coin) and chalet a delight is tt , alo 
 To read .and roeditateand write, 
 by r>one offended and off end ivy fa 
 
 (CHARLES COTTON 1630-87) 
 E X L1BRIS 
 
 ENE, GI\EENE DWEN ANDREWS
 
 Sunset in Donegal' 
 
 IT WAS Sunday evening. The roads were full 
 of people, blue-suited men in caps talking 
 at the lane-ends, groups of boys wandering 
 aimlessly and throwing stones at the rocks, 
 girls on bicycles returning from church, their 
 perfect skins and raven hair intensified in color 
 by the black of their neat coats and skirts; and 
 the harsh clack of Gaelic gutturals followed 
 them out of sight along the winding roads. The 
 people along the northern sea of Donegal were 
 mostly dark, a fine, handsome people de- 
 scended from some pre-Celtic race, perhaps 
 from the legendary Formorians, the sea-raiders 
 whose stronghold was on Tory Island, there to 
 the north in the fading blue of the sea. Yet 
 tnat morning I had spent in the planted county 
 of Derry, among Scotch voices and Scotch and 
 English faces, half Europe away from these 
 slim arrogant Mediterranean folk of Donegal. 
 People were everywhere; yet where did tlioy 
 spring from? Villages were miles apart. To my 
 nght was the sea, dulling to gray beyond the 
 green and brown of the low hills that stretched 
 nut, into the water; and alternating with the 
 hills were the misty gray arms of the sea 
 thrust far into the land, cold loughs around 
 the edge of which sounded the mournful cry of 
 the curlew as he rose and beat on long wings 
 over the green pastures toward the brown of 
 the inland hills. To my left were the farms, 
 two-roomed houses whitewashed and thatched, 
 scattered sparsely over the flatter land between 
 the barren mountains and the shore, each with 
 
 the sea over which gleamed the f 
 from Tory Island. On -the land 1 
 the road a stretch of bogland had t 
 of its turf, drained and half reclai 
 ture, a barren sludge of tussocl 
 purple heather; and there, exp 
 digging, was the ruin of an ancii 
 surrounded by a small stone cir 
 seaward side the land fell away i 
 small bluffs to the edge of a landl 
 on the far side of which was a hi 
 sand gleaming white in the fadii 
 the glazed surface of the lough 
 swans were feeding, the snowy 
 and the dingy gray full-grown cy 
 ing their long necks deep into th 
 withdrawing them with slow sei 
 coiling. Farther out, a shag wa, 
 black snaky figure low to the watei 
 a graceful plunge and reappearir 
 as scarcely to ripple its surface ] 
 the shore on their floating ne 
 shags sat waiting for their dinr-. >s 
 and white figures sitting bolt fV 
 side with their wi/igs spread de - 
 Slowly the light faded, and J hil 
 and were lost in the grayne Jl tn< 
 the green of the fields m 
 shadow. Only the water 
 gleamed silver, and from 
 of the waders rose and .- 
 whistle of unseen wings . a cr ying 
 tive voices. 
 
 . 
 he
 
 A JOURNEY IN 
 IRELAND
 
 A JOURNEY IN 
 IRELAND 
 
 BY 
 WILFRID EWART 
 
 CAPTAIN, LATE SPECIAL RESERVE, SCOTS GUARDS 
 AUTHOR OF "WAY OF REVELATION" 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 MAJOR, THE EARL WINTERTON, M.P. 
 
 UNDER- SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK : : : MCMXXII
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 ON April 18th, 1921, I went to Ireland, re- 
 turning to England on May 10th. 
 
 The sketches and conversations embodied 
 in the following chapters are the result of a 
 journey undertaken with the single object of 
 studying the state of the country and the state 
 of feeling in the country, as to which news- 
 papers contradicted each other and propa- 
 ganda and partisanship persistently vied. How 
 far this could be done in so short a space of 
 time the reader may judge for himself. I can 
 only add that I made every endeavour to meet 
 and to talk with persons of all shades of 
 opinion and of all classes, hoping that there- 
 from would emerge a just picture of Ireland 
 in the extraordinary phase unique, one might 
 suppose, in the history of national movements 
 which ended with the truce of July, 1921. 
 
 Where repetition is noticed or where one 
 
 2O57955
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 point of view or another seems to gain the 
 upper hand, that fact must be accepted as part 
 of the individual experience. For my part I 
 offer no conclusions, nor deliberately sought 
 any. No incident of any interest or signifi- 
 cance has been suppressed. Conversations 
 were taken down, in some cases literally as 
 they were spoken, in others salient features 
 or the sense of them were noted immediately 
 afterwards. 
 
 Acknowledgments are due to the Editors of 
 The Times, the Westminster Gazette, and the 
 Sunday Times for permission to reproduce 
 certain portions of the book which appeared 
 in their columns. 
 
 Thanks are also due to the Editor of the 
 Freeman's Journal, and to Mr. J. J. Sullivan, 
 of Cork city, for their assistance in various 
 ways; very especially to Mr. F. W. Ryan, of 
 Dublin, who read the proofs and gave me the 
 benefit of his knowledge and advice. 
 
 WILFRID EWART. 
 
 July 3rd, 1921.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I BELIEVE that Mr. Ewart's first literary work 
 was published in a weekly journal, of which I 
 Was the Editor. It was therefore with much 
 pleasure that I set myself the task of reading 
 the proof of his latest book. The impression 
 left on my mind by this book is that it repre- 
 sents an honest attempt to record, without 
 prejudice, the extraordinary conflict of views 
 and of right in present-day Ireland. Conflict 
 of views there has always been, more furiously 
 combatant in Ireland than almost anywhere 
 else in the British Empire. Since 1914, at any 
 rate, there have been questionings, in any im- 
 partial person's mind, as to the exact moral 
 rights of the different parties to the quarrel. 
 One can hate and detest, as I do, the cowardly, 
 secretive midnight assassinations and outrage, 
 
 vii
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 often demoniac in its callous fury, that not 
 only was part of the Sinn Fein campaign when 
 at its height, but worse, as history shows, is 
 an ingrained tradition in certain districts and 
 types of character in Southern Ireland ; whilst, 
 at the same time, disliking intensely certain 
 acts of the British Government in Ireland 
 since 1914. I will not, however, pursue this 
 subject, as I am anxious to avoid, as Mr. 
 Ewart has done, the ordinary cliches in writ- 
 ing about Ireland: "England never will un- 
 derstand Ireland"; "There are two nations in 
 Ireland"; "The Irish are great gentlemen," 
 etc. statements so true, yet so banal, and so 
 unsatisfying. 
 
 The problem of the inter-relationship of 
 England and Ireland for the last four years 
 has been even more complicated than it natu- 
 rally is, by external and world conditions. 
 As everyone knows, the Allied statesmen of 
 1918 and 1919 ran two horses and refused, 
 in racing parlance, to declare to win with 
 either. Those horses were "Internationalism" 
 as represented by the League of Nations, and
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 "Little Nationalism" as represented by self- 
 determination. Both horses have had a rare 
 gallop in Ireland. "Internationalism" de- 
 manded that the British Government should 
 justify or attempt to justify before the world 
 its action and attitude in what is really a 
 domestic quarrel. "Little Nationalism" de- 
 manded that two states should be set up in 
 an island, which judged by every standard 
 except that of the Balkans, is barely large 
 enough for one. The resultant progeny, to 
 change the metaphor, would have been of a 
 character comic in the extreme, if Irish per- 
 versity had not made it so grim a tragedy of 
 lost lives and ruined homes. 
 
 A perusal of Mr. Ewart's book strengthens 
 the conviction that the Irish Agreement, at 
 least, offers a chance of conditions a shade 
 less intolerable than those that prevailed be- 
 fore it was reached; because, whilst the 
 glimpse of Ireland which the book gives is 
 only a fleeting one, even a stay of forty-eight 
 hours in most parts of Ireland in the spring 
 and early summer of 1921 were sufficient to 
 
 ix
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 satisfy any man or woman with two eyes that 
 its condition was a disgrace to civilisation, 
 and an outrage upon humanity. 
 
 WlNTERTON. 
 
 House of Commons, S.W.I. 
 March 3rd, 1922.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 MM 
 
 FOREWORD ...... v 
 
 INTRODUCTION . . * . . vii 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. LIFE IN DUBLIN . . 5 . . 1 
 
 II. POLITICS IN DUBLIN . . . 27 
 
 III. LIFE IN CORK . ... .38 
 
 IV. TALKS WITH SINN FEIN ... 52 
 V. TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS . 69 
 
 VI. LIFE IN MALLOW . . . ... 83 
 
 VII. SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS . 98 
 
 VIII. KlLMALLOCK TO LlMERICK . . .110 
 
 IX. TALKS IN LIMERICK .... 126 
 
 X. GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD . . 152 
 
 XL TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS . . . 166 
 
 XII. THE TULLAMORE ROAD . . . .186 
 
 ad
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIII. THE ROAD TO ULSTER .... 197 
 
 XIV. THE GATES OF ULSTER . . . .213 
 XV. BELFAST 224 
 
 APPENDIX . . . . . .255 
 
 AFTER-NOTE - 259
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 \ MIDDLE-AGED spinster lady, eating a 
 >L\- fish-course, laid down her fork sharply. 
 
 "That's a bomb !" 
 
 Everybody else in the dining-room stopped 
 eating for a moment. "Yes, that's a bomb!" 
 they agreed and went on with their talk and 
 their food. 
 
 A hollow "bang" like the bursting of a mo- 
 tor-car tyre had broken the subdued murmur 
 of the evening streets. And in any other city 
 of the civilised world that sound would have 
 been put down to a motor-car tyre bursting. 
 But this city was Dublin and the hour the 
 normal one for such occurrences. 
 
 Wherefore, the peaceful inhabitants of the 
 1
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 hotel went on with their dinner. No one took 
 much interest in the matter no one except the 
 traveller who had arrived at Westland Row 
 just half an hour earlier. To him it conveyed 
 two facts that the incident really was a nor- 
 mal one in the city's life and that the bomb, by 
 reason of the hollowness of its explosion, was 
 not heavily charged but was probably a casing 
 detonated. 
 
 And, hastily finishing his dinner, the new 
 arrival went out. He followed the direction 
 from which, two or three streets away, the 
 sound had come. He was still expectant of 
 commotion. At the corner of the street two 
 soldiers stood laughing with a girl. Home- 
 goers, a few, were passing along Dawson 
 Street. A tram clanked past. Groups of sol- 
 diers, young men and young women, were 
 standing about the north side of Stephen's 
 Green, exchanging leisured pleasantries. A 
 stranger in a very strange city does not like to 
 ask questions, and only once was any casual 
 allusion heard to a bomb bursting at the heart 
 of it. 
 
 2
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 "At the corner of Grafton Street and Duke 
 Street, I think. ... A man and a girl." 
 
 Grafton Street was full of people men, 
 girls, soldiers. Barrel-organs were grinding 
 out "It's a long, long trail" and other old tunes 
 of the war, and new ragtime ones. Newsboys 
 were shouting "Another Dublin Ambush !" and 
 (in an undertone) "Up the rebels!" Duke 
 Street is half way down on the right-hand side. 
 At the corner one noticed the cracked plate- 
 glass window of a shop and the usual groups 
 talking. That was all. 
 
 When night did finally close down and as 
 curfew hour approached, the tide of the peo- 
 ple set hurrying over O'Connell Bridge to- 
 wards the tram junction at the Nelson Pillar. 
 The street lamps were lit and there were vague, 
 shadowy crowds through which one had to 
 press one's way. Black motor-cars containing 
 mysterious-looking men rushed out of College 
 Green at breakneck speed like bats or night- 
 insects. 
 
 Half an hour later silence. I looked out of 
 a window high up and saw spires, chimneys, 
 3
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 roof -tops bathed in moonlight, and heard one 
 sound a rifle-shot. 
 
 Next morning, the nineteenth of April, that 
 first impression multiplied. 
 
 Turning into Nassau Street out of Kildare 
 Street I looked down the exceptionally long 
 barrel of a revolver, the owner of which was a 
 young gentleman in a dark green uniform, one 
 of a number sitting on a motor-lorry, smoking 
 a cigarette, his finger visibly on the trigger. 
 The lorry rattled on. A woman stopped and 
 glanced in at a shop-window. 
 
 At the corner of Suffolk Street a crowd. 
 The faces of the men and women in the crowd 
 one sought an explanation here wore a 
 faintly-cynical, faintly-amused expression. 
 
 "Hullo! What's up?" 
 
 "Oh! Bagging somebody else's piano for 
 their own use, I suppose." 
 
 And there they were. Not a gentleman in 
 dark green this time but a tall young man in 
 khaki and a tam-o'-shanter, brandishing a re- 
 volver as though it were a hair-brush, and, 
 4
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 lounging about the street, which was otherwise 
 empty, half-a-dozen similar young men, simi- 
 larly armed. Now there is probably no more 
 respectable-looking street in the world than 
 Suffolk Street, Dublin. And yet, sure enough, 
 here was a piano rakishly and mysteriously ap- 
 pearing out of a window, slowly and solemnly 
 descending into the arms of four Auxiliaries 
 standing in a lorry below.* 
 
 One other impression only was needed to 
 stultify the faculty of surprise. That was on 
 Grafton Street. Prosperity, now, is the key- 
 note of Grafton Street, prosperity especially 
 on a hot April afternoon when everybody is 
 out shopping or amusing themselves, and 
 motor-cars and cars and pony-carts line the 
 curbs. One does not expect to see charging 
 up such a thoroughfare, with no more warn- 
 ing than his own clatter, an immense lorry 
 caged in with wire-netting and bristling with 
 rifles balanced at the "ready," by a score of 
 
 * The explanation of the affair is that certain Auxiliaries 
 were removing a piano which they had hired from a Suffolk 
 Street firm, the piano-porters being not then available. The 
 incident is simply recorded as it happened. 
 5
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 soldiers in steel helmets. One might as well 
 expect such an apparition in Bond Street. 
 
 "Vote for Sinn Fein! De Valera expects 
 every man to do his duty!" that and similar 
 inscriptions thalked on a blank wall in Phibs- 
 borough Road told the story of contemporary 
 Ireland. 
 
 And that story was repeated every evening, 
 almost every hour of every day. 
 
 It was told on the second evening when 
 about nine o'clock a procession armed lorries 
 headed by an armoured car tore down West- 
 morland Street, everybody stopping and star- 
 ing after them. Next morning we learnt that 
 Police-Constable Stedman had been shot on his 
 motor-bicycle in Henry Street while carrying 
 despatches for the Castle. 
 
 It was told on the second morning at 
 Summerhill Parade, when one came up against 
 a loose barbed-wire fence, a couple of soldiers 
 with fixed bayonets lounging idly on the 
 further side of it, and three lorries standing 
 outside a house in a side-street, the inhabitants 
 6
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 of which were peering nervously out of their 
 windows. A "round-up" was going forward 
 in the Summerhill district. 
 
 On the third evening again, I found myself 
 at Dartry Road, wandering along that favour- 
 ite footpath of the residents, still more of the 
 local love-makers, which follows the Dodder- 
 stream along a little ravine and recollected 
 curfew. By the time I reached the terminus, 
 the last tram had left for the city and the 
 alternative presented itself of walking three 
 miles in half an hour or of being "curfewed" 
 and probably arrested. By good fortune, I 
 picked up a jaunting car after running half 
 the distance. 
 
 Curfew, that dim relic of English country 
 towns, was the sinister boundary of every 
 Irishman's horizon in April, 1921. And cur- 
 few habits had to be learnt. Curfew-breakers 
 were summarily dealt with in police courts. 
 It was a seasonable reminder to see an elderly 
 member of a famous Dublin club peep out of 
 its glass portals after the forbidden hour, then, 
 
 finding the coast clear, scurry along the street 
 7
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 like a cat to his nearby home. . . . Nor was 
 it an easy matter to obtain a curfew pass even 
 for the best of reasons. I applied for one at 
 the gates of the Castle and was curtly told 
 I should be lucky to get it in three days. Nor 
 when obtained was it an unmixed blessing. In 
 a newspaper-office I talked to a young clerk 
 who possessed such a pass and had been held 
 up in the small hours of the morning by Black 
 and Tans. 
 
 "Most of them were drunk, and they swore 
 at me and asked for my pass and swore at me 
 again and loosed off their rifles and drove 
 away." 
 
 It is not too much to say that the young man 
 was indignant. . . . 
 
 The abiding impression of Dublin at this 
 time was the recurring contrast between the 
 ordinary workaday life of a modern city and 
 the queer forces which lurked such a little way 
 beneath. The ruined Post Office in Sackville 
 Street was the only standing reminder of what 
 had gone before, although the Gresham Hotel 
 
 revived painful memories of Black Sunday ; to 
 8
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 them both now has to be added the Customs- 
 House. Sitting in Phoenix Park of an after- 
 noon, one saw old men dozing on seats, nur- 
 sery-maids reading novelettes, and the children 
 shouting and playing on grassy slopes for all 
 the world as if Dublin herself were a play- 
 ground. One passed out of the gates into the 
 North Circular Road and lorries came tearing 
 along at twenty-five miles an hour, their dark 
 green or khaki loads bristling with rifles. 
 
 Jammet's, at luncheon-time, was half-empty, 
 yet contrived to maintain the illusion of a 
 segregated and civilised society. Now a$d 
 then you made contact with Dublin's precious 
 but distinguished intellectual and artistic world 
 and found it revolving around Merrion and 
 Fitzwilliam Squares apparently undisturbed. 
 But if you went to St. John Ervine's "Mixed 
 Marriage" at the Abbey Theatre you found the 
 place half-empty. You might feel that the 
 acting fell below expectations and indeed the 
 theme; you began to speculate already about 
 that other deadly warfare of the protesting 
 North. 
 
 9
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 And you came out in the dusk to find Dub- 
 lin's warfare staring you in the face on Eden 
 Quay, where, outside Mooney's public-house, 
 groups of men and youths lounged andi-spat 
 and smoked. Was it not from this corner that 
 bombs were thrown last Sunday night? . . . 
 
 On fine afternoons the white-flannelled 
 students play cricket on the grassy lawns of 
 Trinity College, a stone's throw from Nassau 
 Street. And as you stood, one of a group, 
 watching them through the railings, through 
 an opening in the foliage, you could not fore- 
 se that from here a fortnight hence revol- 
 ver-shots would be fired, or that the daisy- 
 sprinkled bank would be stained by a girl's 
 blood. 
 
 The interior of Dublin Castle presented it- 
 self as a hive from which, as one passed up- 
 country, all subsequent activities sprang. In 
 and out of the great gate, with its ramshackle 
 flankments of barbed wire and sandbags, a 
 constant procession of armoured cars, lorries, 
 tenders, and Ford cars passed. The Ford cars 
 themselves and their occupants two or four 
 10
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 commonplace-looking individuals in soft felt 
 hats and macintoshes attached to themselves, 
 after a while, a peculiar significance. In the 
 wide courtyard, scene of so many mysterious 
 happenings curtain-raisers to greater dramas 
 or to the Hereafter rows of the now familiar 
 lorries and cars stood grilling in the sunshine, 
 their green or khaki crews smoking cigarettes, 
 joking, fingering their revolver-holsters. In 
 their midst, or sitting on one of the lorries, a 
 row of nondescript-looking civilians spitting. 
 
 The whitewashed guard-room on the right 
 of the gate where you signed your name that 
 had its associations. One day, they told you, 
 two rebel-leaders, sitting amicably with their 
 guards by the fire, sprang for the door, and, 
 shot or bayoneted, were killed. 
 
 Within the buildings, soldiers, staff-officers, 
 and officials bustling to and fro: it resembled 
 a General Headquarters in the Great War. 
 One was ushered into a room where elderly, 
 bearded men sat scribbling shorthand on pads 
 balanced on their knees and young be-spec- 
 tacled men scribbled shorthand on pads, as they 
 11
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 stood. A monotonous voice was reciting, sen- 
 tence by sentence: 
 
 "Crown Forces operating Thursday on the 
 Kerry-Limerick border called upon three civil- 
 ians at Knocktoosh to halt. Two of them 
 failed to do so. . . ." 
 
 "A party of eight R.I.C. police from Castle- 
 bar, Co. Mayo, travelling in a motor-car, were 
 ambushed at 6.30 a. m. . . ." 
 
 The monotonous voice was punctured by the 
 still more monotonous "tap-tap-tap" of ^ type- 
 writer in. an adjoining room. 
 
 A short, clean-shaven man wearing glasses 
 presented himself and led the way out to the 
 inner courtyard of the Castle. He was Mr. 
 Basil Clarke, the mouthpiece of the Irish Gov- 
 ernment through the sieve of whose intelligence 
 all Irish news (and all propaganda) passed. 
 We paced up and down the colonnade while 
 I explained my project. 
 
 Mr. de Valera's Proclamation to the Irish 
 people had appeared that morning. The Castle 
 representative drew attention to two points 
 in it:
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 ( 1 ) The appeal to the Electorate to vote on 
 the issue of a Republic. (This was answered 
 within a month by the unopposed return of 
 Sinn Fein candidates for the Southern Parlia- 
 ment.) 
 
 (2) That passage in the Proclamation which 
 ran: 
 
 "The policy of Sinn Fein . . . stands for the right 
 of the people of this Nation to determine freely for 
 themselves how they shall be governed, and for the 
 right of every citizen to an equal voice in the deter- 
 mination ; it stands for civil and religious equality, and 
 for the full proportional representation and all possible 
 safeguarding of minorities. . . ." 
 
 This was interpreted as a direct reference 
 to Ulster's claims. 
 
 In reply to an inquiry regarding the likely 
 result of negotiations then believed to be tak- 
 ing place, my candid informant said : 
 
 "You may take it that negotiations indi- 
 rect, of course have gone on continuously 
 since last June (1920), but it has always 
 seemed as though an extremist wing of Sinn 
 Fein intended to wreck them. Whenever they 
 seemed like succeeding, some particularly vio- 
 
 13
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 lent outrage has taken place which caused the 
 Government to stiffen their backs for fear of 
 seeming to give way to murder." 
 
 "Couldn't a truce have been fixed up but for 
 Lloyd George's stipulation about the giving up 
 of arms?" 
 
 "Perhaps. The question of an amnesty as 
 regards Collins, Mulcahy, and the two others 
 remains the difficulty, though." 
 
 I inquired whether Russian money was be- 
 lieved to be at the back of the Sinn Fein move- 
 ment as alleged by the Duke of Northumber- 
 land and Lord Carson. 
 
 "It cannot be stated definitely. Bolshevist 
 money may reach Sinn Fein through the Irish 
 Labour Party or through Sinn Fein agents who 
 are in touch with Moscow. The alliance be- 
 tween Sinn Fein and Labour is an affaire de 
 convenance because Labour holds Sinn Fein's 
 strongest weapon the transport strike. They 
 remain nevertheless separate and distinct 
 movements." 
 
 At the conclusion of our conversation I was 
 informed that if I wished to proceed with my 
 
 14
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 journey an official pass would be granted (if 
 desired), and that the Castle would answer for 
 me if arrested by Crown Forces. 
 
 I thereupon repaired to the nearest photog- 
 rapher's and, armed with his frightful dis- 
 closures, made my way to G.H.Q., Parkgate. 
 Here a benevolent major went through the 
 passport process so familiar to visitors at Lake 
 Buildings, St. James's Park, recording one's 
 every physical feature with embarrassing ac- 
 curacy. He then, with a few cautionary words, 
 handed me my pass, together with his blessing. 
 
 My first acquaintance with the "Irregular 
 Forces" (in an irregular capacity!) came about 
 in an untidy little restaurant near College 
 Green. In the street a barrel-organ was grind- 
 ing out its inevitable tale of ragtime, but above 
 that turgid repertoire could be heard sounds 
 of singing, laughter, and dancing feet in 
 which every now and then a feminine voice 
 predominated. 
 
 In answer to my question the waiter winked. 
 
 "They have a lot of drink taken," he re- 
 15
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 marked, merely adding that they were "some 
 of the boys." 
 
 I thereupon caught a glimpse through the 
 half-open door of a young person in civilian 
 clothes dancing by himself in the middle of the 
 room, brandishing a bottle. 
 
 Presently half-a-dozen young men and maid- 
 ens came tumbling out of the room, laughing 
 and swearing pleasantly. One was rather 
 drunk. 
 
 Meanwhile two Auxiliaries in uniform sat 
 at a table by the window, puffing at cigarettes, 
 gazing boredly down into the street. . . . 
 
 There was civility and to spare in the shops, 
 but when you walked about the triangular area 
 between Talbot Street, Amiens Street and Rail- 
 way Street, you encountered that furtive, half- 
 cowed and half -hostile attitude of the people 
 which subsequently dogged your footsteps 
 through Ireland. There are slums as bad no 
 doubt in Bethnal Green, but by morning light 
 the people of this oldest quarter of Dublin wear 
 a shamed look as their houses do, as the grey, 
 peeling walls and dirty striped mattresses 
 16
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 hanging out of window do, as those wretched 
 creatures in shreds of cloth or shawls, down- 
 at-heel slippers, and frowsy hair, those hordes 
 of filthy children happy in their ignorance and 
 their super-abundant humour do. Only once 
 have I seen a place more nakedly expressive 
 of human depravity, and that not in London 
 or Paris but in North Dublin among the refuse 
 heaps near the Great Northern railway line. 
 Here things like wasps crawl on mountains of 
 rubbish, their creeping movements alone dis- 
 tinguishing them from the old tins, the scraps 
 of paper and the rags. They are old men, 
 women, girls, children Dublin's ghouls. 
 
 Tyrone Street has contributed its quota to 
 the Irish Republican Army, no doubt; but 
 Tyrone Street has changed its name. During 
 the war it contributed its quota to the British 
 Army (for no very patriotic reason), but in 
 the Irish regiments a "Tyrone Street man" 
 was a particular kind of man. He was known 
 of all recruiting sergeants, rejected if possible, 
 marked. Experienced N.C.O.'s recognised a 
 "Tyrone Street man" as much by his under- 
 
 17
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 sized physique as by certain Irishisms he used, 
 which are apparently copyright in Tyrone 
 Street. But Tyrone Street is no more ! 
 
 My stay in Dublin was prolonged by un- 
 successful endeavours to get into touch with 
 the Sinn Fein Executive, from whom I hoped 
 to obtain some assurance before starting up- 
 country. The value of an introduction from 
 London to the Republican Minister of Publicity 
 had been somewhat reduced when this gentle- 
 man was found to be inhabiting the Internment 
 Camp at the Curragh. 
 
 Things began to look more promising, how- 
 ever, when I was directed (from an influential 
 source) to an individual described as being on 
 the "outer inner ring" of the movement. This 
 gentleman (who, by the way, was interned a 
 week or two later) I found occupying a villa 
 on the western outskirts of the capital. I was 
 shown into a drawing-room, agreeably schemed 
 in mahogany and dull red, surrounded by 
 shelves heavily book-laden. A sharp-eyed, 
 wizened-looking little man wearing trouser- 
 
 18
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 clips presently appeared, announcing that he 
 was in a hurry to attend a meeting in the city. 
 I explained my desires and he informed me 
 that my request would be placed before the 
 meeting. The next time I was to catch sight 
 of the gentleman was some months later in 
 Whitehall, when he was attending upon his 
 chief at a "conversation" with the Prime 
 Minister. 
 
 I subsequently received a telephone message 
 to the effect that a messenger would meet me 
 at Kingsbridge a few minutes before the de- 
 parture of the afternoon train to Cork. No 
 messenger appeared, however. I again post- 
 poned my departure. 
 
 Next morning I applied in another quarter. 
 This effort, too, was to prove fruitless, but 
 I became hereby acquainted with the strange 
 story of Mr. H. This story is reproduced with 
 reserve as to its implications; its interest lies 
 in the baleful but revealing light which it seems 
 to shed upon the Ireland of that day. 
 
 On a certain afternoon of September, 1920, 
 a number of journalists were summoned to a 
 
 19
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 house in Dublin where, it was intimated, some- 
 thing interesting was about to happen. My 
 informant was one of them ; the party also in- 
 cluded representatives of well-known English, 
 American, Italian, and French newspapers. On 
 arrival they found the Republican Vice-Presi- 
 dent, Mr. Arthur Griffith, who, after some 
 general conversation, announced that he ex- 
 pected a visitor and that this visitor had an 
 important proposition to develop. The prop- 
 osition was none other than the betrayal of 
 the chief of the English Secret Service to Sinn 
 Fein. 
 
