like the downfall of a truck-load of bricks. I arrived in time for the great pig fair, and Tuam was very busy. It is a poor town, of which the staple trade is religion. ”

“ Talk about the Union of Hearts, the pacification of Ireland, the brotherly love that is to ensue, and the Unionists turn away with undissembled impatience, the Home Rulers with a chuckle and a sneer. As well tell reasonable Irishmen that the world is flat, or that a straight line between two given points is the longest, or that the sun moves round the moon, or any other inane absurdity contrary to the evidence of science and their senses. The English Gladstonians who babble about brotherly love and conciliation should move about Dublin in disguise. ”

“ Turn about is fair play. Let England have a turn now. Fair play is a jewel, and Ireland has fair play. Ireland has privileges of which neither England nor Scotland can boast. The Protestants of Ireland are everywhere prosperous and content. The Catholics of Ireland are everywhere impoverished and discontented. Wherever you go you find this an invariable rule. The two sects may hold their farms from the same landlord, on precisely similar terms, and you will find that the Protestants pay their rent, and get on, while the Catholics don't pay, and go from bad to worse. ”

“ These are your pious flocks, tended and fed by the lettered priests of Maynooth! Better had we flung our money into the sea, than sent it across the Channel, to be a curse in the first place to Ireland, and a curse in the second place to ourselves, by the demoralising and anti-national sentiments it has been employed to propagate. The better a priest, the worse a citizen. And whom have Government found their bitterest enemies? Who are the parties who have invariably withstood all their plans for civilising Ireland? Why, those very priests whom they have clothed, and educated, and fed. ”

“ A number of English anglers stroll about with long salmon rods, or float their little barks on the broad bosom of the Erne, the population looking dreamily on from the long bridge over the river, which, like the Shannon at Athlone, flows through the heart of the town. Nobody seems to be doing anything, except a few old beggar woman squalid and frowsy as the mendicant hordes of Tuam, Tipperary, Limerick, and Galway. The beggars are pertinacious enough for anything, but theirs is the only enterprise the stranger sees. Compared with that of Donegal the salmon-fishing seems expensive. ”

“ Shall we truckle to Rome, shall we become slaves to Popish knaves, shall we become subservient to priestcraft and lying and roguery and trickery? Never shall it be said of us. We claim to be part and parcel of the glorious British Empire. We have helped to upbuild that Empire, and we claim our inheritance. We will NOT sell our birthright, we will NOT connive at the destruction of Britain's greatness, we will NOT have Home Rule. ”

“ But the most striking feature in the attitude of Dublin is undoubtedly the intense, the deep-rooted, the perfervid hatred of the bill shown by the better sort of people, the nervous anxiety of the law-abiding classes, the undisguised alarm of everybody who has anything to lose, whether commercial men, private traders, manufacturers, or the representatives of learning and culture. The mere shadow of Home Rule has already seriously affected stocks and securities, has brought about withdrawal of capital, and is sending both English and Irish commercial travellers home empty-handed. ”

“ On the other hand amongst those who are for it, and allied with them, we find the dynamiters of America, the Fenians and Invincibles, the illiterate voters of Ireland, the idlers, the disloyal, the mutilators of cattle, the boycotters, the moonlighters and outragemongers, the murderers, the village ruffians, the city corner boys, and all the rest of the blackguards who have flourished and been secure under the Land League's fostering wing. Are we to stand quietly aside and see the destinies of decent people entrusted to the leaders of a movement which owes its success to such supporters? ”

“ Gladstone is not responsible for his actions. The Civil Service will not employ a man after sixty-five. The British Government forbids a man to work in its service after that time. The consensus of scientific opinion has fixed sixty-five as the limit at which the control of an office or the execution of routine office work should cease. Slips of memory occur, and the brain has lost its keen edge, its firm grip, its rapid grasp of detail. At sixty-five you are not good enough for the Civil Service, but at eighty-four, when you are nineteen years older, you may govern a vast empire. ”

“ Tell the English people that the people are getting sick of agitation, that they want peace and quietness, that they are losing faith in agitators, having before them a considerable stretch of history, which, notwithstanding the scattered population, is filtering down into the minds of the people, with its morals all in big print. The Irish folks are naturally quick-witted. They are simple and confiding, many of them very ignorant, if you will, but they find out their friends in the long run. Look at Balfour. Not a man in the whole world for whom the people have so much affection. ”

“ The depopulation of the country, the lack of enterprise, of industry, of the common necessaries of life, of everything to be desired by the sons of men—all these disagreeables are due to the selfishness, the greed, the brutality of Englishmen, who are not only devoid of the higher virtues, but also entirely destitute of common fairness, common honesty, common humanity. Mr. McCoy holds that England exploits Ireland for her own purposes, is a merciless sucker of Hibernia's life-blood, a sweater, a slave-driver, a more than Egyptian taskmaster. ”

“ The people of these parts are skinned alive by their religion. Not a hand's turn can be done without money. Money for christening, for confession, for everything from the cradle to the grave. And when they're dead the poor folks are still ruining the counthry, for their relatives run up and down begging money to get their souls out of purgatory. I have no objection to that; let them do it if they like, but let them not say they are poor because of England. The more money they pay the sooner their father's or mother's soul is out of torment. ”

“ Thackeray says that if England possessed this beautiful inlet it would be reckoned a world's wonder. Twenty miles of winding sea running inland like a league-wide river, mountains on both sides, many of them wooded to the furthest height. Rostrevor is a bijou watering place such as only France here and there can boast. You walk on the cliff side, steep verdurous heights above and below, looking through tree-tops on the shimmering sea and the purple mountains beyond, for ten miles at a stretch, wondering why nobody else is there. Newry is encompassed by mountains, one range above another. ”

“ When I see what a handful of Dutch farmers did with your grand army—when I see how a country with less than a quarter of the population of Ireland freed itself and knocked your bold army into a cocked hat, I am ashamed to be an Irishman [357] submitting to foreign rule. You will at any rate see why we Irishmen in Ulster are even more rebellious than our southern countrymen. It is because these devilish plantations were in the North, and because we are outnumbered in the North by men who are really foreigners. ”

“ I protest not only for myself, but also on behalf of my co-religionists that dare not speak, because if they did speak their lives might not be worth an hour's purchase, not being situated, as I am, in the midst of a loyal, and law-abiding population. I believe that all that Ireland requires is a just settlement of the land question, and a fair, reasonable measure of local self-government. For several generations past England has been doing all the good she could for Ireland, and none have more reason than the Roman Catholics of Ireland to be thankful for that good. ”

“ The Roman Catholics regard themselves as the chosen people, the true sons of the soil, but they see that most of the great landowners are Protestant, that the Protestant farmers often hold uncommonly good land, and that if these were once dispossessed the righteous might again flourish as green bay trees. For while Papal Ireland is largely rock and bog, the heretical portion is reclaimed and tilled, the bogs drained, the primeval boulders rolled away, broken up, and made into fences. All this is tempting. Irish land hunger is foreshadowed in the story of Naboth and his vineyard. ”

“ No means is left untried, no stone is left unturned to render abortive what the dry and caustic Northerners call the Home Ruin Bill, or the Bill for the Bitter Government of Ireland.
Moving hourly among people accurately and minutely acquainted with the local position, you cannot fail to be struck by the marvellous unanimity with which all Irish Unionists predict the exact result of such a bill as constitutes the present bone of contention, and their precise agreement as to concerted action should the crisis arise. They ridicule the English notion that they intend to take the field at once. ”