 "He has asked me," Mr. Griffith went on, 
 "to let him meet leaders of the movement, 
 especially on the military side, and he is com- 
 ing here this evening imagining that he is to 
 meet some inner council of the Sinn Fein move- 
 ment. I believe he is only one of a number of 
 men acting as agents provocateurs throughout 
 the country. I will let him tell you his own 
 story, but I would ask the foreign gentlemen 
 present not to speak much, lest the man's sus- 
 picions be aroused." 
 
 20
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 A knock at the door, and the expected visitor 
 a fair-haired, heavy-jowled man of about 
 50 entered. Though warmly welcomed he 
 appeared slightly nervous and, as my inform- 
 ant remarked, "modestly lowered his eyes." At 
 Mr. ^iffith's request he proceeded to tell his 
 story. 
 
 He was an Englishman, he announced, but 
 hated England and detested the English Gov- 
 ernment so much that when rumours of con- 
 scription arose, he fled to Ireland. 
 
 "You know," he remarked, "I would sooner 
 be shot dead than fight for England." 
 
 He preferred attending race-meetings in 
 Ireland. "For," said he, "I'm a bit of a sports- 
 man." And he told of his imprisonment in the 
 cause of Irish freedom. Up in Derry he had 
 taken part in a raid for arms by Sinn Fein 
 Volunteers, and had had the misfortune to be 
 captured and sentenced to five years' penal 
 servitude. 
 
 "How did you escape from Maryboro'?" 
 somebody inquired. 
 
 "H. settled himself comfortably in his chair 
 
 21
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 and spoke glibly for five minutes in his cosmo- 
 politan accent," was my informant's descrip- 
 tion. It happened in this way. H/s father 
 was a prominent Freemason; he had also held 
 an important position on King Edward's yacht. 
 "In addition," H. added, "I myself was jpecial 
 shorthand writer to the Duke of Connaught in 
 Canada. So I had influential connections and 
 wrote to some friends in London who got me 
 released last year." 
 
 The tale proceeded. Looking for work on 
 his return to London, H. was advised to seek 
 out a certain Captain T. in the Charing Cross 
 Road. This gentleman offered him an appoint- 
 ment in the English Secret Service at 30j. a 
 day with special bonuses for information ob- 
 tained. Meetings were arranged in Dublin 
 one on Kingston Pier, another at the foot of 
 the Wellington Monument in Phoenix Park. 
 Recognition on these occasions was by signs 
 only, H. having been cautioned to have no re- 
 lationship of any kind with Dublin Castle or 
 the Irish Detective Service. Captain T., how- 
 ever, at some time produced a photograph of 
 22
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 Michael Collins, the Republican Minister of 
 Finance. 
 
 At this point of the narrative, one of the 
 supposed "inner ring" inquired what might be 
 done in the matter. 
 
 The answer was that a meeting might be 
 arranged with Captain T. on the West Pier at 
 Dun Laoghaire. "It is a very lonely spot dur- 
 ing most hours of the day." He would advise 
 Sinn Fein of the date and hour, and they could 
 then "get" this alleged Chief of the English 
 Secret Service. 
 
 "For T.," the spy was at pains to add, "is 
 the man responsible for all the dirty work in 
 Ireland and holds the strings of all the Secret 
 Service operating against the Sinn Fein move- 
 ment." 
 
 A moment's silence followed these sinister 
 remarks. 
 
 Other names were mentioned. Lord Carson 
 was one of them. Information could be sup- 
 plied as to his movements, and so it could as 
 to the movements of Sir Hamar Greenwood. 
 Ulster Arsenals could be unmasked in Derry. 
 
 23
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 There was a proposition relating to a house 
 near Tramore which was shortly to be raided 
 by the military for arms. Only three lorriesful 
 were to be sent why not a greater force of 
 Volunteers to "disarm" the soldiers? 
 
 Horror with difficulty disguised itself in the 
 faces of the listeners as these cold-blooded pro- 
 posals came out one by one. 
 
 The real purpose of the alleged agent pro- 
 vocateur revealed itself at last. Would it not 
 prevent the English Secret Service chiefs be- 
 coming suspicious of him if he were furnished 
 with a certain amount of "genuine informa- 
 tion": if he could report, for instance, that 
 Mike Collins was in a certain place on Wednes- 
 day and hold back his report until Friday. 
 He would gain the support of his superiors, 
 wouldn't he, and be able further to assist the 
 Sinn Fein movement? 
 
 "And of course," he added, " no harm would 
 come to ould Mick!" 
 
 "He was a very stupid man," was my infor- 
 mant's comment. 
 
 Mr. Griffith rose. 
 
 24
 
 LIFE IN DUBLIN 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," he said, "you have heard 
 this man's proposal and can judge for your- 
 selves. Mr. H. has told you one version of his 
 career I will tell you another." 
 
 Picture the scene: the Republican leader 
 quiet and nonchalant, impenetrable behind his 
 glasses; the circle of journalists the "inner 
 Council of Sinn Fein" shocked, almost pain- 
 fully expectant of what was coming; the cen- 
 tral figure, startled, pale, suddenly and terribly 
 frightened. 
 
 Mr. Griffith proceeded to relate a history 
 of crime. Forgery and fraud, embezzlement, 
 petty larceny, two sentences of seven years' 
 penal servitude each, a sentence of five years' 
 penal servitude passed on December 8th, 1918, 
 at Belfast Assizes for a series of frauds. Such 
 was H.'s record. During the recital the 
 wretch's mouth twitched and his hands shook. 
 Mr. Griffith ended the long narration with 
 these words: 
 
 "You are a scoundrel, H., but the people who 
 employ you are greater scoundrels. A boat 
 will leave Dublin to-night at nine o'clock. My 
 25
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 advice to you is catch that boat and never 
 return to Ireland. You may use your peculiar 
 talents as you like in your own country. I have 
 nothing more to say." 
 
 Crushed and frightened, the man protested 
 in a piteous tone that he had never done any- 
 thing against Sinn Fein. He could not leave 
 Dublin that night. 
 
 The Sinn Fein Vice-President indicated the 
 door and the spy walked quickly from the 
 room. . . . 
 
 He left for England by the night-mail.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 IN a red-brick Georgian house on Merrion 
 Square, which compares with the best in 
 Bath or Brighton, and to which my prolonged 
 stay in Dublin presently led me, "JE." presides 
 like the reincarnation of an ancient Irish bard. 
 And George Russell stands for a large section 
 of Ireland, not alone by the essentially Irish 
 quality of his mind but by reason of his signifi- 
 cant presence, the stature of the man, the mas- 
 sive head and nut-brown beard. Even the 
 room in which he receives you is atmospheric 
 and individual calm, sombre-tinted, mellow. 
 
 "All governments are rotten though their 
 individual members may be honest men be- 
 cause they act not upon what is right but in 
 obedience to forces more powerful than them- 
 selves. . . . We Irish have no hatred of the 
 27
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 English; our hatred is of the English Govern- 
 ment which treats Ireland, and has so treated 
 her through centuries, as a slave race." 
 
 We sat in front of the fire, "JE." wearing a 
 shamrock-green tie. There was green in the 
 room, too, green against a prevailing note of 
 brown. The poet spoke forcibly deliberately, 
 yet without hesitation and with a remarkable 
 precision of English. 
 
 "It's difficult for one man to speak for a 
 whole nation. . . . We do want independence. 
 But if the Government would frankly call a 
 free conference and proclaim a truce, making 
 at the same time a definite offer, something 
 might be done." 
 
 "May I ask what you call an 'offer'?" 
 
 "If Ulster would come into the Dominion 
 of Ireland as a federated State, and if all the 
 rights that Canada has or that Australia has 
 were granted us, we might reconsider the ques- 
 tion of separation." 
 
 "And the Army and Navy foreign rela- 
 tions?" 
 
 "We must have control of our ports. And 
 
 28
 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 why a British garrison in a free country? 
 Foreign relations must be our concern as much 
 as the concern of Canada, Australia, and South 
 Africa no more and no less." 
 
 "What about fiscal autonomy?" 
 
 "If Ireland wanted to put a duty on certain 
 English goods, English manufacturers would 
 no doubt raise a howl. That cannot be helped. 
 We must be a Dominion State in fact as well 
 as in name. Besides, England and Ireland are 
 an economic unity and are bound to remain so 
 for a long time. I think it would be folly to 
 start a tariff war." 
 
 "Who wants the Government of Ireland 
 Act?" "2" demanded in reply to another 
 question. "Why, of 102 Irish M.P.'s not one 
 has voted for it!" 
 
 He went on to speak of the rank and file of 
 the Irish Republican Army as being "inspired 
 by a mystical passion of nationality," adding 
 that "mistakes" had been made by particular 
 groups. He spoke of the forebodings of that 
 Sunday evening when, returning home, he 
 heard of the fifteen assassinations.
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "That," he declared, "was a bad day for 
 Ireland." 
 
 These exchanges led to a discussion upon 
 the policy and methods of the I.R.A. 
 
 How did he explain the motives and psy- 
 chology of men who could kill their opponents 
 in cold blood opponents, moreover, who were 
 engaged (though at Dublin Castle) on work 
 like map-making and not on Secret Service? 
 
 "Personally, I am not in favour of violence," 
 was the reply. "But you fought in the war, 
 didn't you? Well, the I.R.A. men consider 
 themselves to be fighting for their country's 
 integrity and freedom just as much as you did 
 during the war with Germany. As to the 
 murders, you must have seen Germans shot in 
 cold blood prisoners, for instance? Such 
 things happen in war and always will. People 
 in England seem to forget or not to realize 
 that a state of war prevails in this country." 
 
 Our Curfew Parliament, which assembled 
 nightly before the hotel fire, was not so lumi- 
 nous as the author of "Imaginations and Rev- 
 30
 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 cries" in his quiet study. But it expressed 
 perhaps more truly because more chaotically 
 the Dublin of that day. Here one received a 
 first schooling in the necessities and reserva- 
 tions of a politics-ridden country. And for all 
 the affability and the drawing-up of chairs, one 
 detected at first a certain stricture in the con- 
 versation, a readiness on the part of everybody, 
 unusual in England, to explain his position and 
 business, and way of life. From which one 
 inferred that a similar frankness was to be 
 expected of oneself. Until this frankness was 
 established indeed, politics, when touched upon, 
 were avoided or adroitly dropped. Gradually, 
 however, the little company warmed to a meas- 
 ure of confidence, though the Irish lawyer kept 
 his own counsel and the American consular 
 official contributed little. Definite expressions 
 of opinion, indeed, evoked unresponsive sur- 
 prise, so that, offering them, one was left "in 
 the air," with the feeling of having made a 
 faux pas. Such reticences one has associated 
 with bygone Poland, Austria, or Russia under 
 
 31
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 an Imperial Secret Service, savoured with a 
 soupgon of William le Queux. 
 
 On the following evening things did warm 
 up. A middle-aged land-agent expressed the 
 opinion that in his part of the country a farm- 
 er's land which in pre-war times had been 
 worth 25 was now worth <50, and that the 
 real ambition of the farmers was not Ireland 
 a Republic, but an Ireland in which a man 
 could till his own soil and hand it down in fee 
 simple to his children. 
 
 A young medical student declared that the 
 root of the Irish question lay in the influence 
 of the priests and the anti-English, or rather 
 pro-Irish, system of education in primary and 
 secondary schools. He went on to give in- 
 stances that had come to his own knowledge, 
 using a phrase which has lingered in the mem- 
 ory: "Ireland suffers from too much religion 
 and too little Christianity." 
 
 Different was the tone of an elderly land- 
 owner, descendant of Grattan, who had fought 
 the Constitutional fight for upwards of a gen- 
 eration and whose clenched fist was raised at 
 
 32
 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 the Forces of the Crown. He started on 
 moderate lines, even telling a good-humoured 
 anecdote about Mr. Lloyd George. 
 
 "It was in a North Wales constituency some 
 years ago. We met in a railway-carriage and 
 got on to Ireland. The fellow irritated me so 
 much by his ignorance that at last I began 
 giving him a bit of my mind, ending up with 
 the words, 'Well, Lloyd George, I'm afraid we 
 shall have to settle this with fists/ Instead 
 of getting angry, however, he laughed and 
 asked me to luncheon. Not such a bad chap 
 after all!" 
 
 A rare character, this Nationalist fire-eater, 
 with his weather-beaten face, sunken eyes and 
 picturesque untidiness. He had lived hard and 
 ridden hard (and talked hard) all his life, but 
 the unexpected thing was that he had read 
 hard, too was an equal advocate of Machia- 
 velli and Mr. Balfour, and had strong though 
 possibly over - weighted intellectual powers. 
 Such types one still finds among the older Irish 
 landed gentry. . . . And he had his own pe- 
 culiar solution of the Irish question. 
 33
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "Irishmen simply want Ireland to remain 
 outside British party politics. Give us an Irish 
 Government, led by an Irish Prime Minister, 
 subject to the prerogative of the King of Eng- 
 land a Republic, if you like, within the British 
 Empire. Control of foreign affairs we would 
 leave with you ; your Navy could use our ports, 
 as now. We grudge nothing that you may 
 think vital to the safety of the Empire not 
 even loyalty. But leave us to look after our 
 own affairs!" 
 
 An allusion to the Government of Ireland 
 Act met with a contemptuous laugh. 
 
 "Why, it would be worse for us than the 
 present regime! Under the Act, the Viceroy 
 can veto any legislation passed by an Irish 
 Parliament. That would practically mean gov- 
 ernment by committee. Who wants to be run 
 by a handful of effete Englishmen?" 
 
 He was strong on that. "Effete English- 
 men" was a favourite expression, and he ap- 
 peared rather aggressively anxious to empha- 
 sise national and racial distinctions. There was 
 a scheme for supplying England with skilled 
 34
 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 Irish labour with agricultural workers and 
 woodmen, some of them trained on his own 
 estate. . . . With it all he was an Imperialist. 
 That was puzzling. It was puzzling, too, to 
 discover that he had commanded an Irish bat- 
 talion of the British Army during the war 
 exulted in the fact. 
 
 There were, nevertheless, recurring moments 
 when the room rang with the veteran's denun- 
 ciations of the methods of the Crown, when he 
 shook his fist and, trembling from head to foot, 
 glared round at his friends. 
 
 "They rush about our country roads in their 
 lorries, firing their rifles, and frightening our 
 wives and daughters, murdering. But I tell 
 you, if so much as a hair of the head of one 
 of my family or any of my dependants is 
 touched" 
 
 Shaking with rage, he went on to tell of how 
 his wife and daughter had been driving their 
 motor-car along a country road in Galway 
 when a lorryful of Black and Tans had come 
 along, had sworn at them, had forced them 
 
 almost into the ditch. He ended thus : 
 35
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "Remember, it's a vendetta ! It's blood for 
 blood and life for life. I say that if any of 
 mine or any near to me are so much as touched 
 by these ruffians, I'll have the life not of a 
 policeman, but of one of our 'great men' who 
 'rule' at Dublin Castle. And they know it 
 I've told them so to their faces ! I tell you, the 
 Irish people will not forget this thing for 
 generations unto the third and fourth gen- 
 eration. . . . We were prospering, the country 
 was settling down, and then this gang of as- 
 sassins. And the work of my lifetime undone." 
 
 During this harangue the other members of 
 the little circle became uneasy. The practical 
 land-agent repeatedly murmured his dissent, 
 and next morning declared that he flatly dis- 
 agreed with these opinions, which were not 
 representative of the majority of the Irish 
 people, adding: 
 
 "You mustn't pay too much attention to him. 
 He's like that he doesn't mean half he says." 
 
 My own impression, on the whole, differed. 
 The deep-set eyes, the dull light that smoul- 
 dered in them, the rugged face and powerful 
 
 36
 
 POLITICS IN DUBLIN 
 
 jaw with their suggestion of fanaticism, ex- 
 pressed a resentment that rankled deep and a 
 determination that would brook no wrong. On 
 the whole, this grim old Nationalist stood for 
 the kind of man who for better or worse has 
 suffered, fought, and in some cases died for 
 Ireland during later periods of her history.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 fTT^HE mail train to Cork, which had been due 
 * to leave Dublin at 7.30 a. m., did not in 
 fact depart till 8.15 on the morning of April 
 23rd. 
 
 Arriving at Kingsbridge after a chilly drive 
 through Dublin's awakening streets, I found 
 several Crown lorries standing in the station 
 yard and a score of "men in green" pacing up 
 and down the platform. A number of other 
 prospective passengers had collected by the 
 original hour of departure, including several 
 horsy-looking persons and one merry party of 
 young people on their way to Clonmel races. 
 
 When the train at last came in half-full of 
 passengers from the Kingstown boat, I made 
 for the breakfast car. Here, as table compan- 
 ion, was a person of such a type as one meets 
 only in Ireland. He was beefy, red-faced, and 
 38
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 red-haired ; he had a colossal appetite. He was 
 the only Irishman I met who took no interest 
 in politics, but disclosed instead an interest in 
 horses and horse-racing transcending anything 
 else. We discussed three-year-olds and Cup 
 horses of the year with a gusto which was ex- 
 plained when he informed me that before as- 
 suming the garb of the Church of Ireland, he 
 had been a cattle and horse dealer and had 
 made many a voyage in Glasgow and Liv- 
 erpool cattle-boats. Even now he trained 
 and raced his own horses. Incidentally he 
 "swore." . . . 
 
 In the middle of breakfast four big Black 
 and Tans with revolvers strapped to their 
 thighs tramped in, sat down at the next table, 
 and leant their rifles against the backs of their 
 chairs. 
 
 A prosperous-looking country fled by. The 
 greenness of everything, the grazing cattle, the 
 smug appearance of the white cottages and 
 farmsteads against the sunlit landscape, pro- 
 tested against the presence of a spectre that 
 stalked through the counties of the South. 
 
 39
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 At the Curragh a number of racing-men got 
 in; at Maryborough a number of railwaymen. 
 These descended at Thurles, with affable "good 
 mornings." 
 
 By midday we were at Cork. . . . 
 
 Earlier visitors to the hotel at which I stayed 
 had spoken of it as a favourite resort of Black 
 and Tans and Government "agents," and had 
 described more than one lively "scene" of 
 which they had been witnesses. I was sur- 
 prised, therefore, to find a large dining-room 
 occupied by three persons only two Dublin" 
 surgeons and an individual whom I shall' 
 call X. 
 
 Mr. X. was a tall man of fine physique, 
 dressed in a grey tweed suit, and he always 
 wore a black tie with a rather flash-looking 
 pearl pin. On the street he wore a "billycock" ; 
 he never carried stick, umbrella, or gloves. He 
 had a hard, bony face, a short bristly mous- 
 tache, and a devil-may-care expression which 
 boded ill for anyone who should cross him. 
 Altogether a tough-looking customer. 
 
 He appeared to have plenty of money too 
 40
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 and nothing to do all day but chaff the waiters, 
 drink whiskies-and-sodas and stand at the door 
 of the hotel with his hands in his pockets. Once 
 or twice I met him in the street, standing out- 
 side some tea-shop or lounging along the pave- 
 ment treating the world to a defiant sneer. If 
 by chance one fell into conversation with the 
 hall-porter of the hotel or any of its residents, 
 this individual appeared from nowhere; you 
 would suddenly find him lighting a cigar at 
 your elbow or looking out of the window with- 
 in hearing distance, or he would frankly seat 
 himself opposite and order a drink. 
 
 We had a conversation about nothing. We 
 regarded one another with hostility. I never 
 discovered anything about X. except that he 
 had served in the South African War and had 
 held a commission during the European War. 
 To the end of my journey and we were often 
 to meet X. remained a mystery. 
 
 That Cork was full of spies and that a stray 
 Englishman bent upon an apparently aimless 
 mission was bound to be taken for one, soon 
 41
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 became evident. It was a novel sensation. On 
 the second morning after my arrival, while 
 writing letters in the hotel smoking-room, 
 which abutted upon the busy street, a dark, 
 lean individual wearing a brown suit attracted 
 my attention. He passed and repassed on the 
 opposite pavement, each time glancing at the 
 window before which I sat. I drew the lace 
 curtains, through the interstices of which I 
 could see my friend without being seen. He 
 stopped nearly opposite, looked casually up and 
 down the street, and then keenly at my window. 
 
 Later on I had occasion to walk up to Vic- 
 toria Barracks. Half-way along Patrick Street 
 I caught sight of the hungry-looking creature 
 on the opposite side of the road. I let him get 
 slightly ahead and before reaching the bridge 
 swerved sharp down a side-street and so back 
 to the hotel 
 
 When later I did visit the Barracks, it 
 dawned upon me that the groups of young men 
 loafing outside public-houses in the neighbour- 
 hood were not so idle as they looked. Seeing 
 two respectable-looking gentlemen conversing 
 
 42
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 at a street corner, I inquired the best way to 
 my destination. One of them gave me a di- 
 rection in purest Cockney, the other so con- 
 fidential a wink that I realised we all belonged 
 in each other's opinion to the freemasonry 
 of X. 
 
 Notwithstanding this subterranean activity 
 and despite the fact that, on the following 
 morning, all the postmen were held up on their 
 rounds and robbed of their mails, Cork city 
 seemed quiet after Dublin. 
 
 Even Patrick Street did not startle. There 
 it was hot and busy in the sunshine, and you 
 hardly noticed at first the area of stark ruins 
 in the very centre of it. Then you thought of 
 Amiens. 
 
 And you realised why the ruins were in 
 your eyes inconspicuous; because they had 
 grown normal and customary in seven years, 
 because ruins were characteristic of the Ireland 
 of 1921. 
 
 There were to be seen at all hours, it is true, 
 an extraordinary number of young and middle- 
 aged, able-bodied men standing, about the 
 
 43
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 streets ; and that seemed typical of Cork, as of 
 most other Irish towns. It was due, in part, 
 to the slackness of the port and of business 
 generally, but mainly to the closing down of 
 Ford's Works which had been established to 
 supply agricultural tractors for the whole of 
 Ireland and had hitherto employed between 
 700 and 800 men. 
 
 Soldiers thronged the streets but few Irreg- 
 ulars, and comparatively few of those clatter- 
 ing armed lorries and cars which had con- 
 fronted you half a dozen times an hour in 
 Dublin. . . . "K" Division had gone "up 
 country." 
 
 And to a certain extent this appearance of 
 peaceableness was illusory. One of the first 
 men I met in Cork was the manager of a big 
 business there who on the previous Friday 
 evening had been the victim of an unpleasant 
 experience. It was pay-day. Surrounded by 
 notes and cash, he sat in his office about 5.30 
 when the door was flung open and four rough- 
 looking men entered, levelling revolvers at his 
 head. One of the four was masked, the others 
 
 44
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 wore false moustaches. The leader than or- 
 dered the manager to conduct him to the safe 
 where the bulk of pay was kept. The latter 
 did so with, as he described it, "one of the 
 swine backing away from me holding a revol~ 
 ver in a shaking hand and another prodding 
 me in the back with a revolver-barrel;" the 
 other members of the gang meanwhile were 
 helping themselves to the loose cash on the 
 office-desk. They eventually made off with 
 1,200 in cash, and, in the words of the fairy 
 story, "were never heard of again." 
 
 Another gentleman I met in Cork was a bank 
 manager. His experience was that having, 
 during a two minutes' absence, left open his 
 strong-room door, "some person or persons 
 unknown" had entered and relieved the bank 
 of 800 "an almost weekly occurrence" he 
 called it. 
 
 Most Cork business firms now pay wages by 
 cheque. . . . 
 
 These, of course, were ordinary crimes. 
 There were undoubtedly at this time increasing 
 signs of the professional criminal element tak- 
 
 45
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 ing advantage of the unsettled conditions in 
 the South, and against them the police seemed 
 practically powerless: there were also the in- 
 tricate machinations of Sinn Fein. And there 
 were still the Black and Tans. The unfortunate 
 populace fell between two stools, if not three, 
 as the following episode shows. 
 
 The wife of a big man of business in Cork 
 was informed by her servants that her house- 
 maid must go. She had been guilty of the 
 offence of talking to Black and Tans. Sinn 
 Fein vengeance, they pointed out, was in- 
 evitable. "But," the lady of the house sug- 
 gested, "what about the Black and Tans 
 won't they have a word or two to say if I 
 turn her out ?" And the other servants agreed 
 that they would. Anyway, the housemaid re- 
 mained, and the household has not since been 
 disturbed. 
 
 All of which events did not prevent Miss 
 Blank from giving a dance. For even while 
 these sinister details were being related, strains 
 of ragtime floated down the stairs, and there 
 could be heard overhead the patter of Miss 
 
 46
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 Blank's guests and there could even be per- 
 ceived Miss Blank's lady and gentlemen friends 
 sitting out on sofas and in corners. 
 
 And you heard snatches of conversation like 
 this: 
 
 "Well, Mr. Murphy, we haven't seen much 
 of you lately?" 
 
 "No, Miss O'Hara, I've given up social life. 
 I've taken to golf." 
 
 "Come and look us up one day " etc. 
 
 Nor did the desperate events aforementioned 
 prevent the big new tea-shop on Patrick Street 
 from being filled with the rank and fashion of 
 Cork of a Saturday afternoon. Here every- 
 body seemed to know everybody and here I was 
 introduced to two ladies, mother and sister of 
 a prosperous merchant, who a few days before 
 had had a bad fright. With the son of the 
 former they had been rambling about the cliff 
 of an old quarry on the outskirts of the city 
 and had reached the highest part of it when an 
 armed load of Black and Tans appeared be- 
 neath and shouted to them to come down and 
 identify themselves. They proceeded to de- 
 47
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 scend as best they could but were told they 
 were not moving fast enough and found half 
 a dozen rifles levelled at them. It was not a 
 laughing matter then ! 
 
 Isolated, burnt-out houses confronted you on 
 many Cork streets, and you were told that they 
 had once been Sinn Fein clubs. But when, in 
 the evening, you saw the aged shawled women 
 sitting gossiping in rows by the Mall waterside 
 with the sunshine warming the grey stone 
 bridge and the old houses beyond fringed with 
 new green of flowering chestnuts, it was diffi- 
 cult to believe that the city had passed through 
 such stressful times. You entered the Town 
 Club nearby and found men dining and drink- 
 ing and playing cards together in civilised com- 
 fort without reference to politics or religion. 
 A matter of the first importance is a golf 
 handicap that is to be played off on the follow- 
 ing day; a matter for some resentment is the 
 fact that an officer has taken to playing his 
 round with an armed escort, thereby chal- 
 lenging Sinn Fein retribution upon the 
 greens !
 
 LIFE IN CORK 
 
 One was repeatedly assured in Cork that 
 militant Sinn Fein was a Young Man's Move- 
 ment exclusively that the parents disap- 
 proved, indeed begged their sons not to partic- 
 ipate in political activity. During a long wait 
 at the Barrack gate one afternoon, I found a 
 middle-aged, respectable-looking woman who 
 carried a small basket and a brown-paper 
 parcel pleading for an interview with a son who 
 was awaiting his trial. The sentry at the gate 
 was uncouth but not unkind. 
 
 "Too late to-day, missis. You can see him . 
 to-morrow between 11 and 12, or 2 and 3." 
 
 "What can I bring him, please cigarettes 
 cake tea?" 
 
 "Oh! anything you like!" 
 
 She went away presently, muttering through 
 tears, "Maybe he'll be released." 
 
 It was difficult to believe that that woman 
 counselled ambush, treachery, murder; but in 
 Ireland they say, "You never know." 
 
 And there were incidents of another sort. 
 There was a calm spring evening when I made 
 49
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 my way out to Blackrock and walked back 
 along the river-road. Near the city at an open 
 ground where children play, high commotion 
 prevailed. Mothers, fathers, children, and pas- 
 sers-by were all jabbering together and point- 
 ing in the direction of the town. Somebody's 
 child, it appeared, had been kidnapped by a 
 mysterious individual in a motor-car. 
 
 "No Irishman did that," caught my ear as 
 I passed; "it's some bastard of an English- 
 man." 
 
 One later evening I came to an unlovely 
 burnt-out villa on the outskirts, on the front 
 of which was scrawled "Up, Dublin !" between 
 two rudely-painted shamrocks. Beneath was 
 a sort of coat-of-arms consisting of two grey- 
 hounds, heads above a scroll upon which was 
 inscribed the word "Libertas." Beneath this, 
 again, ran the inscription, "Remember 1916! 
 Irishmen, join the I.R.A." 
 
 But the best commentary on daily life in 
 Cork was a local newspaper placard at a street 
 corner : 
 
 50
 
 THE WEEK'S WARFARE 
 
 MURDER BY INSANE PROFESSOR 
 
 CAUGHT AT DRILL 
 
 FIVE CIVILIANS KILLED 
 
 GARDENING AND POULTRY NOTES 
 
 TALKS ON HEALTH 
 
 ALL THE USUAL FEATURES
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 AN introduction from Dublin brought me 
 into touch with an obliging intermediary 
 in the city of Cork through whom I was en- 
 abled to approach two of the leading Republi- 
 cans in the South. 
 
 In England it had seemed a curious feature 
 of the Irish situation though one resulting 
 almost inevitably from the rapid evolution of 
 Sinn Fein that while our "governing classes" 
 had been stirred to the depths by the war in 
 Ireland, the leaders of that war on the oppos- 
 ing side were all but unknown even by name. 
 In Dublin, Mr. de Valera and Messieurs 
 Michael Collins and Richard Mulcahy had 
 proved elusive. And to me, as to most English- 
 men, they represented, in the one case a nebu- 
 lous and visionary being, a leader of Irish 
 idealism though not necessarily of militant 
 
 52
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 Republicanism, in the other something sinistei 
 and ominous, something vaguely, indefinitely 
 hostile. 
 
 It seemed not less important to get an idea 
 of the character and attitude of the Sinn Fein 
 leaders, because at this date, April 23rd, Lord 
 Derby, disguised as "Mr. Edwards," was 
 known to have just left Dublin: and he the 
 last, but not the least of a long succession of 
 peace-makers whose names included Lord 
 Haldane (early in April) and (in March) two 
 prominent young Unionist Members of Par- 
 liament. 
 
 It thus came about that, accompanied by a 
 friend, I entered the City Hall. Here stood 
 a long queue of respectable-looking people, in- 
 cluding young girls and middle-aged men and 
 women, waiting, I was informed, to receive 
 their dole (! to 2 a week) from the fund 
 subscribed by the United States of America 
 and the City of Cork for sufferers in the "war." 
 They looked the sort of people who, in peace- 
 able times, would have earned an income of 
 1 to 2 a day. 
 
 53
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 We passed through the Assize Court with its 
 judges' bench, its old-fashioned prisoners' dock, 
 and the insignia of British justice a rather 
 superfluous emblem amid those dusty sur- 
 roundings embroidered above the judge's 
 chair. We entered a rather bare little room 
 where, seated at a table facing the door, was 
 a slight, keen-looking, clean-shaven man darkly 
 clothed and about 35 years of age. Barry M. 
 Egan reminds one of certain symbolists of the 
 French Revolution. Here were the pallid, al- 
 most ill-looking features, the calm formal man- 
 ner, the thin, precise lips of a doctrinaire? 
 When this man spoke, it was coldly and de- 
 liberately. He was unsparing ; he was polite. 
 
 Such was the Deputy-Lord Mayor of Cork, 
 whose big jewellery business was burned down 
 in December 1920. Mr. Egan spoke with a 
 frankness for which I felt truly and deeply 
 obliged, giving in reasoned and passionless 
 terms the Republican standpoint. 
 
 He was crisp. And if message there was 
 to people on this side of the Irish Sea, it was 
 this: 
 
 5*
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 "Get out!" 
 
 "Get out!" he added sharply, "We don't 
 object to you personally but leave us in peace ! 
 We don't want to be a pawn in your politics. 
 We are ready for war or peace, and the deci- 
 sion lies with you." 
 
 I put to him the question: 
 
 "Do you think it possible that some liberal 
 measure of self-government within the Empire 
 Dominion Home Rule, for instance would 
 satisfy the aspirations of your people?" 
 
 "That, and all kindred questions," he an- 
 swered, "are matters for the consideration of 
 President de Valera and the elected representa- 
 tives of the Irish people Dail Eireann. It 
 is not for me to express an opinion. But this 
 much I can say. Whatever is offered, what- 
 ever settlement is proposed by your Govern- 
 ment, must be backed by something more 
 tangible than promises. Of promises we've 
 had enough and more than enough in Ireland. 
 Now we want at least pledges." 
 
 "What would you suggest as a substantial 
 
 pledge?" 
 
 55
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "Clear out your armed forces, put your cards 
 on the table. That's business." 
 
 "I hear unofficial negotiations are going on 
 in Dublin at this moment. What is your opin- 
 ion of their prospect?" 
 
 "This is a matter for the Irish people. It 
 is a question for 'we ourselves/ English 
 politicians had much better keep out of it. I 
 believe Lord Derby is an honest man and a 
 gentleman ; no doubt he means well. But any- 
 thing that is done has got to be done 'over the 
 counter/ We want no secret negotiations. 
 President de Valera has made that clear." 
 
 "You do not object to us as a nation, then, 
 but to the Forces and methods of the Crown ?" 
 
 "As a nation you are responsible for our 
 sufferings during three hundred years. You 
 don't understand us, and you don't attempt to 
 and I don't believe you want to. The English 
 people could stop this reign of terror to-morrow 
 if they had a mind to. But how many English- 
 men have ever read a page of Irish history? 
 The Government of Ireland has always been 
 in the hands of the 'governing' classes in Eng- 
 
 56
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 land; and what have they ever done for us? 
 You accuse Germany of tearing up a treaty as 
 though it were a scrap of paper. From 1782 
 to 1798 we had a treaty with England. She 
 tore it up in 1800." 
 
 "The Land Purchase Act of 1903 !" I 
 
 began. 
 
 "Was that Home Rule? Was that the ful- 
 filment of your promises? The fact remains, 
 my friend, that a population of eight and a half 
 millions has sunk to four millions, that year 
 after year the very life-blood of this country, 
 its finest young men and young women, has 
 flowed out of it. There is room and there is 
 work in this country for twelve millions of 
 people. A market three times as great as at 
 present is waiting to be developed, three or 
 four times the amount of goods might be manu- 
 factured. And always remember you are 
 our natural market : your prosperity and ours 
 depend one upon the other." 
 
 "In case of war," he added, "why should we 
 side against you ? Why should we oppose our 
 own best interests?" 
 
 57
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Of violence (and its reactions) Mr, Egan 
 said: 
 
 "Murders and crime we all execrate. We 
 don't want war; it's imposed on us. We'd 
 much sooner have our men tilling the fields. 
 But, I ask again, who is responsible for these 
 things, who is responsible for the present reign 
 of terror?'* 
 
 I reminded the Deputy-Lord Mayor of the 
 Prime Minister's statement in his Reply to 
 the Bishop of Chelmsford (April 19th, 1921) : 
 
 Why was the Auxiliary Division constituted? 
 Authority for the formation of the Auxiliary Divi- 
 sion, which is composed entirely of ex-officers of the 
 Navy, Army, and Air Force, was given on the 10th of 
 July, 1920, after fifty-six policemen, four soldiers, and 
 seventeen civilians had been brutally assassinated, and 
 it did not come into really effective operation until 
 over a hundred policemen had been murdered in cold 
 blood. 
 
 Mr. Egan simply handed me a typewritten 
 document giving Sinn Fein's version of the 
 events which led up to the first shootings, with 
 the remark: 
 
 "You'd better not let the Black and Tans 
 58
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 catch you with this." Later, I had reason to 
 remember that caution. 
 
 "It is absurd, therefore, to say," the Deputy- 
 Lord Mayor went on when I had read the 
 typescript, "that murders of police caused the 
 policy of which they were the result. It was, 
 Gessler began it, not Tell. And if there have 
 been a hundred armed police killed, there have 
 been hundreds of unarmed Irish killed. The 
 plan of this so-called Government is not to 
 suppress murder and restore law and order, 
 but to suppress a people and to restore over 
 them a lawless domination whose infamies 
 they hate and whose spirit they despise." 
 
 "But how do you defend the ambushes and 
 the killing of soldiers and policemen in cold 
 blood by men not in uniform?" 
 
 "An ambush is a legitimate act of war. 
 Ambushers should be treated, therefore, as 
 prisoners of war. The I.R.A. do not fight in 
 uniform, but the Boers did not fight in uniform 
 in the Boer War, and they were recognised as 
 combatants. Your men go about armed to the 
 teeth. They murder and terrorise indiscrimi- 
 
 59
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 nately. What the Germans did in Belgium, 
 you are doing here." 
 
 "And the I.R.A. 'executions'?" 
 
 "I believe that no 'execution' is carried out 
 by the I.R.A. except after the most careful 
 (investigation, and when the accused has been 
 found guilty of being a murderer or a spy. 
 Remember, we're at war. Fighting's only 
 just begun. So far it's been a mere skirmish. 
 You shot hundreds of Germans in cold blood 
 in France ; you shoot Irishmen in cold blood in 
 Cork Barracks; for every one of these the 
 I.R.A shoots one of yours." 
 
 "Have you come much into contact with the 
 Crown Forces yourself?" I ventured. 
 
 Egan smiled. Our mutual friend answered 
 my question. 
 
 "The military invaded the City Hall during 
 the Deputy-Lord Mayor's inaugural speech. 
 You were searched by a subaltern of the Hamp- 
 shire Regiment, weren't you, Mr. Egan?" 
 
 The Deputy-Lord Mayor nodded. 
 
 "But I finished my speech," he said, again 
 smiling. 
 
 60
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 His last words were: 
 
 "We want one thing a Republic. And 
 we'll have it in spite of you." 
 
 That same evening I called upon Alderman 
 Liamon de Roiste (William Roche), M.P., at 
 the offices of the Irish Industrial Development 
 Association. In him I found a typical Repub- 
 lican of the Cork school one less pronounced 
 perhaps but not less advanced than Barry 
 Egan. He, too, is an "intellectual," but a hu- 
 morous glint behind spectacles and an occa- 
 sional droop at the corners of the mouth seem 
 to betray a less sternness and a warmer hu- 
 manity. 
 
 Liamon de Roiste is a native of Cork and 
 by profession a secondary school-teacher. He 
 was employed on the staff of the Cork School 
 of Commerce before occupying his present po- 
 sition as Secretary of the Irish Industrial 
 Development Association. He is senior Mem- 
 ber of Parliament for Cork County, a member 
 
 of the City Corporation and of Dail Eireann. 
 61
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 My first question was : 
 
 "Do you consider that all Ireland with the 
 exception of Ulster supports the Separatist 
 movement, or only a section of it?" 
 
 "As a whole, yes, though of course different 
 forces operate." 
 
 "You don't think the people are influenced 
 by the actions of a few dominant personali- 
 ties?" 
 
 "As to that, one might say of all countries 
 that their peoples are led by the most forceful 
 personalities. England and Mr. Lloyd George, 
 for instance." 
 
 Liamon de Roiste's eyes twinkled. 
 
 "No. The old people are Sinn Feiners be- 
 cause many suffered imprisonment in Land 
 League and Gaelic League days ; a certain num- 
 ber of middle-aged people remain Constitu- 
 tional Nationalists ; the young people are afire 
 with patriotism." 
 
 "What then brought about the apparently 
 abrupt change from Constitutional National- 
 ism to Sinn Fein ?" 
 
 "Speaking chronologically, I think the for- 
 
 62
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 mation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1914 and 
 the counter-formation of the National Volun- 
 teers gave the first impetus. Then the failure 
 to operate Mr. Asquith's Home Rule Act after 
 it had received the Royal Assent. (By that 
 time, you see, we were getting a bit fed up 
 with English promises.) Hostility to England 
 undoubtedly grew under Maxwell's unceasing 
 prosecutions for sedition, suppressions of 
 newspapers, and perpetual searches and im- 
 prisonments in 1914, 1915, and 1916. The Eas- 
 ter Rebellion in spite of its failure drew all 
 Irishmen together, and the executions that fol- 
 lowed made an enduring impression. All the 
 while we were told we were fighting for the 
 principle of Self -Determination and the Rights 
 of Small Nations. Then came the Peace Con- 
 ference, 'Wilsonism,' and the League of Na- 
 tions. These set people thinking and gave a 
 constructive impetus to the movement. Since 
 1916, you must understand, the state of affairs 
 has become steadily worse. The real change 
 of feeling in this city began with the murder 
 of Lord Mayor MacCurtain. The Govern- 
 63
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 ment's militant policy has had exactly the re- 
 verse effect of that intended." 
 
 "But how do you reconcile unprecedented 
 prosperity which I suppose you'll admit 
 with armed insurrection?" 
 
 "People fight best on a full stomach, you 
 know. Ireland, of course, is an agricultural 
 country, and tillage certainly was stimulated 
 by the war always is. Industrially, we've 
 probably gone back, if anything." 
 
 "In your opinion, has Bolshevism or the 
 Third International anything in common with 
 Sinn Fein?" 
 
 "Nonsense absolutely." 
 
 "And to-day would you say the Irish peo- 
 ple are definitely anti-English or only anti- 
 Government?" 
 
 "We feel no hostility to the English people 
 or to the Army ; only to the Irregular Forces of 
 the Crown and other instruments of your Gov- 
 ernment." 
 
 " 'Black Sunday' in Dublin made a terrible 
 impression in England." 
 
 "One cannot condone murder. But are you 
 
 64
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 by chance aware that a man was shot here the 
 other day for being in possession of a revol- 
 ver?" 
 
 "What do you consider the shortest way to 
 peace ?" 
 
 "A Republic." 
 
 "Would the Irish people accept anything 
 less?" 
 
 "The tendency of all modern States, in my 
 belief, is to pull away from the centre rather 
 than obey a centripetal force. Dominion Home 
 Rule has been talked about, but I would prefer 
 not to dogmatise about it while the matter 
 is under consideration by the parties con- 
 cerned." 
 
 "You can define what you mean by Domin- 
 ion Home Rule, though?" 
 
 "Well, it must be the real thing as Canada 
 and Australia have it. There must be no Eng- 
 lish garrison or control of our ports; foreign 
 affairs must be a matter of joint consultation. 
 A self-governing Dominion must have fiscal 
 autonomy, of course." 
 
 "And Ulster?" 
 
 65
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "She must come into the national Parlia- 
 ment on the same terms as the other provinces 
 with perhaps some additional representation." 
 
 "Would that meet her views?" 
 
 Mr. de Roiste hesitated, stroked his chin, 
 and then said: 
 
 "A Provincial Federation on Swiss lines 
 might be worth considering." He paused, then 
 added, "Ireland, you know, is not suited to a 
 strongly bureaucratic Government." 
 
 I put a curious but (to me) interesting ques- 
 tion: 
 
 "It might strike a casual student of Irish 
 history that the genius of your race is not truly 
 Republican, or even Democratic. What do you 
 think?" 
 
 Liamon de Roiste smiled. 
 
 "Ah that's looking a long way ahead. But 
 it may be as you say. . . ." 
 
 My last inquiry was : 
 
 "Have you hopes of an early peace, and 
 would peace bring friendship with it ?" 
 
 "Ireland could never be more hostile than 
 she is now. Given peace, she has no reason 
 66
 
 TALKS WITH SINN FEIN 
 
 to be hostile. All our economic interest, all our 
 future, in fact, are bound up with yours. Your 
 Navy controls the seas. During the war Hol- 
 land could at any time have been occupied by 
 Germany, couldn't she? Can a great country 
 like yours have anything to fear from a little 
 one living within its shadow?" 
 
 I casually gathered that Mr. Augustine Bir- 
 rell represented Sinn Fein's idea of a good 
 Chief Secretary or rather, "the best of a bad 
 lot." 
 
 There were one or two other leading Sinn 
 Feiners in Cork City at this time with whom I 
 should have been glad to make acquaintance 
 but who were what was technically known as 
 "on the run." The majority of them subse- 
 quently took up their residence at a bleak spot 
 called Ballykinlar on the coast of Down. In- 
 cluded among them was a certain Walsh, M.P., 
 member of Dail Eireann for Cork City, who 
 for some time held a position under the Board 
 of Agriculture. But it was Liamon de Roiste 
 who, after being "on the run" for several 
 67
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 months, claimed arrears of salary due from the 
 Technical Board under which he had been em- 
 ployed on account of absence from his duties 
 "for reasons beyond his control." 
 The claim failed!
 
 CHAPTER V 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 WHATEVER notions or preconceptions a 
 man brought with him to Cork, the site 
 of the burnings demanded a first-hand expla- 
 nation. Nor did he usually have long to wait 
 for one. 
 
 "I thought there was something up that 
 evening," an early acquaintance volunteered. 
 "My wife and I were walking along Patrick 
 Street about nine o'clock when they came 
 charging up and down, lorry-loads of them, 
 firing their guns, shouting, and doing every- 
 thing they could to frighten the people off the 
 streets. It's a crowded time here, nine o'clock, 
 and I heard one or two shout, 'Get along home.' 
 So I said to my wife, 'Come along ! We'd best 
 get home/ In the night she woke me up. 
 'Look/ she said, and it was like daylight
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 through the blind. I looked out and saw the 
 town was on fire." 
 
 Another citizen, a municipal official, said: 
 
 "I shall never forget that night. I was at it 
 from half -past ten till daybreak, walking about 
 the streets, carrying buckets of water, and try- 
 ing to get the soldiers and police to lend a hand. 
 ... Did I see them at it? Well, I didn't be- 
 cause they cleared everybody off the streets be- 
 fore curfew. But when the fires had fairly 
 got a hold and I was sent for, the place was 
 alive with them some drunk or at any rate 
 behaving like maniacs." 
 
 "Lots of people saw them at it from their 
 bedroom windows," was the account of a third 
 resident. "Why, there's not the shadow of a 
 doubt about who did it. You might as well 
 say the man who stops the traffic in Piccadilly 
 Circus is not a policeman !" 
 
 "Sir Hamar Greenwood said in the House 
 of Commons " 
 
 Laughter greeted that name. It was in the 
 Cork Club. One felt like a man who, alone in 
 70
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 a company of experts, has made a foolish re- 
 mark. 
 
 "Sir Hamar Greenwood !!" 
 
 "Talk about Welshmen . . .!!" 
 
 More laughter. And it is of no use denying 
 some rude things were said. 
 
 "He's the chap who talked about 'the crowds 
 in the streets at 2.30 a.m./ when curfew was at 
 10p.m.!" 
 
 "And the fire 'spreading' from Grant's in 
 Patrick Street to the Carnegie Library, eh?" 
 
 "Well, the place seems quiet enough now, 
 anyway." 
 
 "Yes till it wakes up or till to-night or 
 till to-morrow morning," said someone face- 
 tiously. 
 
 " 'K' Division were in Cork at the time," 
 remarked the Town Clerk, as if that explained 
 everything. "After the burnings, I went up to 
 see General Higginson at Victoria Barracks. 
 I wanted a guarantee that the outrages would 
 not be repeated. He said: 'Anyone, police or 
 civilian, who's found looting will be shot.' Next 
 day 'K' Division left the town." 
 71
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 What the Chief Secretary said in the House 
 of Commons on December 14, 1920, was: 
 
 At 9.30 p.m. the police in Cork City received a mes- 
 sage stating that a fire had broken out in the large 
 premises of Messrs. Alexander Grant & Co., in Patrick 
 Street, and shortly afterwards other fires were notified 
 as having occurred on the premises of Messrs. Cash & 
 Co. of the Munster Arcade. . . . Strenuous efforts 
 were made by the fire brigade to extinguish the flames. 
 but despite their efforts the fire spread to a number of 
 other buildings, including the City Hall, Carnegie 
 Library, and fifteen other large business premises. 
 
 I repaired to the starting-point. A mush- 
 room building had sprung up where the old 
 Grant's had been. Looking at my watch, I 
 walked at a leisurely pace along Patrick Street, 
 turned to the right down Pembroke Street, to 
 the left along the Mall, crossed the river by the 
 bridge, and found myself facing the blackened 
 red-brick of the Carnegie Library with the, 
 Town Hall beyond. The time taken was four- 
 and-a-half minutes. Buildings and the river 
 separate the two points; one notices no signs 
 of burning except at the corner of Cook Street 
 nearly midway between. 
 
 72
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 "Everybody's taken a step to the left. Your 
 old Nationalists have joined pacifist Sinn Fein ; 
 pacifist Sinn Fein has become active Republi- 
 can; we Unionists take our stand on the old 
 Nationalism. Although," he added, "Dillonism 
 is dead/' 
 
 He was an old-fashioned Unionist who had 
 lived a lifetime in Cork. He was weary, he 
 declared, and he was sick of it all the eternal 
 politics, the fighting, the uncertainty of every- 
 thing. 
 
 "Cork used to be a good enough place to live 
 in. We prospered under the Union till 1916. 
 We had four packs of hounds within accessible 
 distance, we had boating and sailing, and 
 well, they reckoned it one of the best military 
 stations in Ireland. Now I daren't motor 
 seven miles to the inland golf course." 
 
 "And what is there to look forward to?" he 
 went on. "Nobody wants the Partition Act 
 nobody in the South cares a brass button for 
 it. Good or bad, it's no use giving a man some- 
 thing he doesn't want. . . . And the finance of 
 the thing is rotten. Look here! An already 
 
 73
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 over-taxed country is to pay eighteen millions 
 annually to the Crown Exchequer " 
 
 " for three years/' I interjected. 
 
 " for services it doesn't want. The dual 
 
 legislature is enough in itself to ruin this un- 
 fortunate country. Then they've washed out 
 the Excess Profits Duty (without a thought 
 for their commitments on the basis of it) and 
 Austen Chamberlain's existing basis of reve- 
 nue and expenditure, namely, the seven-and-a- 
 half millions 'surplus' is converted into a deficit 
 of two-and-a-half millions. And that's not all. 
 The expenditure of the Irish Government is 
 the last charge on Irish Revenue under the Act. 
 The eighteen millions tribute takes priority. 
 The cost of the Reserved Services takes pri- 
 ority. The Police are a Reserved Service. In 
 1919-20, the 'police vote' was three-and-three- 
 quarter millions. This year they say the force 
 will cost over seven millions. And so on. Well 
 it'll hit the North harder in proportion than 
 it will us. If the Act was going to bring peace 
 one would grin and bear it. But it's not. . . ." 
 
 One had been prepared for this "peace" note 
 74
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 in Dublin. The bewilderment and vexation of 
 men whose business was dwindling and whose 
 lives were turned upside down did not surprise 
 or the yearning to keep outside politics alto- 
 gether. What surprised one at any rate who 
 had marched with the Covenanters in 1913 and 
 seen the oath taken under the Ulster leader's 
 own eyes what surprised was the divorce 
 from the North, a coldness, a sense of separa- 
 tion, segregation, divergent interests even. 
 
 The first remarks on the boycott that reached 
 my ears came from a director of the Munster 
 and Leinster Bank. He pointed out that no 
 Belfast goods were to be bought in the shops, 
 that no more than could be helped were per- 
 mitted to cross the Ulster border, and that no 
 Belfast traveller did any business in Cork. 
 
 "Serve 'em right, too," was the gist of this 
 gentleman's remarks. "They only think of 
 themselves. They're a lot of narrow-minded 
 bigots. Down here, at any rate, religion 
 makes no difference between man and man or 
 in social or commercial life. The Government 
 have given us a Roman Catholic Lord Lieu- 
 75
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 tenant under the impression, I suppose, that he 
 will be welcomed on religious grounds. It only 
 shows how little they know of the South. I 
 assure you that side of it leaves us here abso- 
 lutely cold. The only thing the country wants 
 is peace peace under a liberalised form of 
 self-government, but peace first and a chance 
 of settling down and making money and enjoy- 
 ing the fruits of these last prosperous years. 
 That's worth more to us than any political sys- 
 tem." 
 
 This cry greeted one wherever prosperous 
 and hard-working citizens met. An unenviable 
 position was that of a Cork newspaper-man 
 whose respected faculty in the town lay 'be- 
 tween the contentions of all parties. His 
 defence of the Government of Ireland Act 
 and he seemed to be its only defender was 
 based on the belief that if the Irish people as a 
 whole desired a Republic or a Dominion, they 
 desired one thing more a settlement. He re- 
 garded the Act, moreover, as a good one in 
 itself, not indeed as an instrument capable of 
 settling the Irish Question, but as a transition 
 76
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 measure which by bringing the parties together 
 and, as a pledge that pledge so often de- 
 manded of the Government by the irrecon- 
 cilables contained the germ and the promise 
 of better things. 
 
 These views, too moderate perhaps, too 
 hopeful to prevail in the country as a whole 
 and yet perhaps shared by a larger proportion 
 of far-sighted Irishmen than dare own to the 
 fact these views may be crystallised as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "Eight to ten per cent, of the population 
 favours violence, and these almost exclusively 
 the younger generation." 
 
 Another local man here intervened, saying 
 that he put the proportion higher nearer 
 twenty per cent. 
 
 "In the priesthood, for instance," the first 
 speaker continued, "nearly all the older men 
 are Constitutional Nationalists, only a propor- 
 tion of the younger ones are complacent 
 towards Sinn Fein. It is the same with the 
 people. The bulk of the country longs for 
 peace under a decent measure of Home Rule.
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 A constitution which would leave naval and 
 military control and foreign affairs as at pres- 
 ent, whilst, giving Ireland the right to levy her 
 own taxes, customs, and excise, would meet 
 the views of all parties, providing a free vote 
 could be obtained. As to the amount of any 
 subsidy to be paid by Ireland for Imperial 
 services, this ought to be estimated by an inde- 
 pendent firm of assessors. The sine qua non 
 of any permanent settlement is that through 
 the Council of Ireland or by some other means, 
 South and North shall eventually unite in a 
 single legislature." 
 
 If this was the belief of an individual, it was 
 shared by a dozen others bankers, wine-mer- 
 chants, municipal officials, journalists : even by 
 one or two shopkeepers and workmen who 
 cling to the old Nationalism. 
 
 And there were such. The most representa- 
 tive of them, a genial hotel concierge with a 
 shrewd wit and intelligence, is known to wide 
 circles in England and Ireland as "Florrie." 
 Florrie is a Nationalist of the Redmondite 
 school, and a loyal liege of the Empire. Rather 
 78
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 past fifty, he declares that he has been a poli- 
 tician since he was a boy. We spoke one morn- 
 ing of Chief Secretaries. 
 
 "The only man who can save Ireland," said 
 he, "is Lord MacDonnell. Why have they 
 never made him Chief Secretary? He under- 
 stood Ireland better than any man before or 
 since his time a splendid fellow. Lord Tal- 
 bot [sic] may be all right, but we don't know 
 him and he doesn't know us. Why don't they 
 give us an Irish Lord Lieutenant Lord Ken- 
 mare, for instance ? We all know him. If he's 
 outside politics, so much the better. Then 
 Granard he's an Irishman: and Lord Dun- 
 raven a great man. Plenty of good men, but 
 they send us an Englishman we know nothing 
 of. If you ask about those we've had, Aber- 
 deen was the best of them " 
 
 "He wasn't very popular in Dublin," inter- 
 rupted somebody. "They say in Dublin he 
 wasn't too fond of spending." 
 
 "Never mind ! Aberdeen was all right. And 
 so was Lady Aberdeen. People don't like see- 
 ing a lot of money spent in these times. The 
 79
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Aberdeens went about the country, and got to 
 know the people. Everybody knew them. 
 That's the great thing in Ireland." 
 
 "Yes, Balfour was all right," said Florrie in 
 reply to a question. "He was a just man. His 
 mistake was the narrow-gauge railways. 
 Wyndham? yes. His Land Purchase Act 
 was good, but I've always heard Lord Dun- 
 raven and Lord MacDonnell had more to do 
 with that than Wyndham had. Bryce was the 
 best of the lot, though the best Chief Secre- 
 tary Ireland's ever had." 
 
 The tangled skeins, the perplexities of Cork 
 were finally drawn together by an elderly Con- 
 servative, who seemed to typify that separate 
 entity in Ireland which has so definitely 
 emerged since Lord Carson set his seal to the 
 Partition Act the Southern Unionist. Here 
 was a man English rather than Scotch; Irish 
 rather than Unionist: a man whose heart 
 swelled with pride as he told you that his son 
 had fought in the British Army during the 
 war, whose business connections with England 
 80
 
 TALKS WITH SOUTHERN UNIONISTS 
 
 were frequent and firm: withal a man who 
 loves Ireland and recognises his identity with 
 her future, whatever it may be. He said : 
 
 "What's wanted is for the leaders to get 
 together and settle this thing. They could do 
 it in a couple of hours if they meant business. 
 Only don't let English politicians interfere 
 they don't understand us. Mr. Lloyd George 
 ought to come out in the House of Commons 
 and say what he is prepared to give us. In the 
 long run, this is a question of each side giving 
 something away and Ulster getting the safe- 
 guards she wants in a Dublin Parliament. 
 Things can't go on as they are. We are no- 
 body's enemy and nobody's friend. And both 
 sides have made mistakes. The Black Sunday 
 shootings in Dublin were a terrible mistake. 
 People here groaned when they heard of them. 
 On Sunday week, six soldiers were shot in dif- 
 ferent parts of this city in reprisal for the exe- 
 cutions at the barracks. Then the Black and 
 Tans " 
 
 He stopped, but I pressed him. 
 
 "The fact is, 'K' Division not the military 
 
 81
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 were intolerable. At the same time, every- 
 body admits the discipline has improved since 
 they left the town. I personally had only one 
 experience of that lot. I was walking home 
 one night before curfew when a patrol stopped 
 me, and although they could see I was an 
 elderly man and in fact knew me for a loyalist, 
 a young cub of nineteen searched me, swore 
 at me, and knocked my hat off. It's incidents 
 like those that turn moderate people into ex- 
 tremists as much as, or nearly as much as, 
 material losses do."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 IT seemed very curious that among those 
 who knew local conditions best and had 
 lived through recent years in Cork, a complete 
 difference of opinion prevailed as to the prac- 
 ticability of walking the twenty miles between 
 Cork and Mallow. Some were willing to bet 
 that the traveller would not cover half the dis- 
 tance without getting into trouble ; others that 
 he would certainly be held up, but, if capable 
 of giving a satisfactory account of himself, 
 would be allowed to proceed; others, again, 
 asserted that he would not be seriously inter- 
 fered with unless he interfered with anyone 
 else. 
 
 There was another question to be consid- 
 ered. Was it advisable to carry a pass or 
 passes? To this question, again, some said 
 "Yes" and some said "No," while a third party 
 83
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 advised carrying the one pass but not the other. 
 For that which had been unobtainable in Dub- 
 lin, help and patience had secured in Cork. In 
 addition to an informal passport from a Re- 
 publican quarter, and that furnished by Dub- 
 lin Castle, I held an envelopeful of English 
 references. Finally I decided to carry both 
 passes. 
 
 And in the upshot, this first stage on the road 
 to Belfast proved to be a pleasant walk. . . . 
 
 The morning of April 25th broke chill and 
 cloudy. The road to Mallow follows for some 
 distance a gradually rising valley. Donkey- 
 carts loaded with peat and vegetables making 
 their way towards the city, urged forward by 
 ragged boys, occasionally passed. Mile out a 
 lorry-load of soldiers, shouting and singing, 
 rushed by at breakneck speed. Another passed 
 between Ballynamona and Mallow, and in each 
 case I prepared for the worst, but the lorries 
 raced on. Otherwise the road was strangely 
 and significantly empty. 
 
 Once two men and a youth digging or plant- 
 ing potatoes in a field, ran down to the wall and 
 84
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 looked after me when I had passed, presumably 
 because I was a stranger. Again, an uncouth- 
 looking man appeared half a mile away over 
 the rim of the hill and made obliquely for the 
 road, running. While we steadily approached 
 one another I apprehended the "trouble," which 
 I had been warned to expect, but he doubled 
 crazily on across the highway and disap- 
 peared. 
 
 After a while the sun came out and set th? 
 gorse aflame. Patches of barley and potatoes 
 alternated with gorse and heather. Larks 
 sang. The smiling springtime landscape, 
 brown and yellow and dull green, would have 
 infected one with its own gaiety had one been 
 less conscious of the grim visagt behind. 
 
 There was a complete dearth of traffic. 
 Every two or three miles occurred loose places 
 in the road's surface, as though it had been 
 dug up and replaced. A definite reminder of 
 the realities of the countryside came beyond 
 the village of Blackpool. Where a grey stone 
 bridge crosses a stream which sings and rip- 
 ples down a narrow ravine, a neat trench four 
 
 85
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 feet deep by three broad had been dug across 
 the road. 
 
 The greater trouble was a rucksack. And 
 what a perverse thing a rucksack can be! It 
 can cut your shoulder like a razor, cause you 
 to walk lop-sided, and until the two of you 
 become better acquainted, make you feel old 
 before your time. . . . 
 
 So to Mallow in the late afternoon, a curi- 
 ous peace lying upon it, a dreaming quiet 
 creeping down from heather-clad mountains. 
 This is a grey town with a long straggling 
 street leading from the market-place to the 
 railway station; it lies in a pastoral country. 
 I paused a long while on the old stone bridge 
 which spans the Blackwater, resting and 
 looking down into turquoise and amethyst 
 depths that reflected a blue sky, reeds, lawn- 
 like grass, the rounded tops of leafing elms, 
 browns and blacks of the lower hills. It was 
 like a little thing of Corot. From some ruins 
 on the further bank came chatter and 
 squawking of jackdaws. An old man leant
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 against the stone parapet, smoking his pipe, 
 and spitting reflectively. 
 
 "Yon's the ruins of Mallow Castle," he 
 said, "built 600 years ago by the Earl of 
 Desmond. They used to be covered with 
 ivy till the Black and Tans came and stripped 
 it all off." 
 
 Then: 
 
 "There used to be grouse on the moun- 
 tain. I don't know whether there are any 
 now. . . ." 
 
 A mile from Mallow lies the home of Will- 
 iam O'Brien a white country-house sur- 
 rounded by a large garden, grass fields, and 
 fine trees. I found the old Independent Na- 
 tionalist writing in a room flooded with the 
 late afternoon sunshine, filled with the scent 
 of spring flowers. 
 
 It's a pleasant thing, isn't it, to see a man 
 thus taking his ease in the aftermath of a 
 stormy life. The fine head, the whitening 
 beard, the restless eyes smouldering behind 
 glasses these are no less formidable than 
 they were in the days when William O'Brien 
 87
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 galvanised the House of Commons into spas- 
 modic attention; the manner and the man- 
 nerisms no less ardent. 
 
 "I have nothing to say," was the discour- 
 aging opening remark. "I have said my say. 
 My friends and myself warned them of what 
 was coming years ago. We could have 
 shewn them the way out through a policy 
 of conference and conciliation. They paid 
 no heed to us. Now they've gone back to it 
 again, but they've got to deal with men who 
 act first and talk afterwards." 
 
 That note dominated our discussion. 
 
 ''You've come to the wrong man, my 
 friend. Nothing I can say will make any 
 difference. Nobody's views count for any- 
 thing in Ireland to-day except those of a 
 member of the Dail Eireann." 
 
 I continued, nevertheless, to press for a 
 more definite expression of opinion, 
 
 "While English parties believed me to be 
 an enemy of England they respected me, 
 they treated me fairly; directly I ceased to 
 88
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 give them trouble, they thought me no longer 
 worth attending to." 
 
 Contempt of English politicians, disgust 
 with English evasions, anger and horror at 
 the happenings of recent years these were 
 the recurring periods in a motif of infinite 
 regret. 
 
 "The whole story of our relations with 
 England, the whole story of my own polit- 
 ical life, has been one of trust and good faith 
 on our part, of perfidy and broken promises 
 on yours. Now you see the result." 
 
 William O'Brien's voice shook and his 
 hands trembled when he mentioned the name 
 of Lloyd George. We were back in the 1917 
 Convention days. 
 
 "It was an utter fraud. It was a sham and 
 a fraud, and a way of wasting time until 
 America was brought into the war. Mr. 
 Lloyd George never meant it to succeed. I 
 was in a position to guarantee that Sinn Fein 
 would be represented at a small conference. 
 They refused my offer, they chose instead an 
 unwieldy body of seventy Molly Maguires,
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 every one of whom has since been rejected 
 at the polls." 
 
 "Redmond! . . ." 
 
 "Redmond?" he echoed, "a figure-head! A 
 respectable Irish gentleman, but a figure- 
 head in the hands of less scrupulous men." 
 
 I tried to bring the Independent leader to the 
 stress of more immediate events. 
 
 "In anything I say I speak for myself. What 
 I say counts for nothing. The conduct of af- 
 fairs in this country is in the hands of the 
 elected representatives of the Irish people." 
 
 "Can nothing be done, then, to ease or to 
 end the present state of affairs?" 
 
 "You've brought it on yourselves, now 
 leave us alone !" 
 
 I thought of Barry Egan's "Get out!" and 
 mentioned the Crown Forces and the state of 
 war in the South. 
 
 "The methods of the Crown have embittered 
 all Ireland for generations." 
 
 He went on to speak of three local squires, 
 one of them a retired Army officer, who had 
 been assaulted; of incidents at Thurles and 
 
 90
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 Fermoy; of alleged wanton shootings at civil- 
 ians working in allotments and gardens, of 
 wanton damage to property. 
 
 I reminded him of the campaign of the Re- 
 publican Army. He laughed bitterly. 
 
 "That only began after all open attempts to 
 assert the will of the people had been savagely 
 suppressed. In any case, it is a war of coun- 
 try lads armed with shot-guns and spades and 
 revolvers against all the might of England, 
 and yet you are miserably failing to put down 
 the rebellion you have provoked." 
 
 His solitary light in night and storm was 
 this: 
 
 "I've no doubt and remember I speak for 
 nobody but myself I've no doubt a peace 
 could be patched up still. But England's got 
 to make the first offer. And she's got to back 
 it up with some guarantee that she will keep 
 her word. She's never yet made a definite 
 offer." 
 
 When we stood on the steps in the failing 
 light, William O'Brien's face relaxed a little 
 from its expression of severity and scorn. 
 91
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "The tragedy of it all is that there never 
 was a quieter or a happier place than Mallow 
 until this business began. The people will not 
 submit to being driven and bullied, but they 
 simply long for peace." 
 
 Next morning I saw the blank space in the 
 middle of Main Street, all stones and rubble 
 and bits of wall where the Town Hall had 
 stood. Up near the Court-house and again at 
 the end of the street were gaps as in a row of 
 teeth where houses seemed to have been razed 
 to the ground. Bare grey walls enclosing a 
 rubbishy space proclaimed where Mallow's 
 creamery had been. I called on the priest, and 
 was told he was ill in bed and that his curate 
 was out. I then proceeded to the Protestant 
 clergyman's house a mile away. It stands on 
 a hill. 
 
 Two knocks and a long interval of waiting 
 brought a maid-servant. 
 
 "What do you want?" 
 
 "Can I see Canon ?" 
 
 "He's engaged" 
 
 92
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 " when he's disengaged?" 
 
 Undisguisedly suspicious, she went to report 
 to her master. Presently the Canon himself 
 appeared. 
 
 An unmistakable look came into his face 
 when I asked if he could oblige me with his 
 views upon local conditions? 
 
 "My views ! Impossible, my dear sir. Why, 
 it would be more than my life's worth. There's 
 many a poor lad in these parts been laid under 
 the sod for less than that." 
 
 "Perhaps I haven't made myself clear? 
 I'm " 
 
 "I don't think you have." 
 
 The door slammed. And there was an end 
 of it. 
 
 At the cross-roads by the railway bridge a 
 man was standing. 
 
 "Good morning to ye!" 
 
 "Good morning !" 
 
 "Well, things are bad in these parts. I wish 
 they'd settle down. . . ." 
 
 A total stranger ! A native ! This was very 
 
 93
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 odd. It was my turn to cut the conversation 
 short, and I did. 
 
 At the Court-house, Quarter Sessions were 
 being held. Soldiers and R.I.C. men lounged 
 without; within, the little court was packed. 
 There were two or three military officers and 
 several soldiers and R.I.C. men, and at the 
 back a heterogeneous collection of such ragged 
 and neckerchiefed vagabonds as may only be 
 found in an Irish Court of Justice. The dock 
 was empty. A respectable-looking countryman 
 in Sunday clothes was confronting from the 
 witness-box a Jorrocks-faced judge. A law- 
 yer in wig and gown with a most pugnacious 
 face was cross-examining him in a pungent 
 brogue. It was very stuffy and very dull. I 
 left them as I had found them, wearily hag- 
 gling over a plot of grazing land said to have 
 been misdevised in a dead man's will. 
 
 A polite caretaker made me welcome to the 
 town reading-room, where I had an appoint- 
 ment with a local resident. 
 
 "People are absolutely quiet here if they 
 are left alone," the latter said. And in the 
 
 94
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 plain but comfortable room with its armchairs 
 and writing-table and newspapers like any vil- 
 lage club-room in England, it was easily pos- 
 sible to believe him. 
 
 "Everybody knew each other and we were 
 all the best of friends, as you might have 
 judged for yourself if you had come in here of 
 an evening. We have no religious differences. 
 Politics never worried us much. Tis my opin- 
 ion that people want a change, but they would 
 be content with Dominion Home Rule or any 
 generous measure of self-Government, provid- 
 ing it brought peace. The Government of Ire- 
 land Act is no use because it won't bring peace. 
 We don't want an Irish army or navy, and we 
 don't want separation from the Empire." 
 
 I questioned him about the alleged Sinn Fein 
 propaganda in the schools. 
 
 "I don't know of any, though the Irish lan- 
 guage is taught, of course." 
 
 "What started the war here?" 
 
 "The trouble began on September 28th of 
 last year, when about fifty of the I.R.A. at- 
 tacked the barracks. Nearly all the soldiers 
 95
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 were out horse-watering. The first I knew 
 of anything being wrong was about 9.30. I 
 had just walked down to the office from my 
 house when a soldier in his shirt-sleeves came 
 galloping down the street on horseback. 
 'Something's wrong/ I said to my clerk, but 
 we agreed the horse had run away with him. 
 Then they all came racing back. . . . Soon 
 after we knew : the sentry had been shot dead, 
 four hundred rifles had been taken, and car- 
 ried off in motor-cars. You see, they were not 
 local men. They'd come from a distance. 
 Since then we've had no peace." 
 
 The notorious affair at the railway station 
 succeeded the killing of a District-Inspector's 
 wife a month later. 
 
 Eyes follow one fearfully rather than 
 angrily in Mallow. 
 
 That evening I turned down a narrow lane 
 leading off the main street, and sought out the 
 barracks. They were a smallish grey building 
 at the end of the lane beyond some dingy-look- 
 ing cottages. On the farther side were fields. 
 96
 
 LIFE IN MALLOW 
 
 I was surveying these environs at leisure, 
 with a view to reconstructing September's 
 daring coup, when a voice called "Halt." 
 
 Looking up, I found a sentry's bayonet lev- 
 elled at me from a sort of platform which 
 projected from the barrack-wall some twenty 
 feet above the ground. 
 
 At the same moment I felt a tap on the 
 shoulder, and turning round stood face to face 
 with a man in civilian clothes. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" 
 
 "Oh! just looking round." 
 
 "Kindly accompany me to the police bar- 
 racks."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 HE was a plain-clothes constable. On the 
 way to the police-barracks we had a 
 few words. 
 
 "What did you want to see at the barracks ?" 
 
 "A man was telling me about the attack in 
 September. I thought I'd see the place for 
 myself." 
 
 "Rather a curious thing to do, looking about 
 like that, wasn't it? Who and what are you, 
 please?" 
 
 Before I had time to explain, we arrived at 
 the police-barracks. 
 
 In a bare, comfortless room that was evi- 
 dently used as a mess-room, six or seven Black 
 and Tans were grouped around an aged Sinn 
 Feiner, who was pouring forth a torrent of 
 words in a perfectly incomprehensible ver- 
 nacular. 
 
 The policemen were laughing. They ap- 
 98
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 peared to be "ragging" the old man. Their 
 attention, however, was immediately trans- 
 ferred to myself. 
 
 "I found this man looking- round the bar- 
 racks," was my introduction to the sergeant- 
 in-charge. 
 
 I bethought me of the pass and photograph 
 in my pocket, signed, sealed, and delivered by 
 Dublin Castle. I produced it. 
 
 "These things can be faked," was the dis- 
 couraging comment on what I had assumed to 
 be a short-cut to immediate release. And when 
 I gave as my raison d'etre a desire to study the 
 Irish Question at first-hand, the answer was, 
 "Oh! we've heard all that before." 
 
 I then realised that I was regarded with gen- 
 uine suspicion. My captor had hitherto been 
 polite. He now took his cue from the attitude 
 of the sergeant, which was uncompromisingly 
 hostile. So did the rest of the company. 
 Whether I was suspected of being an emissary 
 of the Republic, Mr. Michael Collins, or Presi- 
 dent de Valera himself, seemed an open ques- 
 tion. . 
 
 99
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Meanwhile a couple of Black and Tans went 
 through my pockets, the rest standing curi- 
 ously around. My notebook, references, news- 
 paper cuttings, purse, etc., were turned out 
 upon the table, the gentlemen in green falling 
 upon them like dogs upon a heap of bones. 
 Each article was examined with the attention 
 due to a live bomb, especial suspicion attach- 
 ing to a small, ingenious, and peculiarly harm- 
 less folding matchbox. 
 
 My interrogation was then resumed, and 
 from the tone of it I could judge that my ex- 
 planations were by no means to be taken at 
 their face value. Was I telling the truth 
 about myself; what had my movements been 
 since arriving in Ireland, and how could I ex- 
 plain my suspicious tactics in the vicinity of 
 the barracks ? 
 
 At this moment one of the Black and Tans 
 came across to the window where we were 
 standing. 
 
 "Look at these!" 
 
 The objects referred to were the Sinn Fein 
 100
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 "pass" and the typewritten document which 
 Barry Egan had handed me at Cork. 
 
 The sergeant's face darkened. "What's the 
 meaning of this?" 
 
 The District Inspector was sent for. 
 
 "These are sedetious documents," was his 
 comment. 
 
 I was invited to write my name, the signa- 
 ture being disputed letter by letter and com- 
 pared with that on the Castle pass. 
 
 Meanwhile, matter not altogether compli- 
 mentary to the Crown Forces had been ex- 
 tracted from my notebook. To balance this, 
 a small, assertive Black and Tan with a Cock- 
 ney accent found himself able to corroborate 
 certain of the addresses given. 
 
 Somebody else, however, had made a dan- 
 gerous discovery. An article in the Illus- 
 trated Sunday Herald on Revolution! The 
 word Herald was enough ! 
 
 The police inspector led the way upstairs to 
 
 his office. Here the whole process began 
 
 afresh. The same questions were put, all the 
 
 papers once more examined. This time, how- 
 
 101
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 ever, an inventory was made of them. The 
 inspector then took down a statement of my 
 movements and intentions. In the middle of 
 it he broke off and went to the telephone. 
 These ominous words came from the adjoin- 
 ing room: 
 
 "I've got a man here who says he's come 
 to see the country . . . looks very suspi- 
 cious." 
 
 I began to see visions of days, a week even, 
 spent in Victoria Barracks, Cork. 
 
 The entertaining feature of the proceedings 
 was the conduct of my captor, an old R.I.C. 
 man with thirty years' service. When his su- 
 perior was out of the room he became broth- 
 erly, said it couldn't be helped, "he was only 
 doing his duty," etc., and inquired whether I 
 had any cigarettes. Touched by this unex- 
 pected solicitude, I rashly displayed a half -full 
 cigarette case. He promptly seized one with a 
 "thank you," but without further formality. 
 When the inspector re-entered the room, how- 
 ever, his demeanour changed. He assumed a 
 constabular attitude, directed a severe retribu- 
 102
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 tive glance at his prisoner, and seemed bent on 
 proving that the said prisoner was a villain. 
 
 The taking of the statement had not been 
 completed when an officer of the South Staf- 
 fordshire regiment entered the room. I sym- 
 pathised with his embarrassment ; he knew not 
 what to say or how to say it. 
 
 "Don't you know* better than to wander 
 about in the neighbourhood of barracks ?" was 
 his stern inquiry. I protested my ignorance of 
 local regulations and once again was interro- 
 gated as to identity and movements. 
 
 It so happened that my rucksack had been 
 deposited at the railway station cloak-room. 
 This fact having been ascertained, I was duly 
 marched up by my plain-clothes friend, the 
 remainder of my goods being examined on the 
 station platform. Nothing compromising hav- 
 ing been found, we returned to the police-bar- 
 racks, where I was informed that I should be 
 removed to G.H.Q., Buttevant. 
 
 In the courtyard, a tender stood waiting, 
 while a dozen soldiers in fighting-order were 
 clambering onto a lorry. I bade farewell to 
 
 103
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 my green friends, who assured me again that 
 they had only done their duty, and whom I 
 assured in the same sense. 
 
 I found myself sitting between the driver 
 and a young officer, the escort occupying the 
 body of the car; two hundred yards behind 
 came the lorry with its armed load. The drive 
 that followed was full of interest. 
 
 It was growing late. We careered along at 
 thirty-five miles an hour, wide stretches of 
 gorse and heather falling rapidly behind, a 
 white ribbon of road ever diminishing in front. 
 The sun setting behind purple mountains and 
 the high lights of far-off hillsides seemed to 
 lend a new aspect to the sorrows and the 
 beauty of the land. Every two or three miles, 
 patches of loose road material or boulders 
 lying by the roadside proclaimed where no long 
 while before an ambush had been prepared or 
 had taken place. The men behind talked as 
 they had been accustomed to talk in a greater 
 war. "Do you remember such-and-such an 
 ambush?" When we came to corners, the offi- 
 cer grasped his revolver tightly, and every 
 
 104
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 now and then looked back to see whether the 
 lorry was keeping its proper distance. Once 
 or twice we met parties of civilians, and when 
 this happened the rifles were raised; once or 
 twice women and children gathering flowers. 
 
 Late in the evening we drove up a broad 
 sloping street between grey stone houses to 
 the gates of some large barracks. The place 
 reminded one of Princetown or Dartmoor in 
 its orderliness and bleakness. 
 
 There was much shouting and hooting at 
 the gates before they were thrown open and 
 we drew up in front of a wired-in compound 
 on the barrack-square. 
 
 The officer on duty appeared. 
 
 "Hullo! What's it all about?" 
 
 My custodian descended and the two officers 
 held a brief conversation while I was left 
 standing with the guard. 
 
 Finally the Intelligence Officer was sent for 
 from his dinner. 
 
 "Come along to my office, please !" 
 
 My papers were examined, I was asked half 
 a dozen questions and invited to tell everything 
 
 105
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 about myself. My interrogator then an- 
 nounced that he was satisfied as to my iden- 
 tity, dryly adding that he did not think I quite 
 realised where I was. 
 
 I was thereupon hospitably entertained at 
 dinner by the Staff of the Kerry Infantry Bri- 
 gade and heard (from the lips of the Colonel- 
 Commandant) something of conditions of 
 service in Ireland. 
 
 "People in England," he said, "don't seem 
 to realise what things are like over here or 
 else they don't care. Most of the newspapers 
 damn us or take sides with the other people. 
 You've seen for yourself the conditions we get 
 about under. We can't go outside barracks 
 without the risk of being shot in the back. We 
 can't go out walking or out shooting. Only the 
 other day one of my boys went over to a place 
 five miles away on a motor-bike and has not 
 been heard of since." 
 
 "Straightforward fighting is our job, but 
 this sort of thing !" put in someone else. 
 
 "They talk about 'patriots' in England," 
 said a major, wearing the D.S.O. ribbon. "Pa- 
 106
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 triots! Why, fighting the I.R.A. is fighting 
 assassins. It's low, cowardly cunning they 
 excel at. I tell you straight, I'd sooner do 
 another two-and-a-half years in France than 
 the same length of time here." 
 
 "They prepare these ambushes," remarked 
 the Intelligence Officer, "lie in wait for you, 
 fire a volley as you pass they always risk 
 everything on the first effort then run for 
 their lives. The only thing to be said for them 
 is that they're such rotten bad shots." 
 
 "Yes, it's a rum kind of war," said the Com- 
 mandant. "I often receive deputations from 
 aggrieved Sinn Feiners who are suffering 
 financially through the roads being blocked 
 and bridges destroyed by their own kith and 
 kin. The fact is they are intimidated by their 
 gunmen to destroy the roads, and then ask 
 us to put a guard over them while I repair 
 them!" 
 
 This provoked laughter, but the conversa- 
 tion soon became serious again. 
 
 "How can you expect anything but repri- 
 sals," the D.S.O. major urged, "when our pals 
 
 107
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 and our men's pals are killed like this? If 
 somebody you were very fond of was mur- 
 dered murdered, mind you! in cold blood 
 wouldn't you 'see red' ?" 
 
 "No house is burnt down except in reprisal 
 for an outrage, and then the house of a notori- 
 ous local Shinner is chosen," added the Colonel- 
 Commandant. 
 
 "We English are incapable of hating," an- 
 other officer declared. 
 
 " even Germans," suggested another. 
 
 "Don't you remember how in the war one used 
 to see the Tommies handing cigarettes through 
 the barbed-wire cages to men who'd been try- 
 ing all they knew to kill them an hour or two 
 before. Well, it's the same here. You see our 
 men actually offering cigarettes to these swine 
 who shoot 'em in the back whenever they get 
 an opportunity. That's your English Tommy 
 all over." 
 
 "And the worst of it all is, I've only had one 
 leave since August," lamented a young subal- 
 tern in the background. 
 
 108
 
 SOLDIERS AND THE BLACK AND TANS 
 
 This conversation had a curious because 
 immediate sequel. 
 
 As I crossed the barrack square, a free man, 
 I met the officer on duty. He said: 
 
 "A young soldier in the East Lancashires * 
 has just been done in on the road between here 
 and Churchtown. They shot him in the jaw 
 but didn't kill him, so they turned him over 
 and shot him in the back. . . . You may as 
 well see for yourself." 
 
 He led the way to a building near the bar- 
 rack gates. 
 
 It was as he had said. 
 
 * Private Fielding, murdered, April 26th.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 FROM a window overlooking the barrack 
 gates at Buttevant Sinn Fein prisoners 
 could be seen washing themselves in the early 
 morning. 
 
 They were penned up in a sort of compound. 
 One by one they came out of their wooden hut, 
 blinking in the sunshine, while a lackadaisical 
 sentry watched over them from a platform 
 similar to that which had led to my undoing 
 at Mallow. 
 
 The night had not passed undisturbed. In 
 the smallest hours I was awakened by a loud 
 and violent knocking, and the summons of two 
 or three stentorian Irish voices. "Open the 
 door ! Open the door !" 
 
 The last event of the day had not been cal- 
 culated to steady the nerves. My heart beat 
 faster and unpleasant recollections began to 
 no
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 crowd upon me until I remembered there was 
 no curfew in Buttevant. 
 
 At 7.30 a.m. a curious little procession 
 passed out of the barrack gates. 
 
 First came a G.S. wagon in which reposed 
 a sort of box covered with some material like 
 sacking. There followed four Sinn Fein pris- 
 oners walking slowly two by two, a file of sol- 
 diers with fixed bayonets on either side of 
 them. An officer and escort brought up the 
 rear. 
 
 That morning, the 27th, I caught the 9.13 
 train to Kilmallock. Having been fortuitously 
 conveyed some distance out of my original 
 course, I came to the conclusion that it would 
 be best to leave this part of the country and 
 bear to the West, where things were reported 
 to be "waking up." 
 
 The train was crowded, about half its occu- 
 pants being soldiers and Black and Tans. The 
 majority of these descended at Charleville 
 Junction. Here the first person to catch my 
 eye on the crowded platform was Mr. X. of 
 Cork. 
 
 in
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 There he was, smoking a cigarette with his 
 usual air of insolent self-possession. A look 
 of unresponsive recognition passed between 
 us. ... 
 
 Kilmallock is a long, straggling village of 
 grey and white houses. Here Eamon de Va- 
 lera, son of a Spanish father and an Irish 
 mother, passed his earliest years. One who 
 remembers him at this time describes him as a 
 studious, clever boy of rather wild appearance, 
 attending the Charleville Christian Brothers' 
 School. He afterwards went on to take high 
 honours at the National University, just fail- 
 ing to secure a fellowship at Trinity College. 
 It was during this period doubtless that he first 
 came under Sinn Fein influence. Subsequently 
 he became a school-teacher. 
 
 "Down with Sinn Fein ! Up England !" was 
 the inscription which greeted one on the walls 
 of a gutted building at the entrance to the vil- 
 lage. A little farther on were two more build- 
 ings of which only the walls stood. 
 
 My call was upon a brewer of the district. 
 
 "I only came here a year ago," he said. 
 112
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 "The very evening of the day we got in this 
 affair happened at the police barracks opposite. 
 I was tired after moving furniture all day, and 
 went to bed early, but we were soon awakened 
 by the noise of the firing. Bombs were ex- 
 ploding, Very lights were going up. We looked 
 out and saw the Sinn Feiners had surrounded 
 the barracks. We could see them running to 
 and fro, and when morning broke the police 
 were shot at as they came out. It was an awful 
 night. A month later the police came back and 
 burnt the houses on either side of the barracks 
 because, they said, there had been firing 
 from them and the People's Hall." 
 
 "What is the general state of feeling in the 
 district?" 
 
 "The people only want to settle down. You 
 cannot gauge the real state of feeling by the 
 actions of the I.R.A. They only represent a 
 section of the people. There was a time, of 
 course, when the lads were willing enough to 
 join, but now most of the ardent spirits have 
 been killed or rounded up, and the country boys 
 
 have to be roped in. I can remember a time, 
 lid
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 though, when they used to drill openly, in 
 broad daylight, in Co. Limerick, under the in- 
 struction of ex-soldiers. That's a funny thing 
 now some of the hottest Sinn Feiners are ex- 
 soldiers." 
 
 "The people generally would be glad of peace 
 on almost any terms, though?" 
 
 "They'd be content with a fair measure of 
 Home Rule yes, Dominion Home Rule. We 
 have no quarrel with England, except that you 
 don't understand us, and never have. Tem- 
 peramentally, the English and the Irish are 
 poles apart." 
 
 "Do you think much mischief is made in the 
 schools?" 
 
 "Sinn Fein propaganda, you mean? No. 
 Only, of course, the Irish language is taught." 
 
 "Economic ties are very strong between the 
 two countries?" 
 
 "Up to a point yes. Ireland is one of Eng- 
 land's best customers for wines, motor-cars, 
 and agricultural machinery. England is Ire- 
 land's natural market for eggs and poultry, 
 butter, cattle, and tobacco. Still, I wouldn't 
 
 114
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 agree that Ireland's trade necessarily depends 
 on England. There are other markets open 
 for linen and tobacco, for instance." 
 
 "People did very well round here during the 
 war, I suppose?" 
 
 "We have the finest grazing land in Ireland 
 about here outside Meath. Farmers reaped a 
 rich harvest, but now they're beginning to real- 
 ise that a slump is ahead. You ought to go 
 and see the creamery down the street." 
 
 I followed his advice. At the far end of the 
 village the creamery was working at full pres- 
 sure, an elderly woman churning butter, a 
 young one hand-skimming, and a man operat- 
 ing the machinery. Tipped into a tank from 
 the milk-cans, the milk was carried through 
 to the separator, and thence to the churn, 
 which made its butter in half an hour. One 
 of the most delectable sights I have ever seen 
 was, on the far side of the separator, a large 
 tank nearly full of thick, yellow cream. 
 
 I thought of the creamery at Mallow. . . . 
 
 In the train to Limerick I fell into conversa- 
 115
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 tion with a Buttevant commercial traveller 
 who was full of woes. On his knee lay a little 
 pocket-book in which he had been making up 
 his accounts for the week. 
 
 "It costs me 8 a week travelling," he said 
 "I earn 3 a week. So I'm shutting up shop. 
 The retailers won't buy because the public 
 won't. Down in Tralee I haven't placed a sin- 
 gle order worth the name. Houses and shops 
 are constantly raided. Nobody knows what's 
 going to happen next. So nobody will lay in 
 stocks." 
 
 "What about the boycott?" 
 
 "I don't complain of reprisals on Catholics 
 who deal with bigoted Belfast Protestants. 
 But there you are Ireland's no longer a de- 
 cent country for people to earn a living in." 
 
 Limerick lay under dust. It was hot. One 
 found a baking station-yard and a long, 
 straight main street suggestive of a Canadian 
 prairie town. How ugly this place is, and how 
 shadelessl And then you discover that the 
 main thoroughfare, O'Connell Street, is known 
 to the inhabitants as "George Street," and 
 116
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 that there is another George Street just round 
 the corner ! 
 
 The abiding impression of Limerick was of 
 the soldiers wandering through the streets in 
 their curious patrol formation. A line of six 
 men of the Oxon and Bucks Light Infantry in 
 fighting order with arms at the trail came first, 
 followed by a file on opposite sides of the street, 
 then the officer and his n.c.o. in the centre of 
 the roadway, another file of men and another 
 line. They advanced in a leisurely manner, the 
 officer occasionally pulling up somebody cross- 
 ing the road and questioning him. This spec- 
 tacle might be seen at all hours of the day. 
 
 As to the lorry-loads of Black and Tans and 
 the armoured cars, they were as numerous as 
 in Dublin. And with what a clatter, with what 
 a whirl of dust they careered along that arid 
 main street on their way to or from the bar- 
 racks ! The old-fashioned Cruise's Hotel near 
 the Town Hall had been taken over as a tem- 
 porary police barracks, so had a large building 
 in Cecil Street, outside which Black and Tans 
 
 lounged and smoked. 
 
 117
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 The first Limerick citizen I talked to was a 
 journalist, who offered the maxim : "Soft soap 
 for Irishmen !" 
 
 He meant tact. 
 
 He dwelt, as so many had done, upon that 
 which is, indeed, self-evident to any traveller 
 the temperamental difference between Eng- 
 lishman and Irishman. 
 
 "And yet your educated Irishman is-the most 
 tolerant person in the world/' he declared. "He 
 remembers only to forget." 
 
 As an instance of this he told the story of an 
 old Dublin woman who, crossing O'Connell 
 Bridge soon after the Easter Rebellion, met a 
 British officer. 
 
 " Well,' said she, 'you > you ought 
 
 to be chucked in the Liffey an' left to drown, 
 you ought/ 
 
 " 'And if he was, you know you'd be the 
 first to jump in and pull him out!' shouted a 
 passer-by. 
 
 "That's us all over! But we do want tact- 
 ful handling. It's no good trying to ride rough- 
 shod over an Irishman." 
 
 118
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 He proceeded to describe how, standing in a 
 corridor of the barracks one day, he had seen 
 a Black and Tan strike an Irish prisoner in 
 the face. 
 
 "That man never flinched and he never said 
 a word. He was only a common man, but he 
 bore himself with the dignity of a king." 
 
 My informant appeared deeply impressed by 
 the recollection. 
 
 "But even things like that," he urged, "and 
 the murder of our Mayors will be forgotten 
 if you treat us generously now." 
 
 He harked back to 1914, when Lord Wim- 
 borne had entered Limerick to the strains of 
 "God Save the King/' amid the acclamations 
 of the populace. He told of how Sinn Feiners 
 who tried to start a counter-demonstration 
 with "God Save Ireland" had had to be es- 
 corted down a side-street by the police. 
 
 "The people were mad for the war then," 
 said he. "The Government could have done 
 anything with 'em. Now you see!" 
 
 "What actually brought about the trans- 
 formation?" 
 
 119
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "Failure to operate the Act of 1912 and dis- 
 couragement of recruiting. Religion and edu- 
 cation have had nothing to do with it. Lord 
 Fitzalan will be neither popular nor otherwise, 
 because he is a Roman Catholic. Balfour and 
 Birrefl were the best Chief Secretaries we ever 
 had." 
 
 The economic history of Limerick was that 
 of the majority of Irish towns in 1921 you 
 could read it in the look of the place. Trade 
 bad, nobody buying, no ships coming up the 
 river that was the tale; and there was not 
 a ship to be seen along the quays. Bacon- 
 curing is the staple industry, but it is fair to 
 add progressive decay had set in before the 
 war. Limerick lacks energy, lacks healthy 
 vitality. 
 
 And even while we talked in the hotel smok- 
 ing-room a revolver shot, followed by two rifle 
 shots, cracked out in the street. I went to the 
 door. My companion smiled. 
 
 "It's down Carey Street in the Curfew area, 
 I expect." 
 
 People were standing on their doorsteps 
 120
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 looking towards the railway station. I walked 
 to the corner. The words "No peace with 
 England !" scrawled on a blank wall stared me 
 in the face. To the left of the station the 
 street was noisy with gossiping women and 
 sprawling children; to the right it stretched 
 broad and straight and silent empty. The 
 station clock said 7.15. 
 
 At dinner that evening in the hotel dining- 
 room, a party of four persons sat down at a 
 table near. They consisted of a father with 
 a flowing dark beard, who wore his hat 
 throughout the meal, of a stalwart son, and 
 of two good-looking daughters. All were very 
 dark, with aquiline features and a Latin grace 
 of manner and expression. It was their ges- 
 tures, however, their unceasing flow of merri- 
 ment and joie de vivre which impressed one. 
 The girls and the boy never ceased to jest, the 
 father ate solemnly, making a remark about 
 once in five minutes which set the whole table 
 laughing. 
 
 Through this pantomimic group for their 
 remarks could not be heard was borne in 
 
 121
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 upon one a sense of that temperamental differ- 
 ence which had been so frequently alluded to 
 by Irishmen. The group might have belonged 
 to Paris, to Madrid, to Rome even never to 
 London. 
 
 Later I made my way to the northern out- 
 skirts of the city and called upon the Protestant 
 Dean of Limerick. A slender, silvery-haired 
 man greeted me. 
 
 "There is not much real poverty here, ex- 
 cept through unemployment," he answered in 
 response to a question. "People grew very 
 well off during the war. Bank balances in 
 many cases are three times what they were 
 before the war. Most people would be glad 
 to keep outside politics if they were allowed 
 to. Personally I am on the best of terms with 
 all the farmers about here, Sinn Feiners, 
 Nationalists, or what-not." 
 
 "You think a peace could be patched up, 
 and that the country is not entirely for sepa- 
 ration ?" 
 
 "Where there's right and wrong on both 
 sides, each must give away something. An 
 122
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 old farmer said to me the other day, 'When 
 a man goes to the fair, you know he asks 
 
 more for a horse than he Expects to get ' 
 
 and laughed." 
 
 "A settlement is possible, then?" 
 
 The Dean nodded. 
 
 "Is hatred of England taught in the 
 schools?" 
 
 He considered a moment. 
 
 "I'm sorry to say I'm afraid it is. And that 
 is at the root of all the trouble.* 
 
 "And religious differences?" 
 
 "There are none. Please disabuse yourself 
 of that idea. I personally am on the best of 
 terms with all my colleagues. There is per- 
 fect accord between Protestants and Roman 
 Catholics." 
 
 "Are the women interested in politics?" 
 
 "As much as if not more so than the men. 
 It's difficult to say why." 
 
 Dean Hackett returned repeatedly to the 
 necessity of doing everything possible to pro- 
 mote peace. 
 
 "Don't say or write anything calculated to 
 
 123
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 make things worse," he adjured. "The trou- 
 ble with us is that we are always looking back, 
 always harping on the Penal Laws or the Re- 
 bellion of '98, always harking back to the bit- 
 terness of three hundred years ago. We must 
 'cast the cup from us' and look forward." 
 
 As I walked back to Limerick that evening 
 the brooding quality of the place impressed 
 itself upon me. 
 
 Soldiers and girls were strolling arm-in-arm 
 under the new-flowering lilacs and chestnuts, 
 white-clad young men and women were play- 
 ing lawn-tennis in gardens, old men were 
 smoking and talking on the veranda of a club 
 that overlooks the river. Somewhere near a 
 military band was playing, and I found it 
 eventually huddled away in a yard up an al- 
 ley, as though ashamed of its tentative efforts 
 at gaiety, of which nobody took any notice 
 except a sentry. At either end of the Sars- 
 field and Thomond Bridges picquets of soldiers 
 with fixed bayonets were posted. The broad 
 sweep of the river was veiled in misty grey, 
 124
 
 KILMALLOCK TO LIMERICK 
 
 through which a church spire above roof-tops 
 and one or two lights vaguely showed. Groups 
 of men lounged about the quays, and the last 
 embers of a sultry sunset touched the windows 
 of some Georgian houses on the farther bank. 
 
 Crossing the bridge into Sarsfield Street, I 
 noticed on the right-hand side a small green- 
 shuttered house, over the doorway of which 
 were two rudely-painted shamrocks above a 
 skull and cross-bones. Beneath the latter ap- 
 peared these strange words: 
 
 "And anti-Christ still alive at 4 a.m.? . . . 
 And shooting now?" 
 
 In Glentworth Street, which leads up to the 
 railway station, I once more came face to face 
 with Mr. X.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 IN Limerick I met Dr. Sandeman, of Zurich, 
 a distinguished Swiss publicist then on a 
 special mission to study the situation in Ire- 
 land as representative of a syndicate of Swiss, 
 Austrian, Czecho-Slovakian, Polish, and Bo- 
 hemian newspapers. The meeting was espe- 
 cially interesting in view of Liamon de Roiste's 
 hint of a possible settlement on Swiss Federal 
 lines. 
 
 Dr. Sandeman's general conclusions after a 
 fortnight's sojourn in the South as the guest 
 of both sides may be summarised as follows: 
 
 "You must give Ireland Dominion Home 
 Rule. 
 
 "Your Government is not trusted, therefore 
 you must give an earnest of your good inten- 
 tions by withdrawing the irregulars. I find 
 that they are everywhere condemned. 
 
 126
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 "Fiscal autonomy and foreign relations 
 should rest with Ireland; the garrison and 
 control of the ports might remain with Eng- 
 land. But have you anything really to fear 
 from such a little country as this? Is not 
 she bound to you by natural and economic 
 ties?" 
 
 Questioned as to the amount of interest 
 taken in the Irish question by the Central Eu- 
 ropean peoples, Dr. Sandeman declared this 
 was considerable. 
 
 He supplied the following information re- 
 garding his own country: 
 
 COMPARATIVE POPULATIONS 
 Switzerland Ireland 
 
 3,937,000 4,390,219 
 
 (Census, July 1st, 1916) (,Census, April 2nd, 1911) 
 
 COMPARATIVE TOTAL AREA 
 15,951 square miles 32,531 square miles 
 
 "My country is divided into twenty-two Can- 
 tons; Ireland has thirty-two Counties of very 
 similar size. 
 
 "The Cantons themselves are not 'divisions/ 
 
 127
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 but sovereign States which have formed an 
 alliance for certain purposes. Each has com- 
 plete autonomy except on foreign politics, de- 
 cision of peace and war, post and telegraph, 
 and certain State assurances which remain 
 with the State Legislature. Each Canton dif- 
 fers from the other in nearly every point, i.e., 
 religious, political, social, industrial, physical, 
 linguistic, yet forms a nation the patriotism 
 of whose members is proverbial. 
 
 "Each of the twenty-two Cantons is divided 
 into 'administrative districts,' each ruled by a 
 prefect in the French manner, appointed by 
 the Cantonal Authorities. Each Canton, again, 
 has its own legislature, executive and judici- 
 ary. The legislature of the Canton is com- 
 posed of representatives chosen by Cantonal 
 voters in proportion, and is thus a local parlia- 
 ment rather than a county council. All Can- 
 tons have the referendum and initiative by 
 which electors can exercise control over their 
 representatives. Twenty thousand signatures 
 are required to obtain the referendum. 
 
 "There are two Houses a Senate and a 
 
 128
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 Chamber of Deputies. Two Senators sit for 
 each Canton and one Deputy for each twenty 
 thousand inhabitants, so that Zugg has one 
 Deputy and Berne twenty. 
 
 "We have in our country, as you know, a 
 Militia based on compulsory service." 
 
 One of the most temperate and broad- 
 minded men I came across in the South was 
 Mr. S. O'Mara, a big Limerick bacon manufac- 
 turer. Of him it was said by a British officer, 
 "If all Sinn Feiners were like O'Mara, this 
 Irish question would soon be settled." 
 
 Mr. O'Mara, senior, indeed, belongs to the 
 old school, though there is reason to believe 
 that his views represent a large measure of 
 opinion in the South and West. He is an ex- 
 Mayor of Limerick, and his son is the present 
 Mayor. It was of this son he first spoke, intro- 
 ducing an episode very characteristic of Ire- 
 land in 1921. 
 
 "Before we discuss the Irish question I 
 must tell you that my son has been arrested 
 this morning by the military and committed to 
 
 129
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 prison for one week. The charge against him, 
 I understand, is of not complying with the 
 orders of the officer commanding here." 
 
 These words were spoken with dignity and 
 restraint, though it was possible to perceive 
 that the ex-Mayor felt the matter keenly. 
 
 Preliminary questions led him to say: 
 
 "The majority in Ireland would prefer com- 
 plete separation, but would accept a liberal 
 measure of Home Rule for the sake of peace. 
 We must have: 
 
 "(1) Ulster in a Dublin Parliament. 
 
 "(2) Complete fiscal autonomy. 
 
 "(3) Full control of police and full author- 
 ity, military and otherwise. 
 
 "If the proposed 'Dominion Home Rule' in- 
 cluded these provisions, then there is a very 
 fair chance of its being accepted by Ireland." 
 
 "But the British garrison, and control of the 
 ports?" 
 
 "These must go." 
 
 "And foreign relations peace and war?" 
 
 "A power of decision equal to that of the 
 other Dominions." 
 
 130
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 "May I ask how you propose to bring Ulster 
 into a Southern Parliament? I understand she 
 is adamant on the question." 
 
 "If Ulster and the Southern leaders were 
 brought together they could thresh out a set- 
 tlement among themselves. This is an Irish 
 question. England must not interfere. Once 
 get Ulster into a Dublin Parliament under 
 safeguards and she would work harmoniously 
 for a united Ireland." 
 
 "Don't you think the Government of Ireland 
 Act through the Council of Ireland offers ma- 
 chinery for a permanent settlement?" 
 
 "No interest is taken in the Partition Act 
 here because it divides the country, because 
 that division would become accentuated instead 
 of the reverse, and because it would express 
 itself through the boycott of Belfast, as at 
 present, and by means of retaliation between 
 Protestant and Catholic." 
 
 "In your opinion are the Irish people hostile 
 to England, or only to the British Govern- 
 ment?" 
 
 "At present Ireland is hostile to England. 
 
 131
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 But the Irish people are generous and forget 
 their wrongs very quickly." 
 
 "Are a majority behind the militant move- 
 ment, then I mean the policy of the I.R.A. 
 or is this tacitly or compulsorily supported?" 
 
 "It is tacitly supported or put it stronger." 
 
 "You must remember," Mr. O'Mara added, 
 in words almost identical with those I had 
 heard in Cork, "you must remember, National- 
 ists have become Sinn Feiners, Unionists Na- 
 tionalists." 
 
 "Are Bolshevik or foreign influences behind 
 Sinn Fein?" 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 "Or anti - English propaganda in the 
 schools ?" 
 
 "Nonsense." 
 
 "What has contributed most to bring about 
 the volte face from the war enthusiasm of 1914 
 to the present state of affairs ?" 
 
 "The bad faith and methods of the British 
 ^Government." 
 
 "I suppose you don't hold a very high opin- 
 
 132
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 ion of Mr. Lloyd George and Sir Hamar 
 Greenwood?" 
 
 "Lloyd George is a trickster; Greenwood's 
 a rare fraud." 
 
 "Who do you consider the best administra- 
 tors Ireland has had in your time?" 
 
 "Lord Carnarvon was the best Lord Lieu- 
 tenant we have had; Morley and George 
 Wyndham were the best Chief Secretaries. 
 Balfour was very ruthless, but he passed some 
 good measures for Ireland." 
 
 "Looking back at the 1916 Rebellion, what 
 good do you think it did your country?" 
 
 "The Easter Rebellion was condemned as a 
 useless waste of life by many Irishmen. It 
 raised the cry of 'England's tyranny' cer- 
 tainly ; it gave the impetus to violence. But it 
 was the executions afterwards that left a 
 rankling bitterness." 
 
 "In fact, it was a mistake because it was a 
 failure?" 
 
 "No. The rising of 1916 gave a new soul to 
 Ireland; she found her soul that day." 
 
 "You have given me your opinion as to the 
 
 133
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 terms upon which peace can be secured. 
 What are the first steps to be taken towards 
 realising it ?" 
 
 "The first step to peace is the removal of 
 the Irregular Forces of the Crown; the sec- 
 ond, a definite offer by the British Govern- 
 ment." 
 
 "Would it be a lasting peace or would the 
 cry for a Republic break out again in a few 
 years' time?" 
 
 "Given the conditions which I have outlined, 
 Ireland can be counted on as a loyal friend. 
 England, you must bear in mind, is our natural 
 market for eggs, butter, bacon, cattle, and 
 linen. We might find other markets for our- 
 selves, but England is the natural one and 
 always will be." 
 
 When I reached the Town Hall I found the 
 atmosphere disturbed. Only the Town Clerk 
 himself an exuberant Irishman seemed 
 happy. 
 
 "You've heard about our Mayor?" he que- 
 ried. 
 
 134
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 I answered in the affirmative, and was told 
 that the Deputy-Mayor and Corporation were 
 even then in Council assembled, but would be 
 pleased to receive me in a few minutes. 
 
 Meanwhile several citizens of Limerick 
 dropped in a local journalist who said that it 
 was "a bad day for Ireland when the shoot- 
 ings began," and a banker who announced that 
 "Ireland does not want violence or complete 
 separation. They are forced on her." 
 
 Incidentally, I came across the "Scheme for 
 Scholarships from Primary to Secondary 
 Schools in County Limerick," issued by the 
 Limerick County Council. The following ex- 
 tracts seemed to throw some light on a matter 
 about which equal authorities had flatly con- 
 tradicted one another : * 
 
 *Too much importance must not be attached to the tone 
 and apparent significance of this Scheme which required the 
 approval of, and doubtless had been approved by, that great 
 Department of State affectionately known in Ireland as "The 
 Department," or the "D.A.T.I.," and officially as the Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. 
 This Department was created by Irishmen in 1898 and with 
 it is bound up the whole recent history of Agricultural and 
 Technical Training in Ireland, together with that of Sir 
 Horace Plunkett's Co-operative Movement. 
 
 135
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 II. CONDITIONS OF TENURE. 
 
 (A) The Primary School from which the 
 pupil comes must have adopted the Gaelic 
 League Education Programme as modified by 
 Bail Eireann, viz. : (a) Irish to be the official 
 school language, i.e., Irish to be used for Roll 
 Call, orders, prayers, etc.; (b) Irish to be 
 taught for vernacular use to each child for at 
 least one hour per day; (c) Irish history to be 
 taught to all pupils. 
 
 (B) The Secondary School which the pupil, 
 or his parents or guardians, choose for the 
 holding of a Scholarship shall have adopted 
 (a) the Gaelic League Programme for Sec- 
 ondary Schools, viz., Irish to be taught to all 
 pupils for vernacular use; (b) Irish history to 
 be taught to all pupils; (c) all Examination 
 Papers to be set in both English and Irish, 
 each pupil examined to have permission to 
 answer in whichever of the two languages he 
 may think fit. In examinations in a foreign 
 language the use of that foreign language to 
 be permitted in setting and answering ques- 
 
 136
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 tions. The pupil to be taught at the Second- 
 ary School with a view to Matriculation at 
 the N.U.I. 
 
 III. TENURE OF SCHOLARSHIPS. 
 
 The tenure of these scholarships shall be 
 four years, provided the pupil shows satisfac- 
 tory progress as tested by: (a) the periodical 
 school examination; (&) the annual school ex- 
 amination at the end of the academic year; 
 (c) the special test in Irish and Irish history 
 applied by the Committee's Examiner at the 
 end of each year; (d) a satisfactory report 
 from the Examining Board of a Gaelic Col- 
 lege, where the pupil will spend a session in 
 the summer of each year at the expense of 
 the Committee, until certified as able to be 
 taught through the medium of Irish. The 
 courses for the Special History Examinations 
 are: At the end of First Year Story of Ire- 
 land (tested Bilingually) of Beata Naom Pa- 
 draig Bilingual. At the end of Second Year 
 Mitchel's History of Ireland and Stair na 
 hEireann Part I. (Eogan o Neactain). At the 
 137
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 end of Third Year Last Conquest and Sean 
 A'Daimis, "Eire" (Conan Maol). At the end 
 of Fourth Year The Irish Wars, by J. J. 
 O'Connell, M.A., and Saothar ar Sean O'Coal- 
 laig, T.D. 
 
 ****** 
 
 SYLLABUS. 
 
 The following is the list of subjects for examina- 
 tion (written and oral) as may be necessary: 
 * * * * * 
 
 AN GAEDILGE. "Scadna," 50 pp., Part I. (Reading 
 and Dictation). "Aids to Irish Composition," by the 
 Christian Brothers (the whole book). 
 
 IRISH HISTORY. "Catechism of the History of Ire- 
 land," by W. J. O'Neill Daunt, Chapters I. to XVIII. 
 inclusive. Christian Brothers' Irish History Reader. 
 ***** 
 
 ENGLISH. Poetry "The Four Winds of Erin," 
 E. Carbery. Literature in Ireland. Irish Verse 
 Selected, by Yeats. Prose The Letters of Wolfe 
 Tone ; a written Letter or Essay. Reading and Dicta- 
 tion. 
 
 ***** 
 
 (Signed) MAURICE FITZGERALD, 
 
 Secretary to Committee. 
 
 By the time I had digested this document, I 
 was informed that the Deputy-Mayor and Cor- 
 138
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 poration were ready to receive me. In the 
 Council Chamber sat four gentlemen at the 
 farther end of a long table. They were it 
 was evident coldly furious. 
 
 "He had seven days to pay the fine, but they 
 took him on the first day." 
 
 The speaker, Councillor Casey, was a short, 
 dark man with a metallic voice. He belonged 
 to a type I had not so far met a Sinn Fein 
 Labour leader. In reply to my inquiry he con- 
 tinued vigorously : 
 
 "Lorriesf ul of soldiers were sent to his house 
 this morning, and they dragged him away. 
 Look at this " 
 
 He handed me a typewritten note : 
 
 "H.Q., Limerick. 
 
 "Sir, The military Governor has ordered me to 
 request you kindly to attend at the New Barracks 
 on Monday, April 25th, at 11.30 a.m. 
 
 "(Signed) J. EASTWOOD, 
 
 "Major. 
 "For Staff Captain, 18th Infantry Brigade." 
 
 "Should not the military come to the chief 
 citizen of a town instead of summoning him 
 as if he was their servant?" 
 
 139
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "Limerick's mayors have been unfortu- 
 nate ?" I suggested. 
 
 "Mr. O'Mara, junior, is the third mayor we 
 have elected within sixteen months. O'Cal- 
 laghan was mayor for twelve months, Clancy 
 for six weeks. 
 
 They were both murdered during Curfew 
 hours on the same night." Councillors Griffin 
 and O'Flynn spoke almost in the same breath. 
 "A month earlier a District Police-Inspector 
 had been murdered as he came from church." 
 
 "Speaking for Limerick," the Deputy-Mayor 
 remarked impressively, "I say that if we're 
 given an open tribunal of our fellow-citizens, 
 we can even to-day bring the murderers of 
 O'Callaghan and Clancy to justice." 
 
 For a few minutes we switched off to gen- 
 eral politics. Of the prospects of a settlement 
 the Corporation's spokesman would only say, 
 "We leave ourselves in the hands of our elected 
 representatives." 
 
 "But," he added, "the whole of Ireland is 
 behind President de Valera. Of Dail Eireann, 
 let me remind you, thirty-two members are in 
 
 140
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 prison, eight in America, and thirty-three at 
 liberty. But it functions! You ask why we 
 stood out of the 1917 Convention? I'll tell 
 you in a word : because we didn't believe Lloyd 
 George was sincere. And we don't believe he's 
 sincere to-day. Let him call Irish representa- 
 tives together let him stop this damnable per- 
 secution of our people let him make a definite 
 offer." 
 
 "Damnable persecution?" 
 
 "Yes damnable persecution," Councillor 
 Griffin echoed hotly. "Our Member, Mr. Coli- 
 vet, was arrested two or three months ago. No 
 charge was preferred against him and none 
 has been made yet. This man has been kept in 
 Rathkeale Prison in solitary confinement, suf- 
 fering from a skin disease and being used as a 
 hostage." 
 
 "There are twenty ladies in prison," declared 
 Councillor O'Flynn. "Perhaps you do not real- 
 ise that, sir. And two thousand five hundred 
 Irishmen all told." 
 
 "What about Ulster?" " One wanted to get 
 back to the original point. 
 
 141
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "We will give Ulster safeguards," the Dep- 
 uty-Mayor replied. "But she must come into 
 a Dublin Parliament." 
 
 "The religious question, then?" 
 
 "With us in the South religion makes no 
 difference. In the North they're bigots." 
 
 "Has Bolshevism anything in common with 
 Sinn Fein?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "The present state of affairs is ruining the 
 town," declared one Councillor. "Fairs and 
 markets are prohibited; on market days the 
 country people are turned back." 
 
 From the Town Hall I repaired to the New 
 Barracks. 
 
 The Commandant of the 18th Infantry Bri- 
 gade, Colonel Cameron, C.B., C.M.G., saw me 
 at once. He said : 
 
 "What happened is this. The Mayor was 
 not in the first instance arrested. I wrote him 
 a polite note" the one already reproduced 
 "asking him to come up and see me. I wanted 
 to point out to him that I understood he had 
 
 142
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 broken a Martial Law regulation. To this he 
 sent a disputatious reply. I therefore had to 
 order him to come up to barracks. He did not 
 comply and I was therefore forced to arrest 
 him. He was fined 10, with the alternative 
 of a week's imprisonment He preferred to 
 do the week." 
 
 If the Deputy-Mayor and Corporation had 
 been outspoken, the Colonel-Commandant and 
 his Staff were no less frank. The implication 
 upon the Black and Tans in connection with 
 the affair of the Mayors was, I could see, bit- 
 terly resented. 
 
 "Civilian trials," said Colonel Cameron, "are 
 useless. You cannot get at the truth. Wit- 
 nesses perjure themselves till they're blue in 
 the face. I am satisfied, however, that Clancy 
 and O'Callaghan were opposed to murder and 
 that it was largely due to them that there had 
 been no attack on the Crown Forces in Lim- 
 erick for six months prior to the murders on 
 March 7th, 1921. It is a fact that outrages 
 began again exactly a month after their 
 death." 
 
 143
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 I took the opportunity to a$k further ques- 
 tions. Colonel Cameron, whose command 
 comprised the counties of Limerick, Clare, and 
 Tipperary, said that it might take four years 
 of guerilla warfare before the I.R.A. could be 
 rounded up. 
 
 "But we're making progress. Reprisals, 
 you must see, are inevitable. For instance, the 
 other evening a bomb was thrown at three 
 R.I.C. men and a soldier walking in Carey 
 Street. I have therefore ordered Curfew for 
 7 p.m. in that area of the town. When an out- 
 rage takes place, I order the house or houses 
 of local inhabitants who are known Sinn 
 Feiners to be burnt." 
 
 "Is feeling in the town bitter against the 
 military?" 
 
 "The fact is, as I have said, that our men 
 got on admirably with the people of Limerick 
 until the murder of the two Mayors. From 
 that date onwards things have woken up. 
 Until then I drove about in my car without 
 an escort. I would not do so now." 
 
 I inquired as to the character of the Black 
 
 144
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 and Tans, pointing out certain matters that 
 had been alleged against them. 
 
 "I do not say," replied the Colonel-Com- 
 mandant, "that they have always been all they 
 might be or that there have not been black 
 sheep in the flock. We had to augment the 
 Forces in a hurry, and it was inevitable that 
 discipline should not at first be up to the old 
 R.I.C. standard. What you may not be aware 
 of is that the old Irish police feel far more 
 strongly about Republican outrages than the 
 English recruits. English people don't realise 
 that, and it is not fair to impute any and every 
 outbreak to the new English recruits. . . . 
 Well we have done a lot of weeding-out, and 
 discipline is now greatly improved." 
 
 In conclusion, Colonel Cameron used a 
 memorable phrase: 
 
 "These people dwell too much in the past. 
 We must wash out the past before we start 
 afresh." 
 
 My last call but one on this busy day was at 
 the gaol. 
 
 145
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Armed with an introduction to the Gov- 
 ernor, I hoped to see the incarcerated Mayor 
 himself. My request was, however, definitely 
 refused, inasmuch as even his wife could not 
 by prison regulations be permitted this pleas- 
 ure. Nor, I was informed, was Mr. O'Mara, 
 jnr., himself in a mood to receive strangers. 
 He was at that moment engaged in a discus- 
 sion on May-fly fishing with an officer of 
 H.M.'s Forces. 
 
 Nothing could have been more open-minded, 
 more anxious to place at the disposal of an in- 
 quirer such facilities for acquiring informa- 
 tion as were at their disposal than the G.O.C. 
 and his Staff. It was indeed by special per- 
 mission of the former that I was enabled to 
 talk with two interesting denizens of the In- 
 ternment Camp. 
 
 One of these was Michael Colivet, aforemen- 
 tioned as M.P. for Limerick City and member 
 of Dail Eireann, the other a picturesque per- 
 sonality with a rebellious history. In Easter 
 Week this latter personage had served as a 
 captain; during the present campaign he had 
 146
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 been associated with various ambushes, and 
 upon one occasion (it was alleged), having 
 been ordered to fill in a trench, had refused, 
 saying that such a task was beneath the dig- 
 nity of an officer of the I.R.A. On the whole, 
 he thought he would prefer to be shot. 
 
 I was escorted down to the Prison Camp by 
 a Staff officer in plain clothes who (I noticed) 
 carried a revolver in his coat pocket. We trav- 
 elled in a motor-car with an armed guard. 
 The prisoners were confined in a series of 
 wired-in pens like poultry-runs some forty 
 yards long by twenty broad with a wooden 
 living-hut in the centre of each. About a 
 dozen were allotted to each hut. Before being 
 admitted through a regular thicket of barbed- 
 wire to the enclosure and introduced to its 
 occupants, I was made to promise not to hold 
 them in conversation for more than twenty 
 minutes. 
 
 Outside the "thicket," two prisoners were 
 talking to their friends well-dressed ladies, 
 respectable-looking men who might have been 
 schoolmasters or clergymen in mufti. 
 147
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 The Republican officer, H , came out of 
 
 the hut first. He is a brawny, jovial-looking 
 fellow, not unlike the late James Connolly, his 
 appearance of hearty and open-hearted good- 
 humour belying some of the deeds in which he 
 is alleged to have taken part. He wore a shirt 
 without a collar, which gave him a more raffish 
 appearance than he perhaps wears in civil 
 life. 
 
 He was reluctant to discuss politics. He 
 said: 
 
 "I don't know why I'm here. They've held 
 me six months now, and no trial. They've 
 never even made any charge against me ex- 
 cept that I'm a member of an illegal organisa- 
 tion the I.R.A. My position is simply this: 
 It is my duty to do what Dail Eireann tells me 
 to do. They are the elected representatives of 
 the Irish people. I merely obey them. We are 
 independent people ; we are not the slaves of a 
 foreign power. . . . But here comes my friend. 
 He will do the talking." 
 
 Michael Colivet impressed me as had other 
 Sinn Feiners with his youth, his alertness, and 
 
 148
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 a certain guarded diffidence. He is a small, 
 clean-shaven, sandy-haired man who does not 
 look a day more than twenty-six. He has a 
 self-possessed, quiet manner a different sort 
 altogether to H . 
 
 Much of what he said corresponded to the 
 sentiments of Barry Egan and Liamon de 
 Roiste. "That is a matter for Dail Eireann," 
 he rapped out repeatedly and with the promp- 
 titude of a formula. 
 
 "We are not to be treated like little chil- 
 dren and told our punishment or told to be 
 good," he protested. "Any concession or ne- 
 gotiation has got to come from Dail Eireann, 
 the elected representatives of the people, and 
 must be agreed upon as between one nation 
 and another." 
 
 I inquired whether he considered the Repub- 
 lican movement to be representative of the 
 whole people. The (perhaps) obvious answer 
 came: 
 
 "The Irish people had the opportunity of 
 voting for Constitutional Nationalism if they 
 preferred it in 1918. They voted Sinn Fein 
 
 149
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 by an overwhelming majority. You don't want 
 anything plainer than that, do you ?" 
 
 Colivet was obviously reluctant to answer 
 direct questions directly or to commit himself 
 
 in any way. The soldier H smiled, and 
 
 assented to whatever his friend said. But on 
 one or two points both were voluble. 
 
 "Look at this miserable place! Only two 
 hours exercise a day. Penned up like animals. 
 And no charge against us ! They won't tell us 
 what we're here for. But they use us as 
 hostages. A cowardly act, that, to protect 
 themselves 1" 
 
 "They let us see our friends well, prac- 
 tically whenever we want to, I'll say that for 
 
 them," H conceded. "And they don't feed 
 
 us too badly." 
 
 It was the using as hostages that rankled. 
 They came back to it again and again that 
 and the uncertainty of the charge hanging 
 over them, and of the period of their impris- 
 onment. 
 
 "I could get released to-morrow if I was 
 
 150
 
 TALKS IN LIMERICK 
 
 willing to promise certain things," H 
 
 asserted; "but I'm not." 
 
 "Time's up!" the Corporal of the guard 
 called out. . . . 
 
 It had seemed a very brief twenty minutes.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 NOTHING remains more strange, and 
 nothing more sinister, in a long history 
 of Irish crime than the murders of the two 
 Mayors of Limerick. Strange and sinister in 
 particular, because here are two of the most 
 prominent citizens of one of the largest towns 
 in Ireland done to death in the same night 
 and to this day none shall say by whom. 
 
 The embittered accusations of the Deputy- 
 Mayor and Corporation, followed by Colonel 
 Cameron's cryptic words, set me investigating : 
 
 "Speaking for Limerick, I say that if we're 
 given an open tribunal of our fellow-citizens, 
 we can even to-day bring the murderers of 
 O'Callaghan and Clancy to justice." 
 
 "The face is Clancy and O'Callaghan were 
 both quiet, decent, moderate men, and we 
 wanted them. The I.R.A. did not." 
 152
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 Between these two statements and their un- 
 derlying significance lies a story so peculiar, 
 so tortuous and difficult and underground as to 
 suggest the days of the Star Chamber or of the 
 Inquisition rather than of the year 1921 : a 
 world of intrigue, of punishment or reprisal, 
 of accusation and counter-accusation, of sus- 
 picion, and semi-certainty then again doubt. 
 Behind the veil truth. Then Death. . . . 
 Who shall unravel the truth, or will it ever be 
 unravelled? Will it ever see the light of day? 
 
 For with investigation of this half-forgotten 
 crime the plot thickens. Whereas the military 
 swear one thing and the civil another, a third 
 party of unimpeachable probity, acquainted 
 alike with local conditions and with the de- 
 ceased men, believes that the murders were 
 committed by Sinn Fein itself. Mrs. O'Cal- 
 laghan's letters to the Press have spoken in an 
 opposite sense. A special correspondent of 
 one of the great London newspapers, present 
 in the city at that time and well acquainted 
 with the victims, agrees with her view. The 
 motive alleged, a reprisal by the police for the 
 153
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 murder one month earlier of a police inspector 
 on his way to church. 
 
 All but convinced by this evidence when I 
 repaired to the New Barracks, I there met with 
 a flat denial. A commentary upon the state of 
 the town, though an inexplicit one, stares one 
 in the face almost opposite the barrack gates 
 writings on a wall: 
 
 "PUG. MQ. HOAN. REBES. 'Up B. &T. f " 
 
 "The best proof of what we say," urged a 
 Staff officer, "is to be found in a fragment of a 
 letter addressed to the Commandant, I.R.A., 
 Limerick, and captured during a raid on a 
 Dublin house. The sense of it is : 
 
 "We've sent you four hundred rifles. 
 What are you doing with them ?" 
 
 The word of an officer of H.M.'s Forces can 
 no more easily be doubted in 1921 than in 1914. 
 
 "The murders followed very soon after, and 
 from that day things have 'woken up.' As to 
 154
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 their having taken place during curfew hours 
 upon which fact great stress has been laid 
 everybody knows that on certain nights of 
 the week it is, or was, possible to slip through 
 the curfew patrol. Our men cannot be every- 
 where at once. I may add that of two Black 
 and Tans who were definitely named as hav- 
 ing taken part in the crimes one was abroad at 
 the time, the other on in-lying picquet." 
 
 A great deal more was said. There was a 
 deal of mystery in the night of the happenings 
 signals by lighted cigarette from dark door- 
 ways, a sentry's failure to challenge and his 
 denial that it was his duty so to do, men seen 
 by a doctor (after the second murder) hurry- 
 ing across Sarsfield Bridge, and so forth. I 
 went into the story in some detail because it is 
 the particular one among many of its kind in 
 Ireland which came my way. The very fact 
 of Sinn Fein being suspected of having done 
 to death two of its leading representatives 
 under such ferocious circumstances, seems to 
 shed a shaft of baleful and unforgettable light 
 into the underworld of that time. 
 155
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Indeed, one does not need to be convinced 
 that the real history of the country during two 
 years past is little more than half -known now, 
 that much of it probably never will be known, 
 that a man has to dig out and unearth the truth 
 for himself, that, in short, the recent condi- 
 tion of the country has been a "history within 
 a history." 
 
 While we were still discussing these matters 
 a plain-clothes constable entered the room and 
 announced that he had just run to earth and 
 captured two of the rebels concerned in the 
 bomb-throwing at policemen a few nights be- 
 fore. They had been found hiding in a hay- 
 loft five miles from the city and had not offered 
 resistance. 
 
 "That'll be a swinging job, won't it?" 
 
 "Perhaps. . . ." 
 
 This led to the subject of the I.R.A., its 
 weapons and methods. 
 
 In a corner of the room where the Staff 
 worked stood two large wooden boxes con- 
 taining various sorts of ammunition captured 
 
 156
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 from the I.R.A. Taking up a handful I found 
 split bullets, soft-nosed bullets, together with a 
 curious wire contrivance stripped from the 
 cartridge and capable of inflicting terrible 
 laceration. A bandolier and a green peaked 
 cap of the I.R.A. hung on a peg. Half a dozen 
 rifles of patterns varying from the old Mauser 
 and Winchester Repeater to the Lee-Enfield 
 (Mark VI and VII) and a sort of blunderbuss 
 that looked like an elephant gun, stood against 
 the wall. The ammunition included German, 
 French, Service, and Nos. 5 and 6 sporting 
 cartridges. 
 
 "The swine!" exclaimed an officer. "If I 
 caught, one of them with these things on him 
 I'd shoot him in cold blood with the greatest 
 pleasure." 
 
 He seemed to mean that. 
 
 The organisation of the Republican Army, 
 I learnt, was based on Brigade Areas com- 
 manded by commandants, with captains con- 
 trolling bands of twenty-five to fifty men. A 
 Brigade Area might be called upon to find a 
 given number of men for a particular opera- 
 157
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 tion. There were also Flying Columns which 
 operated mainly in the mountainous districts, 
 avoiding main roads and never staying more 
 than two days at one place. They might de- 
 scend suddenly upon a district to carry out a 
 raid or ambush, and would then quarter them- 
 selves upon the inhabitants of that district, de- 
 manding board and lodging and making the 
 peasants responsible for their safety during 
 their stay. 
 
 "We don't worry much about the rank and 
 file," the Intelligence Officer continued. "It's 
 the leaders we want, rather particularly Mike 
 Collins and Richard Mulcahy. Your average 
 ambusher is an ignorant peasant who has a 
 gun put in his hand, is herded to the scene of 
 an ambush, and told to loose it off. That sort 
 bolts at the first opportunity. Here, in Lim- 
 erick, which is an I.R.A. Brigade Area, we 
 have about six hundred volunteers. We know 
 them all. The most desperate characters, the 
 men definitely 'on the run/ keep to the moun- 
 tains. Presumably they enjoy the life. Any- 
 way, they know they'll be shot if they're 
 158
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 caught, and I suppose they reckon on getting 
 amnestied one day if they're not." 
 
 The subject of hostages was again brought 
 up. I mentioned what Michael Colivet and 
 H had said. 
 
 "Oh! they loathe it, I know," was the Court- 
 Martial officer's comment. "But what do you 
 expect? I'm not going to get done in with 
 these chaps skulking behind their barbed-wire 
 entanglements ! Some of them sulk on the job 
 and some of them make the best of it in a sport- 
 ing spirit. I always rag them a bit. 'Well, 
 Paddy/ I say, 'who's for it to-day you or 
 me? Because if I go, you're going, too, you 
 know.' And sometimes they laugh and some- 
 times they look murder. But they know we 
 mean it. . . ." 
 
 An extract from a secret operations report 
 undated and captured at an I.R.A. headquar- 
 ters gives the situation from another angle. 
 
 ". . . We took cover in an old rath and waited 
 
 there about twenty minutes. One of our men crawled 
 
 out about three hundred yards to a civilian and learned 
 
 from him of a certain way out that was clear of the 
 
 159
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 enemy. We moved for this point and at last got clear 
 of our pursuers. 
 
 "The Officer Commanding fought bravely and 
 seemed to die a happy and painless death. He was at 
 Confession and Communion with all our men only 
 three days before. The wounded man struggled on 
 gamely. It was impossible to render first-aid owing to 
 the heavy fire of the enemy, and he bled a great deal. 
 
 "The Brigade-Quartermaster displayed extraordi- 
 nary coolness and daring throughout, and were it not 
 for him and the O.C. we were done for. 
 
 "THE TRENCHING OF ROADS 
 
 "The trenching of roads which is now carried out 
 all over Ireland has, in many districts, rendered the 
 enemy's road transport practically useless. An ex- 
 ample of this was given in the Firies area of Co. Kerry 
 in the last days of April. A decision to round up all 
 Republican troops in the area was taken by the local 
 Military Headquarters. The operation was to have 
 lasted several days, and a great body of troops were 
 to have been employed upon it. Information of this 
 operation reached the local Republican Headquarters, 
 and a few hours before it was timed to take place all 
 the roads in the area were deeply trenched. The first 
 party of the enemy arrived soon afterwards in four- 
 teen lorries, but was unable to reach the district 
 marked for the round-up. After an unsuccessful 
 effort to overcome the difficulty the enemy withdrew 
 without a single prisoner." 
 
 160
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 It was at Limerick that I read the Bishop of 
 Killaloe's astonishing Easter Pastoral, breath- 
 ing fire and brimstone against England; also a 
 letter from a Co. Waterf ord parish nurse, tell- 
 ing a long tale of persecution at the hands of 
 Sinn Fein on account of her ministrations to 
 the wives and families of the local R.I.C. 
 
 More illuminating than either of these, how- 
 ever, because verifiable, was the case of W., a 
 skilled mechanic, and his wife. To hear their 
 story was to throw another shaft of light into 
 this underworld of Ireland. Of this man the 
 Protestant Bishop of Limerick has written: 
 
 "I entertain the highest opinion of his character. 
 He is a skilful workman ; and in health could earn his 
 living well." 
 
 I found the old couple occupying the back- 
 bedroom of a small cottage. W., a good-look- 
 ing bearded man, 69 years of age, was lying in 
 bed, the pallor of his features testifying to a 
 long and grievous illness. He told his story 
 with a dignity and restraint that were im- 
 pressive. 
 
 161
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 He is an Englishman. Having been advised 
 thirteen and a half years ago that the milder 
 climate would be beneficial to his wife's health, 
 he migrated to Tipperary, where he had been 
 offered work. The couple afterwards moved 
 to Co. Limerick, where they dwelt for the next 
 eleven years. They found themselves the only 
 English people in the place. They set up a 
 shop, and were at one time earning as much 
 as 5 and 6 a week. They got on well with 
 their neighbours, taking no interest in politics, 
 but keeping outside them as much as possible. 
 
 The first change occurred after the 1916 re- 
 bellion. A subtle hostility began to manifest 
 itself among the neighbours; their custom fell 
 off; when they went into other shops, they 
 were told English customers were not wanted. 
 In 1917, when Mr. de Valera visited the dis- 
 trict, definite signs of enmity became apparent. 
 One day a procession passed their windows, 
 shouting "Bloody Protestants !" "To hell with 
 the King!" 
 
 Thereafter the women became particularly 
 hostile. "The women are always worse than 
 162
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 the men," said Mrs. W. A woman, who had 
 hitherto carried water for the old couple, was 
 threatened that if she did not desist her house 
 would be burned. At this time W. wrote di- 
 rect to Sir John Maxwell, and for a while the 
 persecution ceased. 
 
 A climax came, however, one evening in 
 September, 1918, when two men passing W., 
 who was smoking his pipe at his shop-door 
 "waiting," as he described it, "for his dog 
 to come in" gave him a push, saying "Garn 
 yer bloody Englishman!" "I righted myself 
 and said, What do you mean by this sort of 
 behaviour?' One of them gave me a violent 
 kick in the stomach." 
 
 "I heard him cry out," interposed Mrs. W. 
 (who was now weeping) "and ran to the door. 
 I found him lying on the ground in great 
 pain." 
 
 The couple then reported the matter to the 
 police, who advised them to take no notice. 
 A Roman Catholic priest, who happened to be 
 president of the local Sinn Fein court, recom- 
 mended them to bring their case before that 
 
 163
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 tribunal. They replied they would rather die 
 than do so. 
 
 By this time all their friends had deserted 
 them with the exception of the clergyman. 
 Having nowhere to go they were unable to 
 leave the place, and had, in any case, no means 
 of moving their possessions. Internal com- 
 plications had developed, as a result of the kick, 
 and W. was operated on three times within 
 twelve months. In the spring of 1920 they 
 were warned by their landlord, a Sinn Fein 
 saddler, to leave, with the words "If you don't 
 clear out, you'll be chucked out." They were 
 in a very sad plight. Fortunately the police 
 did not at once serve the warrant for eviction, 
 on account of the doctor's certificate, but the 
 matter was taken to a Sinn Fein court. 
 
 Finally in July, 1920, they received informa- 
 tion that they were to be turned out on the 
 following Sunday night. The military must 
 have received information to this effect, be- 
 cause they came on Saturday night with a 
 lorry and guard, and conveyed the couple to 
 Limerick, giving them one hour's notice to 
 
 164
 
 GLIMPSE INTO AN UNDERWORLD 
 
 pack up. W. managed to obtain a small 
 amount of work with a firm in the town. 
 When this ceased he attempted to get work 
 of his own, but without success. Later in the 
 year he underwent another operation for can- 
 cer, the result of his internal injuries. 
 
 The couple finally wrote to Lord French for 
 assistance, and received a visit from two police 
 sergeants, but nothing more was heard of the 
 matter. They found good friends, however, 
 in the military and among the ladies in the 
 country around, and were eventually enabled 
 to move to Dublin, where the man went into 
 hospital. After a short interval they were 
 brought over to England, where treatment is 
 being carried on, with, it is hoped, some chance 
 of success.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 APRIL 30th was market-day in Birr. 
 And from about ten o'clock onwards 
 small donkey-carts, driven by ragged-looking 
 peasants and containing poultry, vegetables, a 
 calf, potatoes, eggs, a pig, came bowling into 
 the little town. There were farm-wagons 
 laden with hay, seed-corn, roots and other 
 produce, there were governess-carts driven by 
 farmers' wives, and motor-cars; there were 
 bicyclists. Altogether Birr presented a lively 
 appearance. . . . 
 
 The heat-wave continued. The sun scorched 
 the Duke of Cumberland's column in the centre 
 of the square, that column which everybody 
 told you was any day likely to tumble down. 
 The roadway was an inch deep in dust; they 
 had pulled down the blinds in the County Club. 
 Two or three sleepy Black and Tans lounged 
 
 166
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 on the steps of the yellow building opposite 
 which was their home. 
 
 In the picturesque chestnut-shaded street 
 which leads from the square to the Castle 
 hay-wagons. Follow the narrow twisting lane 
 between the outer castle-wall and a row of 
 grey cottages potatoes. Rows of donkey- 
 carts, rows of donkeys. Turn into a yard on 
 the left-hand side pigs. Pigs and a few sheep 
 and a throng of red-faced, gaitered men talk- 
 ing pigs. Pigs talking too, squealing, grunt- 
 ing pigs, protesting pigs. Further along the 
 street tethered in couples, fluttering, helpless, 
 and tumbled together in feathery squawking 
 heaps upon the pavement, crammed into crates 
 poultry. Hens gasping with heat, gasping 
 for air a cruel sight. At the corner of the 
 main street calves. Calves netted and snared 
 in little carts, and groups of dealers or farmers 
 or smallholders talking calves. Confusion, too, 
 confusion of backing carts, lazy donkeys, 
 herded cattle, and bawling men and women. 
 Where the pavement broadens, forming a kind 
 of cut de sac eggs. Heaps and heaps of 
 
 167
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 eggs mountains of eggs housewives buying, 
 and selling eggs. Among the eggs, squatting, 
 with their backs against the wall, two ancient 
 gipsies, looking like automatised mummies 
 done up in rags the man tending his feet. 
 Then vegetables, and all along the main street 
 such throngs of respectable-looking farmers, 
 farmers' wives and disreputable-looking peas- 
 ants, that one chances a kick from an ass and 
 walks in the roadway. The shops, too, 
 crowded. A couple of soldiers stroll by, a 
 couple of R.I.C. men. People look curiously 
 at you sometimes, make remarks to each other 
 about you. You find yourself counting the 
 number of green ties, green scarves, green 
 costumes. . . . 
 
 The market-luncheon begins at two. There 
 assemble in the dining-room of the inn a young 
 Church of Ireland clergyman, two farmers, a 
 commercial traveller. All know each other, all 
 are evidently in the habit of meeting weekly. 
 They reply to your "good morning" and re- 
 gard you with suspicion. 
 
 Conversation dwindles, then ceases alto-
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 gether. Essays upon the weather, the market, 
 the future of the crops, and the architectural 
 peculiarities of Birr with special reference to 
 the Duke of Cumberland meet with monosyl- 
 lables. Thwarted and still-born, you retire: 
 silence reigns except for the glad symphony of 
 eating. 
 
 Finally you become conscious of definite, 
 pointed hostility. . . . 
 
 Such is Birr : Birr which lies on the borders 
 of King's County and Tipperary, Birr which 
 was the first place come to outside the martial 
 law area, and therefore the first market, Birr 
 which is sometimes called Parsonstown. 
 
 Here definitely one leaves the South, enter- 
 ing the less actively rebellious but more prob- 
 lematical Midlands. 
 
 "This is a Constitutional island in a sea of 
 Sinn Fein," observed a citizen as we strolled 
 along the quiet road that leads to Galway 
 under the walls of the castle in the cool of the 
 evening. "Birr and the district around it have 
 always been loyal, chiefly, I suppose, because 
 it's been a garrison-town since time immemo- 
 169
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 rial, because a lot of the soldiers and officers, 
 too have married and settled down here. The 
 town has not suffered in any way touch wood ! 
 our local Black and Tans are a well-behaved 
 lot, and we've never so far had curfew. At 
 the Local Government election, out of twenty- 
 one elected candidates, only four were Sinn 
 Feiners. You can't say that of many towns in 
 Ireland!" 
 
 I agreed. 
 
 "But," he went on, "it's only like that in 
 Birr itself and within a radius of two or three 
 miles. Tullamore you'll find a much warmer 
 spot. The political change there has only come 
 about in the last few years though. In 1914 
 North Tipperary was so pro-British as to be 
 positively Jingo. Hundreds of men volun- 
 teered to join up and were told to go home 
 again. Now all Tipperary, as you know, is 
 red-hot Sinn Fein." 
 
 "What are the chief reasons for the 
 change?" a usual question. 
 
 "The blunders of the Government. If the 
 Asquith Act had been applied in 1914, even 
 170
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 though Ulster had fought it, all this trouble 
 would have been avoided. War or no war, it 
 would have been worth while." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 "Well, the Easter Rebellion, and the execu- 
 tions after it, brought the whole country to its 
 feet. Coming to later days, the repeated execu- 
 tions in Cork and Dublin and the rule of the 
 Crown Forces have made for greater and more 
 bitter resentment every day." 
 
 "By 'Crown Forces' I suppose you mean the 
 Black and Tans?" 
 
 "The whole country is up in arms against 
 them, but in Tullamore and Mullingar you'll 
 find there's feeling against the Regulars too. 
 This feeling may rankle, it may last that 
 depends on the settlement. A more dangerous 
 thing is that the younger generation are grow- 
 ing up in an atmosphere of hatred of England, 
 with recrimination as a birthright and revenge 
 as a legacy." 
 
 "You think there is dislike of England 
 then?" 
 
 "There is. And it's increasing because it's 
 171
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 felt among us that the English people could 
 put a stop to all this if they chose could insist 
 on a settlement. As to the Government, it's 
 hopelessly mistrusted. Whatever the Govern- 
 ment does must be preceded by a pledge or 
 pledges of sincerity." 
 
 "By the Government you really mean Lloyd 
 George and Hamar Greenwood?" 
 
 The worthy fellow laughed. 
 
 "We've a saying here, 'Don't call it a lie, call 
 it a Greenwood !' " 
 
 "And the Prime Minister?" 
 
 "Words, all words!" 
 
 "You see, these people don't understand Ire- 
 land," he explained. "Behind all the trouble, 
 you've got to recognise an almost complete 
 divorce of character and idea and point of view 
 as between the average Englishman and the 
 average Irishman. Individually they like one 
 another but nationally they've never under- 
 stood one another perhaps never will." 
 
 "The Government of Ireland Act " 
 
 "Nobody has any use for the Government 
 of Ireland Act hereabouts. It will fail. Finan- 
 
 172
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 daily it's unsound, the system of nomination 
 of the Senate is all wrong, the principle of 
 partition fatal. The Bill's not worth talking 
 about." 
 
 "What sort of settlement can you visualise 
 then?" 
 
 "Dominion Home Rule perhaps, but it must 
 include Ulster and fiscal autonomy. Yes 
 something like a Provincial Federative scheme 
 on Swiss lines is a conceivable basis of solu- 
 tion, but economically you cannot put Munster 
 and Connaught on a par with Leinster and 
 Ulster, you know." 
 
 While we were discussing the difficulties of 
 a good relationship being established between 
 England and the United States with the Irish 
 Question still "in the air," a lorry-load of sol- 
 diers singing and shouting, with rifles levelled, 
 approached at furious speed and dashed by in 
 a cloud of dust. 
 
 My friend, who had shown signs of uneasi- 
 ness, said, 
 
 "You've got to be. careful of these gentry 
 when they're like that." 
 173
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 I questioned him about the economic condi- 
 tion of the countryside. 
 
 "King's County, of course, is mainly tillage 
 and therefore prosperity is less pronounced 
 here than in dairy countries, but still it's been 
 very great." 
 
 There was, so far as he knew, no Sinn Fein 
 propaganda in the schools and no Russian 
 money behind the Sinn Fein movement^ 
 
 "But," he added, "there's plenty of Amer- 
 ican." 
 
 My next conversation at Birr was with a 
 certain John Dooley, member of the King's 
 County Council and of the 1917 Convention. 
 
 He began to speak at once of this abortive 
 but significant event incident of recent Irish 
 history. 
 
 "The result of the Convention split on a hair. 
 Apart from the Nationalists, who wanted an 
 immediate grant of fiscal autonomy, only the 
 Ulster lot stood out of the agreement and 
 the Ulstermen were obstructionist. What the 
 Government asked for was 'substantial agree- 
 174
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS- 
 
 ment.' That is exactly what they got. So 
 they promptly turned down our Report be- 
 cause it was not unanimous." 
 
 'The fact is," my Nationalist friend went 
 on disgustedly, "Lloyd George only thought of 
 the Convention in order to fool people and 
 keep them busy. Can you wonder that a Gov- 
 ernment led by him is mistrusted?" 
 
 "What do you think of the prospects of a 
 settlement?" 
 
 "Ulster remains as ever, the crux of the 
 question. But I am convinced that if a Parlia- 
 ment sat in Dublin, Ulster would soon want to 
 come into it. The Partition Act is useless if 
 only because nobody in the country wants it 
 except Antrim, Armagh, and Down. Far from 
 making for a united Ireland, under it North 
 and South would steadily drift apart. You can 
 see for yourself that the Council of Ireland 
 is unfairly composed twenty representatives 
 of the South and twenty of the North ! Under 
 the Act two sets of officials would be needed, 
 so that half the country's income would be 
 wasted on running its machinery. Have a 
 175
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 referendum in the Ulster counties for partici- 
 pation in the Northern or Southern Parliament 
 that} might point a way out of it." 
 
 "And fiscal autonomy?" 
 
 "There should be free trade between Eng- 
 land and Ireland, and a mutually-chosen Com- 
 mission could sit to decide what duties are to be 
 imposed on foreign goods." 
 
 "You see under present conditions," Mr. 
 Dooley continued, "the cleavage between North 
 ancl South is being accentuated every day. 
 Take the Agricultural Board, for instance. 
 There you have a semi-official body drawn 
 from the whole of Ireland, a body that has 
 always worked very well up till now. Now it's 
 a farce." 
 
 "What in your opinion is the shortest way to 
 peace?" 
 
 "Raise Martial Law and remove military 
 government. Give us fair treatment, I say, 
 and the present bitterness will soon be for- 
 gotten." 
 
 "Is this bitterness anti-English in origin or 
 anti-Government ?" 
 
 176
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 "There's no personal hostility to English 
 people here but there is resentment, deep re- 
 sentment, that they do not help Ireland or 
 interest themselves in her difficulties. As to 
 the present policy of the Crown, all moderate 
 people are being alienated by it. Every Union- 
 ist of note in this district, for instance, has 
 become a Constitutional Nationalist. The old 
 Nationalists have become Sinn Feiners." 
 
 The words were almost identical with those 
 so often reiterated in Cork. 
 
 "All the older men in this county are Nation- 
 alists, and no Nationalist will have the Parti- 
 tion Act at any price. Make up your mind 
 to that !" 
 
 I mentioned the recent appointment of a 
 Roman Catholic Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 'The question of his religion is of no polit- 
 ical significance," was Mr. Dooley's rejoinder., 
 "We don't care tuppence what religion a man 
 professes. Religion and politics are essentially 
 different things in Southern Ireland." 
 
 On the subject of local conditions, he said: 
 
 "Farmers are well-off enough. There is no 
 177
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 emigration, so their families do the work free. 
 Unemployment is about normal, but the work- 
 ing classes are badly off really, for work is 
 spasmodic. There's very little buying and sell- 
 ing. Shopkeepers want to keep their retail 
 stocks low." 
 
 A noticeable characteristic of this placid 
 oasis in the heart of stormy Ireland was its 
 normal daily and social life, the apparently 
 well-to-do contentment of its inhabitants. In 
 the market-square of an evening there was 
 always a busy going to-and-fro. Black and 
 Tans played football with the local youths, 
 young ladies in white tennis frocks might be 
 seen riding homeward on bicycles or starting 
 up their cars. Cows strolled casually through 
 the streets after milking. 
 
 I called upon a local squire, and found a 
 charming country place with its equipment of 
 lawns and gardens and a park, permanently 
 inhabited. Nowhere in the country districts 
 did the landed gentry appear to be disturbed 
 in their normal habits by local conditions. 
 
 A well-known resident of the district drew 
 178
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 my attention to the record of Birr in the war. 
 Birr contributed a higher proportion of volun- 
 teers to the Army than any other town in 
 Ireland. "Early in 1914," he said, "twenty- 
 six out of thirty-seven of my employees joined 
 the Army." 
 
 That religion as a factor in daily affairs 
 cannot altogether be discounted outside Ulster 
 is shown by the following incident: 
 
 Before an Urban District Council in King's 
 Co. came three applications by its employees 
 under the Government grant to meet the extra 
 cost of living. One of the applicants was a 
 Roman Catholic, the other two Protestants. 
 The population is predominantly Catholic, the 
 proportion when the matter came to a vote 
 being eleven to nine. 
 
 Every Catholic member of the U.D.C. had 
 been zealously mobilised beforehand to ensure 
 this majority. In the upshot the Catholic ap- 
 plicant was awarded an increase of 60 under 
 the grant, while the two Protestants were 
 awarded <5 each. 
 
 The views of the resident in question proved 
 179
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 to be similar to those of his neighbours, though 
 he claimed that the majority of King's Co. 
 farmers are really Conservative, but dare not 
 say so. They had enjoyed under the Union 
 unprecedented prosperity, though now perhaps 
 beginning to realise that they were in for some 
 lean years. 
 
 "The South does not want a change, but 
 people would be glad to accept a generous 
 measure of Dominion Home Rule if clearly 
 offered. The best solution of the Ulster ques- 
 tion would be a plebiscite. Fiscal autonomy 
 to be granted to Ireland, control of the Army, 
 Navy, and foreign policy to remain as here- 
 tofore, the Irish contribution to the National 
 Debt to be agreed upon. But," he added, "hos- 
 tility to England is growing, though not in this 
 district. The Black and Tans have been quiet 
 here, but unless they are brought under disci- 
 pline elsewhere there can be no peace in this 
 land." 
 
 One of the most picturesque personalities I 
 came across in this part of Ireland was Arch- 
 deacon Ryan, of Birr. Indeed, there was not 
 
 180
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 a little in common between this fragile-looking, 
 shy-mannered and unworldly priest and the 
 steel-fibred leaders of Sinn Fein whom I had 
 talked with in Cork. There was the same 
 how shall one say? delicate adjustment of 
 mind, softness of voice and manner, strain of 
 poetry, faint perfume of idealism which molli- 
 fies, or appears to, the rigid nationalism. 
 
 "Look back at our history have we much 
 to thank you for?" These were the Arch- 
 deacon's opening words. "Of course, we have 
 some things to thank England for, nobody 
 would deny it, and in some ways you perhaps 
 have been badly treated. But you've offered 
 us in the last twenty-one years only a fraction 
 of what is our right." 
 
 I inquired to whom in modern years he con- 
 sidered Ireland owed most. 
 
 "The best Chief Secretary we ever hacl 
 was Morley; the best Lord Lieutenant, Lord 
 Spencer." 
 
 Archdeacon Ryan's words grew in intensity 
 as he went on. 
 
 "If Irishmen thought they could get a Re- 
 181
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 public now, they would be glad of it. Given a 
 free election, the majority of the people would 
 undoubtedly vote for remaining outside the 
 British Empire. Not that there is any per- 
 sonal dislike of Englishmen, but there is and 
 always has been hatred of British rule. We 
 are a separate nation. Wouldn't you like to 
 be master in your own house ? ... If English 
 people want to understand us, they ought to 
 read more history." 
 
 He paused. Then : 
 
 "Nobody trusts the present Government. 
 The Partition Act is a useless farce; nobody 
 wants it. A terrible account lies at Sir Edward 
 Carson's door." 
 
 "But the country has prospered under the 
 Union is probably better off now than it has 
 ever been?" 
 
 "Farmers and shopkeepers are well off here 
 in King's Co., not the common people." 
 
 The Archdeacon went on to say that wages 
 were 2 a week as compared with 14^. before 
 the war, but work was not regular and all 
 men had idle periods, especially agricultural 
 
 182
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 labourers, masons, slaters, carpenters, painters. 
 There was no building going on ; there were a 
 hundred unemployed in Birr alone. If wages 
 were two and a half times greater, prices were 
 nearly the same, e.g. * 
 
 Milk Sd. a quart. 
 
 Eggs 3s. a dozen. 
 
 Meat 2s. a Ib. 
 
 Potatoes 2s. a stone. 
 
 Coal (retail, per cwt.) . 5 a ton. 
 
 "Potatoes," he said, "are seldom the sole diet 
 nowadays. American meat is nearly always 
 eaten, though it is of poor quality. Bread and 
 tea are staples. A certain amount of porter 
 is drunk, but there is practically no drunken- 
 ness. 
 
 "Peat, by the time it is dug and carried, is 
 nearly as dear as coal. Nowadays only about 
 one man in twenty has a donkey-cart of his 
 own." 
 
 Questioned on another point: 
 
 "The story of anti-English propaganda in 
 
 "This was in May. 
 183
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 our schools is a damnable lie," said Arch- 
 deacon Ryan emphatically. "Nor do our 
 women interest themselves in politics. They 
 have too much else to do." 
 
 "Can you suggest, then, how peace can be 
 brought to this unhappy country?" 
 
 "If we can get fair play we shall not be on 
 strained relations with our neighbours," was 
 the reply. "Let us set up housekeeping on 
 different lines, and we shall get on very well. 
 But the last five years will leave a bad mark 
 in the history of English administration." 
 
 "By that you mean ?" 
 
 "The first step to peace is the control of the 
 Crown Forces. If you let loose a lot of young 
 men without character or control to do as they 
 will, of course they get out of hand and break 
 the law." 
 
 "ButtheI.R.A.?" 
 
 "The I.R.A. is inspired by pure patriotism. 
 The ideals of the After- War were largely re- 
 sponsible for the rapid evolution of Sinn Fein 
 out of the old Nationalism. Those ideals Eng- 
 
 184
 
 TALKS IN THE MIDLANDS 
 
 land has forgotten. But those are our ideals 
 
 still." 
 
 Archdeacon Ryan's last word was: 
 "You cannot kill the soul of a people. You 
 
 can no more do so than I can kill your soul."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 A MAY DAY sun baked down upon the 
 market square of Birr. It was early yet, 
 and Sunday; the square was empty but for a 
 few stray folk on their way to Mass. I hoped 
 to walk the twenty-two miles to Tullamore by 
 tea-time and, allowing for accidents, to cover at 
 least half the distance in advance of the noon- 
 day heat. 
 
 The whitewashed and dun houses, the new- 
 looking church on the first straight stretch out 
 of the town were quickly left behind. There 
 followed a bosky park-like country, uphill and 
 down, the road ribboning ahead in long steady 
 gradients. Green ridges rose on either hand, 
 masses of yellow-prinked gorse filled the hol- 
 lows, hawthorn in blossom and the whitish pink 
 of crab-apple trees here and there broke the 
 
 186
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 green of hedgerows and fir-trees. Green was 
 the prevailing tone of the countryside a green 
 so vivid and fresh and dew-sparkling as to 
 suggest that a brand-new super-beautiful world 
 had been born in the night. 
 
 Mountains dreamed in the east. Slieve 
 Bloom dreamed in blue-grey majesty of mist, a 
 hazy mirage lay upon the peaks, a bluish film 
 of heat above the intervening country. After 
 the first two or three miles wide, flat spaces 
 of brackish-brown bog opened up between the 
 road and the mountains. 
 
 A few people passed at first three men rid- 
 ing bicycles townwards, a man and a boy driv- 
 ing a donkey-cart with a load of peat, a man 
 herding cows from one field to another. All 
 nodded or said "Good morning." Two wild- 
 looking women came up behind in a donkey- 
 cart, followed by some girls and men on bi- 
 cycles, who turned down a side-road, being 
 apparently on their way to Mass at a neigh- 
 bouring village. 
 
 Three miles out a wide, deep trench had been 
 dug across the road a trench just wide enough 
 
 187
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 and just deep enough to wreck any vehicle that 
 should attempt to compass it. A long, empty 
 stretch between the bog and the hillside fol- 
 lowed, at the end of which three holes, of the 
 size and depth of shell-holes, had been dug 
 triangular-wise in the roadway, leaving a nar- 
 row pathway for the foot-passenger, but ensur- 
 ing certain perdition to bicycle or car. 
 
 The chief characteristic of the remaining 
 seven miles to Kilcormac was its extreme lone- 
 liness. Only at one place, some children were 
 sprawling outside a broken-down farmstead 
 which otherwise betrayed no semblance of life, 
 although one suspected that its inhabitants 
 were watching from the interior. 
 
 For miles at a stretch the only sign or sound 
 was the hovering shadow and far-away whistle 
 of a sparrow-hawk, the "ting-ting" of green- 
 finches and chaffinches in the hedgerows, the 
 melancholy piping of redshank from the bog, 
 the cries of black-headed gulls which, doubtless 
 nesting beside some nearby tarn, continually 
 swept and swooped above the road. Yellow- 
 hammers vied in hue with the brilliant gorse, 
 
 188
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 butterflies flickered along the grassy border. 
 Goats, cows, and donkeys completely indepen- 
 dent of control made this their feeding-ground, 
 or lay asleep in the dust of the road. 
 
 A group of young men Standing in the sunny 
 Kilcormac village street eyed me suspiciously. 
 I stopped at the inn, the landlord of which, to 
 my surprise, served me with a will, pressed me 
 to sit down and rest in his cool stone parlour, 
 and finally refused my offer of payment. 
 
 I decided, after a quarter of an hour's rest, 
 to press on and break the backbone of the 
 journey. After crossing a bridge that spanned 
 a gurgling rocky stream, signs of Republican 
 activity became more apparent. Trees recently 
 felled lay by the roadside, some trenches that 
 had been dug had evidently been filled in. I 
 came suddenly up against a huge barrier. 
 
 This was at a point where the road curved 
 round the flank of a hill and was shaded by 
 trees. Four heavy beech-trunks interlaced with 
 boughs had been thrown across it, forming a 
 twelve-feet high obstacle not dissimilar to, 
 though far more substantial than, a fence at 
 
 189
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Aintree. To circumvent this I climbed through 
 a hedge, crossing the corner of a field, and 
 joined the road through another hedge. The 
 white walls of a farmhouse gleamed through 
 foliage at a short distance; three hundred 
 yards beyond the main obstacle a stiff fence of 
 boughs had been erected, and fifty yards be- 
 yond this again was a newly dug trench. Of 
 human or other being there was neither sight 
 nor sound, the crow of a cock being the only 
 sign that the farmhouse was inhabited. 
 
 But a mile further on a shifting patch of 
 blue yividly contrasted with the hillside's emer- 
 ald green. A dark-haired handsome girl ac- 
 companied by a child came down to the road- 
 side. 
 
 "And where might you be malting for?" 
 
 "Tullamore." 
 
 "Have you your fiddle with you?" 
 
 The girl looked meaningly at my rucksack. 
 
 "Are you not the fiddler from Tullamore? 
 Will you play us a tune?" 
 
 "I am travelling through Ireland. Perhaps 
 I shall write an account in the newspapers." 
 
 190
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 "Is that so ? Will you give me one then ?" 
 
 To be taken by the same person for a local 
 fiddler and a vendor of newspapers is not every- 
 body's experience. Our colloquy continued for 
 some minutes. When I continued my journey 
 the girl and the child were laughing amazedly, 
 still unable to make me out. . . . 
 
 After a while I sat down to rest near a cot- 
 tage. An unkempt peasant woman brought me 
 a glass of milk and, as the publican had done, 
 refused payment. At the back of the dark 
 cabin's interior I espied a young man lying on 
 a bed. Half a mile farther on a figure stood 
 on the skyline at some distance from the road, 
 watching me intently. It continued to watch 
 until I was out of sight. 
 
 My feet began to blister, thirst increased, and 
 AC heat raised a mirage over everything. An- 
 other four miles brought me to a public-house 
 at cross-roads. Half a dozen youths leaning 
 against the wall of the inn cast anything but 
 friendly glances at me and answered my ques- 
 tion as to the distance to Tullamore gruffly. At 
 this moment five young men on bicycles rode 
 
 191
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 up from a side-road and, dismounting, joined 
 in conversation with the original group. From 
 the lowering glances directed at me, I realised 
 that I was the object of their attention, but 
 decided that there was no use in hanging about. 
 After walking a few hundred yards, I had an 
 instinctive intimation of some one following. 
 Sure enough, as I looked over my shoulder, a 
 man came into sight round a bend in the road. 
 I waited for him to come up. A middle-aged 
 peasant, he spoke with an air of surly suspicion 
 and inquired sarcastically whether I had had 
 much difficulty in getting along the road. I 
 replied that I had encountered obstacles. We 
 walked alongside for nearly half a mile, speak- 
 ing laconically of the crops and the weather. 
 He then turned into a field and left me with, 
 as I thought, a rather sinister grin. Feeling 
 certain now that something was "in the wind," 
 I plodded on apprehensively, not looking back. 
 Another half-mile brought me to a place where 
 a large fir-wood on one side of the road faced 
 a bog on the other. I suddenly heard the rustle 
 of bicycle-wheels close behind and, looking 
 192
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 round, was confronted by the five young men 
 on bicycles. 
 
 "Stop! Hands up!" 
 
 They leapt off and laid their bicycles by the 
 road. The leader of the party, a dark, gipsy- 
 faced fellow of about twenty-two, with a mop 
 of matted hair and a somewhat ferocious ex- 
 pression, seized my arms with a policeman's 
 grip, while another, who closely resembled him, 
 dragged off my rucksack with no light hand 
 and passed it to his companions. All the young 
 men wore caps and dark suits of clothes. My 
 pockets were turned out, my purse, containing 
 several 1 notes and other trifles, being taken. 
 I was then ordered to sit down by the roadside. 
 
 The half -hour that followed was much less 
 than pleasant. Innocuous tourist though I 
 was, friend of Ireland though I believed myself 
 to be, the little slip of paper with which I had 
 armed myself down-country alone seemed to 
 stand between me and a peremptory fate. For 
 to the rest of my identifications and references, 
 which filled a large envelope, my captors paid 
 no attention whatsoever. My eyes wandered 
 
 193
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 repeatedly to the bog and my thoughts to the 
 number of people who had lately been found 
 in bogs with brief notes attached to them. On 
 a parallel road just a week ago (I graphically 
 recalled) a police inspector had been kidnapped 
 and had not been heard of since. 
 
 Meanwhile the five Republicans were busy- 
 ing themselves with my mundane possessions. 
 The contents of the rucksack lay in the road, 
 my papers (and incidentally my pyjamas) were 
 being dismembered. I could hear one of the 
 party (who seemed to be a sort of Intelligence 
 Officer) reading aloud the wording of my pre- 
 cious slip of paper. Another seemed profound- 
 ly interested in Justin McCarthy's "Outline of 
 Irish History" ; a third was perusing the hiero- 
 glyphics in my note-book. A long muttered 
 conversation followed, during which the only 
 words that caught my ear were "man" and 
 "road." 
 
 At last the leader turned from the group. 
 "I think the man's all right." 
 
 I was thereupon handed back the contents of 
 my pockets and curtly told to count my money, 
 
 194
 
 THE TULLAMORE ROAD 
 
 which (out of politeness) I omitted to do (but 
 which I afterwards did and found correct). 
 I now noticed that the three subordinate mem- 
 bers of the party were decent, respectable-look- 
 ing youths of ages between eighteen and 
 twenty-one. They helped me to put my things 
 together and lifted my rucksack onto my 
 shoulders. 
 We parted with mutual "good afternoons." 
 
 Two miles short of Tullamore, the bridge 
 spanning a swift-flowing little river had been 
 blown up so thoroughly demolished at the 
 centre, in fact, as to leave a chasm too wide 
 to jump. The only alternative was to wade the 
 stream no unpleasant task for swollen feet 
 and to make a detour through some birch 
 woods to a point where it was possible to join 
 the road again. 
 
 That was the last physical obstacle. But, 
 walking into Tullamore rather conspicuously 
 dusty and a traveller, battery after battery of 
 coldly hostile glances were directed at me by 
 men who scowled as I passed, scowled after 
 195
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 me", scowled up at the window of the inn where 
 I sat at dinner. Everybody seemed to see in 
 an English stranger a potential spy. At first I 
 was inclined to put this feeling down to an 
 undue sensitiveness induced by the events of 
 the day; but the veracity of it was confirmed 
 next morning when I was openly reviled by an 
 apparently sober and respectable Irishwoman 
 on the railway station platform. The first re- 
 marks that caught my ear were : "I said I will 
 not be walked over. I can only die once, and 
 I'll be happy to give my life for Ireland." The 
 lady's choicest sentiments then became unprint- 
 able ; suffice it to say that everything not good 
 enough for Irishmen was "good enough for 
 English dogs," and that the majority of her 
 sentences ended with the exhortation, "Shoot 
 me if you like! Yes trample on my dead 
 body!"
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 OWING to a recent outrage, curfew at 
 Tullamore was at 9 p.m. Up to within 
 a few minutes of this hour the streets were full 
 of people taking the air. When, however, two 
 lines of Black and Tans appeared advancing 
 concentrically along the principal streets with 
 rifles at the trail, everybody fled homeward. 
 Only here and there impudent young women 
 defied the majesty and might of the Crown up 
 to and even beyond the last moment, answering 
 stern admonitions to "get home in quick time" 
 with laughter and sallies of wit. That it was 
 not altogether a laughing matter, however, the 
 sharp "crack" of a rifle presently attested. 
 
 On Monday, May 2nd, I took train to Clara, 
 and thence resumed the road to Mullingar. 
 This twenty-two mile walk was uneventful ex- 
 
 197
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 cept for losing the way and straying into the 
 Kilbeggan district. 
 
 A succession of long, narrow, and very lonely 
 lanes brought me once again onto the main 
 road near Castletown. 
 
 There were occasional distractions. Two 
 boys raced me for a couple of miles in a 
 donkey-cart, their handicap being an ass that 
 had made up its mind to proceed in the op- 
 posite direction, mine increasingly sore and 
 painful feet. The attitude of such people as I 
 did meet was sometimes shy and suspicious, 
 more often friendly never actually hostile. 
 At a wineshop-cum-grocer's at Horseleap they 
 furnished bread, butter, and jam, and would 
 accept payment only for a drink of ale. A little 
 farther on I came upon a lonely cottage evi- 
 dently inhabited, but closed and silent as the 
 grave. Being uncertain of the way owing to 
 an embarrassing lack of sign-posts, I knocked 
 at the door. A faint rustling sound followed, 
 but not until some minutes had elapsed did a 
 woman show a scared face at the window and 
 
 inquire what I wanted. 
 198
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 "Am I on the road to Castletown, please?" 
 
 She appeared at the door, holding by the 
 hand a very small boy. 
 
 "We don't see many strangers here," she 
 explained. "And I'm all alone." 
 
 The singular absence of life throughout this 
 tract of country, and indeed throughout all the 
 country districts of Ireland, was very striking. 
 The regulations restricting the use of motor- 
 cars were, of course, mainly responsible for 
 this, the only motor-vehicles encountered being 
 bakers' and provision vans and an occasional 
 Government or County Council hauling-trac- 
 tor. The country itself was wild and steeply 
 undulating. There were occasional crops of 
 barley and oats, but the landscape consisted, 
 for the most part, of pasture grazed by cows 
 and geese. When the sun came out between 
 showers, gorse, commons, bog, stone walls, 
 patches of bracken, hillsides tangled with 
 growth of furze, fir, and rowan, larch-woods 
 and spring-fed streams, melted in a glorious 
 confusion of haphazard colour, yellows, blues, 
 greens, browns, and deepest indigo of distance, 
 
 199
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 offering an impression of extraordinary con- 
 fusion and charm. 
 
 At Mullingar the May cattle fair had just 
 ended, and the beasts were being driven away 
 by their ragged herds; only a few lean red 
 bullocks stood in the centre of the main street 
 until such time as their keepers should finish 
 regaling themselves in the public-houses. That 
 drink flowed pretty freely on these occasions 
 was announced to all-comers by a gentleman 
 in rags who stood throughout the whole of 
 one day on the curb of the pavement, alter- 
 nately shouting, singing at the top of his voice, 
 and remonstrating with himself for his con- 
 duct. To watch him in his happiness was a 
 joy in itself. Whenever a grown-up lady 
 passed he bowed with extreme deference; but 
 if it was a young girl he winked, a roguish 
 look came into his eye, he sniggered. Any 
 friend who passed he invited to join him in a 
 glass; and if nobody passed he shouted to the 
 world at large that it was glorious to be 
 drunk, that it was ecstasy or words to this 
 effect. . . . 
 
 200
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 Mullingar, politically, is one of the quietest 
 towns in Ireland. 
 
 I learnt this from John P. Hayden, twenty- 
 one years Nationalist Member of Parliament 
 for South Roscommon, a leading resident of 
 the town. An acute and nowadays dispassion- 
 ate observer of current politics, Mr. Hayden 
 was in some ways better able to estimate the 
 aspirations and ambitions of his countrymen 
 at Mullingar than had been William O'Brien 
 at Mallow. 
 
 He spoke at any rate with the calm deliber- 
 ation of a man who looks back upon the past 
 with regret but without rancour. His point of 
 view disclosed itself in the very first sentence 
 of a long conversation. 
 
 "If I did not think the Irish people would 
 be satisfied to-day with self-government within 
 the Empire my whole life would be a lie." 
 
 I asked him kindly to diagnose the present 
 state of the country. 
 
 "There can be no doubt Ireland is behind the 
 Sinn Fein movement," was his reply, "though 
 201
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 five years ago the names of Eamon de Valera, 
 Arthur Griffith, and Michael Collins were un- 
 known, even to Irishmen. Nevertheless, I 
 regard this as one of the most tragic periods 
 in our history. It has been a history of mis- 
 takes. The roots of Irish discontent never 
 really lay in poverty but in a desire for free- 
 dom that is the mistake England made. Na- 
 tionalism linked the Land Question with the 
 National Question the people to become own- 
 ers. That is the mistake we made." 
 
 It was natural, perhaps that we should dwell 
 on the past. 
 
 "Lecky's 'History of Ireland* has made 
 many a rebel. You say 'Ireland is slow to for- 
 get,' but our wrongs are not righted, so we 
 haven't a chance to forget. Half a century of 
 constitutional agitation for Home Rule has 
 failed to obtain it. The General Elections of 
 74, '85, '86, '92, '10, and '18 all gave a clear 
 Irish verdict for Home Rule, a verdict which 
 has been endorsed by our own and foreign 
 peoples in other lands. Isaac Butt called a 
 Conference of Protestants and landowners, and 
 
 202
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 defined Home Rule. Parnell kept down the 
 physical force element and insisted on Consti- 
 tutional methods. The present physical move- 
 ment is purely patriotic and largely results 
 from a conviction of treachery." 
 
 "What actually brought about the sudden 
 change?" 
 
 "The bitterness of repeated disappointments 
 and the formation of the Ulster Volunteers by 
 Carson one of the greatest enemies of his 
 country, let me say. It was Carson's men who 
 set the example of raising an armed force. 
 Sinn Fein was delighted at the opportunity of 
 following suit, and at one Sinn Fein meeting 
 three cheers were given for the Ulster leader ! 
 'If they, why not we?' was the cry. Thysical 
 force to meet physical force!' The difference 
 is that Carson professed loyalty and prepared 
 rebellion, while we declared ourselves rebels 
 and took the risk. Ireland was furious at Car- 
 son being made Attorney-General. The most 
 prominent abettors of drilling and importing 
 arms were on the Bench !" 
 
 "Who do you consider to have been the best 
 
 203
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Chief Secretary since the beginning of the cen- 
 tury?" 
 
 "Birrell. Birrell was the only Chief Secre- 
 tary we've ever had who didn't think he had a 
 right to be here. He set to work to be the last 
 of his tribe, and he very nearly succeeded." 
 
 "AndBalfour?" 
 
 "Balfour's administration resembled Green- 
 wood's. But Balfour was respected." 
 
 "Do you think anti-English propaganda in 
 the schools has had much to do with the pres- 
 ent state of affairs?" 
 
 "Not in my experience. It certainly did not 
 in my day." 
 
 "Or Bolshevism so-called?" 
 
 "Not with Sinn Fein. It may have sup- 
 ported the Irish Labour Party. Sinn Fein and 
 Labour work hand-in-hand towards a separate 
 ideal." 
 
 "Or religious differences?" 
 
 "There are no religious differences in the 
 Midlands and South. Sir Hamar Green- 
 wood's statement to the effect that 'the minor- 
 
 204
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 ity have been shot in Ireland because they are 
 Protestants is absolutely scandalous." 
 
 "The country is exceptionally prosperous at 
 the present time?" 
 
 "People are better off than before the war, 
 but enterprise is stopped and labour dearer 
 than two years ago. The minimum wage for 
 agricultural labourers has just been raised to 
 2 a week." * 
 
 "What is your opinion of the present Ad- 
 ministration?" 
 
 "Nobody trusts Lloyd George. Politically 
 he is not straight. As for Greenwood, he's 
 preposterous." 
 
 "And the Government of Ireland Act?" 
 
 "No good in its present form. The South- 
 ern Irish see in it two things: (1) Partition; 
 
 * This was the actual rate in May, 1921, which has since 
 been raised to 45s. a week in Westmeath, with a demand pend- 
 ing for 50j. At a meeting of the Agricultural Wages Board 
 held in Dublin on May 4th, 1921, an order was made fixing 
 the minimum rates of wages for male workers over 20 years 
 of age at 34j. in Group I., and 32s. in Group II., the inclusive 
 rate for cowmen, cattlemen, yardmen, and full-time herds to 
 be 37s. 6d. in Group I., and 35.?. 6d. in Group II. The maxi- 
 mum values to be placed on board and lodgings in the case of 
 adult male workers was fixed at 16s. 6d. and 14$. 6d. respec- 
 tively in both groups. 
 
 205
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 (2) Plunder. It divides the country on sec- 
 tarian lines and imposes a huge tribute on us. 
 Ireland, mind you, has to pay for all services, 
 some of which she will not control herself, 
 plus eighteen millions of money. If you say 
 that we ought to pay our share of the Imperial 
 War Debt, as Canada and Australia are doing, 
 my answer is that the choice of war or peace 
 was not left to us but it was to them. Then, 
 is it fair that six counties should have the 
 same representation as twenty-six, as in the 
 Council for all Ireland? Another extraordi- 
 nary thing about the Act is that there should 
 be a Senate in each Parliament nominated by 
 the Crown in the case of the South and elected 
 by the dominant party in the case of the 
 North?'* 
 
 "You condemn the Government's present 
 policy ?" 
 
 "The Black and Tan business has sunk deep 
 already into the national mind. But Irishmen 
 forget quickly if they are allowed to, and, given 
 a generous settlement, the whole wretched 
 affair would probably soon be forgotten." 
 206
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 "The Irish have a curious knack, though, of 
 forgetting and remembering again a century 
 or two later?" 
 
 "Only if recollection is forced upon them; 
 only if their wrongs are constantly rising up 
 and hitting them in the face. The Irish do not 
 dislike the English so much as the English gov- 
 erning classes who have wrought all the mis- 
 chief. But we hold the English people respon- 
 sible for the present, disastrous policy." 
 
 "What do you consider the shortest way to 
 peace?" 
 
 "A lot might be accomplished by the leaders 
 coming together. You never find t'other fel- 
 low so bad as you imagine him. Create an 
 atmosphere by a real offer." 
 
 "Is a man like Lord Derby welcome as a 
 mediator?" 
 
 "Lord Derby is a good man. You can trust 
 him." 
 
 "And what would you call a 'real offer*?" 
 
 "A definite offer of Dominion Home Rule 
 should be made by the British Government and 
 it would probably be accepted, though this is 
 
 207
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 less likely than would have been the case four 
 years ago." 
 
 "And Ulster?" 
 
 "It may still be possible to bring Ulster into 
 a Dublin Parliament. It could have been done 
 at the close of the Convention early in 1918. 
 The Ulster representatives might then have 
 brought the North into the settlement by say- 
 ing, 'We must give way. This thing is forced 
 on us. We'll make the best of Home Rule.' 
 But the eighteen Ulster members were only 
 delegates, not plenipotentiaries, and had to 
 carry all questions for decision to their leaders, 
 who were outside the spirit and 'atmosphere' 
 of the Conference." 
 
 "In your opinion the demand for an inde- 
 pendent Republic is not final, then?" 
 
 "Ireland would be content to remain within 
 the British Empire if given a generous meas- 
 ure of self-government analogous to Dominion 
 Home Rule." 
 
 There seemed no special purpose to be served 
 by tramping through the grazing lands of 
 
 208
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 Meath to Navan and Athboy, where I was in- 
 formed people in the thinly-populated districts 
 only want to settle down under a measure of 
 Home Rule. My feet, moreover, were in a 
 parlous state owing to the extreme dryness of 
 the roads and the longish distances covered 
 without much opportunity of hardening them. 
 
 I thus, on May 3rd, took train for the North- 
 east, being entertained throughout the journey 
 by one of those merry old Irishmen who per se 
 proclaim "Ireland a nation." 
 
 All the way he talked, laughed, and sang 
 songs, telling one anecdote after another, tell- 
 ing of how he used to play the cornet in the 
 local band, and of how his father had informed 
 him (early) that "he'd a voice like a crow or a 
 bridge falling." 
 
 He related, too, with ardour the story of the 
 intoxicated man from Portadown who found 
 himself in a railway-carriage with a priest. 
 
 "To Hell with the Pope !" shouted the Ulster- 
 man at the top of his voice. 
 
 The priest looked shocked. 
 
 "Why do you say that, my good man?" he 
 
 209
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 gently remonstrated. "Do you know His Holi- 
 ness, because I can assure you he is a very 
 nice, kindly old gentleman, who never did any- 
 body any harm." 
 
 "Well, he's got a damned bad name in Por- 
 tadown!" was the reply. 
 
 "That's your narrow-minded Northern 
 bigots!" cried my companion, roaring at his 
 own joke, "the men you're going to meet." 
 
 He presently opened a Dublin paper and 
 became serious. 
 
 "Ah ! John Traynor they've hanged him." 
 He took off his hat. "He's joined the souls of 
 those who've died for Ireland." 
 
 Dundalk in Co. Louth is a dirty red-and- 
 white town with a considerable tanning and 
 leather industry. It is also a hotbed of Sinn 
 Fein. And it was here I joined the high road 
 from Dublin to Belfast. 
 
 I stayed one night. There could be no doubt 
 that the town was at this time what is uncom- 
 fortably called in Ireland "waking up," which 
 
 210
 
 THE ROAD TO ULSTER 
 
 meant that agents of the I.R.A. had made their 
 appearance in the locality. Their attentions 
 so far had been confined mainly to inflicting 
 punishment for infringements of the boycott. 
 Only a day or two before rolls of Belfast cloth 
 had been taken out of a shop and burned in 
 the main street. There had also been a raid 
 on a bank, and one or two attacks on police 
 barracks. In the ten miles to Newry, I found 
 that over four of them the telegraph wires 
 had been systematically cut; and where the 
 beechwoods fall steep to the road at Ravens- 
 dale a bridge had been damaged and the road 
 holed. A fine sporting country, this East 
 Louth, with its gay streams alive with trout, 
 its great woodlands teeming with wild pheas- 
 ants, its stony, heathery mountains, the worst 
 walking in the world, where a man may climb 
 and stumble all day long and be alone with 
 the crow of the cock grouse, the swoop of the 
 peregrine-falcon, and the swift-falling mists. 
 A paradise of wild life, for the blue hare and 
 the deer are found high on the mountain, 
 herons and kingfishers haunt the lower 
 
 211
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 streams, the hillsides swarm with rabbits, and 
 when early winter comes the woodcock comes, 
 too, to every mossy wood and copse. Nor is 
 that all. Carlingford way, among the moun- 
 tains, you have vast stretches of snipe-bog and 
 reedy pools where gulls and wild duck nest; 
 stretches of marsh and sand, the home of 
 waders innumerable, extend to the verges of 
 the sea. . . . 
 
 I came to Newry late in a stormy afternoon. 
 Rain swept up at dusk and, driving over the 
 grey rooftops, lashed the mountain-tops of 
 Mourne. The Black and Tans were more than 
 usually active after curfew there had been 
 trouble out towards Carlingford and every 
 few minutes the big Crossley cars with their 
 dark green freights rushed past, firing occa- 
 sional shots as they went.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 NEWRY is the gate of Ulster. . . . 
 In a garden an old man paced slowly 
 up and down, up and down, rain or fine, like 
 the ghostly lovers in Thomas Hardy's poem. 
 He was, they informed me, father of sons who 
 last week had taken part in a bombing-attack 
 on the police in the main street and now lay in 
 Belfast Prison awaiting trial. That was not 
 all. Revolvers found in the father's house had 
 drawn prosecution and a fine on himself for 
 their delinquencies. 
 
 It was Sunday, and numbers of men stood 
 about the ugly streets with nothing to do. 
 That the political complexion of the town was 
 almost exactly half-and-half, with a slight Sinn 
 Fein preponderance, was to be expected; that 
 more than half the population was unemployed, 
 less so. One of a group of men standing on 
 
 213
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 the quay informed me that only one flax-fac- 
 tory was working, that there was no demand 
 for linen, and that no ships were entering or 
 leaving the port, with the exception of the 
 Liverpool steamer. Half the male population 
 was living on its unemployment dole. 
 
 I entered the Roman Catholic Cathedral and 
 found it crowded. Walking down the street, 
 the old scowls met you at one corner, but before 
 you had reached the next a young man of 
 whom you had asked the way came up and en- 
 tered into conversation apparently out of sheer 
 partiality for English society. What did I 
 think of curfew at nine? Wasn't it a shame, 
 but it didn't affect him, for he lived at Cam- 
 lough just outside the curfew area, etc. . . . 
 
 That evening I talked over dinner with a 
 Dublin Castle official employed on local busi- 
 ness, who gave a not uninteresting summary 
 of the last seven years in Ireland. The failure 
 of the 1914 Home Rule Act (he said) was the 
 direct cause of the 1916 Rebellion. Up till 
 about the spring of 1915 there was real enthu- 
 siasm for the war in Ireland, men were ready 
 
 214
 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 to join in thousands. He mentioned a review 
 of National Volunteers before Mr. Redmond 
 held in Phoenix Park late in 1914 at which 
 twenty thousand men had paraded, ready and 
 able to defend their native shores. From the 
 first, however, the War Office, acting on the 
 principle, "We don't want too many Irish 
 troops," mishandled and discouraged popular 
 feeling. Then the people began to realise they 
 had been duped, or thought they had, over the 
 Act, and that reaction set in which rose to a 
 crescendo in the Rebellion. 
 
 Lord French came to Ireland on May 6th, 
 1918, with a policy of reconstruction. He came 
 also to fight the anti-Conscription League, 
 which in spite of him triumphed. 
 
 The first murder took place on January 21st, 
 1919 (the anniversary, curiously enough, of 
 the murders of Burke and Lord Frederick 
 Cavendish), when two policemen, McDonnell 
 and O'Connell, were killed at Solloghodbeg, 
 Co. Tipperary, while escorting a load of ex- 
 plosives for blasting purposes. There had 
 previously been a campaign of intimidation by 
 
 215
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Sinn Fein, followed by a crop of R.I.C. res- 
 ignations. 
 
 "It was about this time," my acquaintance 
 said, "or a little earlier that I heard de Valera 
 speak in East Clare. There was wild enthu- 
 siasm at first, but as a speaker he was curiously 
 unimpressive. Within ten minutes the meet- 
 ing was half-empty." 
 
 Reviewing Ireland's long line of Chief Sec- 
 retaries since he had been at the Castle, he 
 gave it as his opinion that Mr. Balfour was the 
 only one who could have handled the present 
 situation with any prospect of success. 
 
 I questioned him as to the future of Ulster. 
 
 "The Northern Parliament will go on func- 
 tioning, but it will not be able to do so success- 
 fully without the Southern. The boycott will 
 become a very serious matter for Belfast. 
 Eventually, in my belief, a bargain will have to 
 be struck whereby the North will enter a Na- 
 tional Parliament under safeguards. That is 
 the only way to peace." 
 
 Next morning I set out upon the last stage 
 
 of the road to Belfast. The thirteen miles to 
 216
 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 Banbridge are signally dull. The road, flat 
 or undulating, leads through grass fields di- 
 vided by stone walls, with occasional heaths 
 and commons. The villages are whitewashed 
 or of grey stone, a little more substantial per- 
 haps than the villages farther South: there 
 were fewer, at any rate, of those melancholy, 
 broken-down cottages which are there so fre- 
 quently seen. I passed through two villages 
 and by a little reed-engirdled lake, lively with 
 the flights and cries of moorhens, and of nest- 
 ing wild duck. The mountains of Mourne were 
 never far distant. There were no obstacles on 
 this road, no tree-trunks, holes or trenches; 
 there was indeed no traffic except a couple of 
 motor-cars, one or two traps, and three or four 
 bicyclists during the whole journey. 
 
 And the complexion of the people changed. 
 A squarer, sturdier, fairer race populated the 
 villages. The dark eyes and hair, the swarthy 
 complexion, the striking beauty and features 
 of the Southern peasants seemed to give way 
 to a ruddier complexion, blue eyes, flaxen hair. 
 The manner and the accent changed north of 
 
 217
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Newry, taking on a certain brusqueness and 
 directness; a lingering on the r's was notice- 
 able that had more of Glasgow in it than of 
 Dublin. Yes, the human type was definitely 
 different. 
 
 And to leave Newry by the northward way 
 was to cast another look back into the turbid 
 history of the last eight years. There is a 
 five-acre field on the outskirts of the town 
 used, I think, as a sports' ground where 
 assembled one September day of 1913 a great 
 concourse of Ulstermen. Bands were playing, 
 and on one side of the ground a large wooden 
 stand was filled with the chief men and women 
 of Co. Down. Before this stand thousands of 
 Volunteers were drawn up. Now their leader 
 arrived, and the whole assembly broke into 
 great cheering; there is a glimpse of Sir Ed- 
 ward Carson lying back rather wearily in a 
 motor-car, acknowledging the salutations with 
 a wave of the hand. F. E. Smith one can recall 
 very distinctly leaning forward, curiously 
 youthful in appearance, beating out his points 
 on the rostrum in front of him. Captain James 
 
 218
 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 Craig is less vivid, but seeing him at Holywood 
 again one recaptures an impression of impreg- 
 nable stolidity. The old Lord Londonderry 
 was there, his powerful wife, the old Lord Kil- 
 morey, the Duke of Abercorn, and many oth- 
 ers. In the golden September sunshine, amid 
 the half -circle of mountains, the Ulster Volun- 
 teers marching past their political chiefs made 
 a brave effect. At the close a solemn shout was 
 raised for the pledge of the Covenant which 
 should bind all Irish Unionists together. . . . 
 Ironic echoes answer but history draws a 
 veil over the years between. 
 
 If Newry is the gate of Ulster, Banbridge 
 is quite definitely Ulster* It is an outpost of 
 Belfast. 
 
 The principal industry of Banbridge is linen. 
 Here, and hereabouts, is grown the finest flax 
 in the world; here, too, it is bleached, woven 
 into linen, and despatched to Belfast. 
 
 Before the war, the largest quantity of flax 
 was exported to Germany. Owing, however, 
 to depression in the industry caused by lack of 
 
 219
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 raw material, high prices on account of high 
 wages, and consequently reduced demand, 
 numbers of hands, as at Newry, were out of 
 work. Two thousand five hundred were re- 
 ported to be living on unemployment pay 
 within a radius of twenty miles. 
 
 Within a radius of three miles, fifty or sixty 
 families had emigrated in as many months, the 
 reason given being general depression, unem- 
 ployment, and the uncertainty of the future. 
 
 I took a walk round the town, the neighbour- 
 hood of which is ugly and flat. A crowd stood 
 on the bridge that spans the curious steep dip 
 in the centre of the main street. A young man 
 was holding forth on the subject of his soul's 
 salvation. 
 
 The best commentary on this piece of 
 egotism seemed to be a burnt-out house which 
 gapes on the main street, and down a side-street 
 two more. These are the work of the Protes- 
 tant population of Banbridge who, last July 
 year, wreaked their vengeance on Sinn Fein 
 after the murder of a native of the town, Con- 
 stabulary-Captain Smith, in Cork city. 
 220
 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 One who took part in the affair said: 
 
 "I was on the fire-brigade the first night 
 and worked hard. But when somebody cut 
 the hose I chucked it. Next night we burnt 
 the rest" 
 
 It was easy to make friends in Banbridge. 
 Slowly at first, and then with a dawning and 
 pleasant consciousness, the friendliness of the 
 place imposed itself upon one. An English- 
 man feels he is liked there, trusted, welcomed. 
 
 Two friends in especial I made partners 
 in a motor business. These hospitable gentle- 
 men entertained me at the back of their shop, 
 and after dark insisted on running the police 
 gauntlet to a nearby public house, where they 
 procured a bottle of whisky. 
 
 In a small store-room or office, lit by a can- 
 dle and surrounded by spare tyres, tins of oil, 
 and patent valve-lifters, we talked far into the 
 small hours. What politicians they were! 
 Ardent, angry, determined but not bigoted. 
 The cleverer one, a sandy-haired freckly fel- 
 low, said: 
 
 "We won't go under any Dublin Parliament. 
 
 221
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 What they want is our money. It's all very 
 well to talk about safeguards now, but this is 
 a question that involves our whole future. 
 Once give our freedom over to Catholics and 
 we shall not get it back. The thing's impos- 
 sible. We never wanted the present Act, but, 
 rebels and murderers as they are, we'll meet 
 them on the Council of Ireland, and when they 
 show they know how to behave themselves, 
 perhaps we'll think it over." 
 
 Again, said he : 
 
 "Our economic relations, you must remem- 
 ber, are absolutely bound up with England. 
 You are our market for cattle, tobacco, and to 
 a certain extent linen. We get from you mo- 
 tor-cars, agricultural machinery, and most of 
 the necessities. For us there's no other suitable 
 market." 
 
 "What about the boycott?" 
 
 "That hits the big Belfast wholesale firms, 
 no doubt, but not the main industries of Ulster, 
 which are export. Very little, bar imported 
 stuff, goes South." 
 
 222
 
 THE GATES OF ULSTER 
 
 The other fellow's contribution a fine, 
 sturdy type of Ulsterman was: 
 
 "Craig's a great man. In some ways he's a 
 better man for us at the present moment than 
 Carson. He was born among us, you see, and 
 he's always lived here. He's more in touch 
 perhaps with the practical occupations and 
 aspirations of the people. Carson, after all, is 
 a Galway man. We absolutely trust Craig, 
 and if he decides it's O.K. to meet the Repub- 
 licans well, it is." 
 
 "Politics are the curse of Ulster," com- 
 mented his friend, throwing away a cigarette- 
 end. "We talk, talk, talk politics morning, 
 noon, and night. But if necessary we'll fight."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 BELFAST 
 
 IT was evening. . . . 
 The Lough lay glooming in an uncer- 
 tain light. One or two yachts and small fish- 
 ing-smacks rode upon grey waters. The 
 Liverpool steamer made her way seawards on 
 the ebb-tide. Over yonder the hills of Antrim 
 frowned rainf ully across the smoke of Belfast. 
 
 There is a promenade between the railway 
 line and the shores of the lough at Holywood. 
 Here, on the evening of Friday, May 6th, 
 young couples strolled, inhaling the salt and 
 seaweed air. A little inland, on low, wooded 
 hills, white, substantial villas peeped through 
 the foliage of gardens. 
 
 Leaving the station, I found an avenue of 
 chestnuts leading up to the little suburb itself. 
 Half-way along this, on the left-hand side, a 
 
 224
 
 BELFAST 
 
 small crowd stood outside a building of the 
 plain, sensible sort so liberally affected by Bel- 
 fast. There was cheering, and a motor-car 
 was approaching at a foot's pace, accompanied 
 by an enthusiastic throng. The car stopped. 
 There was another outburst of cheering; from 
 the car stepped a broad, thick-set man with an 
 expansive, good-humoured face. It was Sir 
 James Craig. 
 
 He shook a policeman's hand with a grip so 
 hearty as to make the worthy fellow wince. 
 Followed by Lady Craig, he entered the Hall. 
 
 It was packed. It was packed with men and 
 women in almost equal proportions, who rose 
 on the Ulster leader's entry. When you scruti- 
 nised them individually, you perceived an Eng- 
 lish audience or a Scotch one. One thing it 
 had not the appearance of an Irish audience. 
 
 William of Orange looked down. William 
 of Orange on a white charger stared indomita- 
 bly from his vantage-point over the battlefield 
 of the Boyne. In other guises he looked at you 
 from the Orangemen's banners. He was green, 
 he was framed in scarlet, he was pointing, he 
 
 225
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 was glancing proudly; he was always proud, 
 majestic victorious. 
 
 They took their seats upon the platform 
 Sir James a little in front beside the Chairman, 
 the speakers and the candidates flanking him. 
 Behind, ladies sat, ladies whose faces betrayed 
 the excitement of an election meeting. That 
 meeting began not with a speech, but with the 
 singing of "For he's a jolly good fellow" 
 an incomplete version of this popular refrain, 
 but enough to do justice to the occasion. The 
 Chairman then suggested that the Ulster 
 hymn, "O God Our Help in Ages Past," should 
 be sung. It was sung, and the iron ring in its 
 lusty rendering seemed to carry no memories 
 across a gulf of seven years. 
 
 Sir James Craig rose. Outside, said he, 
 there would be an overflow meeting; and he 
 bade young Captain Mulholland Cambridge 
 University cricketer and candidate for the 
 Holywood division go keep it quiet. Young 
 Captain Mulholland clicked his heels, saluted, 
 and turned about. 
 
 If Sir James had a text, it was this: "You 
 
 226
 
 BELFAST 
 
 have done me the honour to elect me as your 
 leader, and" raising his voice "/ mean to 
 lead." 
 
 That was the dominant note. 
 
 He also said this : 
 
 "The British Government will let us down 
 to-morrow if they can get the smallest benefit 
 out of it." 
 
 That was Ulster's point of contact with the 
 South. 
 
 He next went on to describe the circum- 
 stances antecedent to his meeting with Eamon 
 de Valera, which had taken place two days be- 
 fore. For this moment alone the speech had 
 been curiously awaited. After the manner of 
 political leaders, he proceeded to say a great 
 deal on the subject of this event and to tell 
 nothing. 
 
 Lord Fitzalan had just come to Dublin. 
 And on this event the Ulster leader vouchsafed 
 two or three not insignificant sentences : 
 
 "The status of the new Lord Lieutenant is com- 
 pletely changed. He will keep outside politics. It will 
 be more on a par with that of Lieutenant-Governor of 
 227
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 a Crown Colony. He will simply be the King's repre- 
 sentative." 
 
 But what was said after Sir James Craig had 
 left the meeting was of greater significance 
 than anything that fell from his own lips. 
 
 There was an elderly white-bearded candi- 
 date, Mr. McBride. His mode of address is 
 not uncharacteristic of Belfast: 
 
 "We want no more meetings with de Valera, and 
 we'll have none. If I know the people of Ulster, they 
 will never consent to come in contact with men like de 
 Valera." 
 
 Tom Lavery, a Labour candidate, got up. 
 
 "I'm Tom," he said, "of County Down, not 
 Dan of Ballykinlar." That provoked laughter. 
 
 There was none when he said, "We cannot 
 go further at present with the assassins and 
 murderers of the loyal people of Ireland." 
 
 It was a wet night in East Belfast. And 
 under the rain a great industrial city is a dreary 
 place. Everybody was glad to squeeze into the 
 Orange Hall, where two of the candidates 
 were going to address the electors. 
 
 228
 
 BELFAST 
 
 Captain Herbert Dixon, M.P., spoke first. 
 He is an alert, youngish man, with a well- 
 brushed business type of mind. Sir Dawson 
 Bates, secretary of the Irish Unionist Alliance, 
 followed a downright hard-headed zealot, 
 with a clear-cut horizon and no sentiment to 
 spare. 
 
 I sat in a corner, but it was near the plat- 
 form, but while the two Northerners spoke, my 
 mind was occupied with Barry Egan and 
 Liamon de Roiste. An "incisiveness" of out- 
 look might join Egan with Dixon; they would 
 watch each other, they would fence. If it came 
 to business, Dixon's mind might win the day; 
 if to political negotiation, he would barely hold 
 his own; if to "intellect" on the whole, 
 Egan. 
 
 Bates and de Roiste are extremes, totally at 
 variance. Sir Dawson has no words to spare 
 no "moments outside business." He speaks 
 and looks and thinks and is Belfast. In de 
 Roiste there are reserves of irony, intelli- 
 gence, fertility. De Roiste is an unsounded 
 quantity. 
 
 229
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Nor can the mind at once adjust itself to 
 Ulster. 
 
 "We don't want a United Ireland, we want 
 a United Kingdom." 
 
 To one from the South that was frankly 
 a bombshell. Perhaps it ought not to have 
 been. But it was. 
 
 And the phrase was applauded; it was 
 roared at. 
 
 I noted other points in the speeches which 
 provoked clappings and "Hear, hear !" 
 
 "Some people hope that Ulster is going to 
 make a mess of things. Failure means handing 
 our bodies and souls over to Sinn Fein and the 
 Roman Catholic Church" 
 
 "We've had enough Dublin in the past. If 
 we can crush Sinn Fein at the forthcoming 
 elections, there's a bright future for Ulster." 
 
 "If murder, outrage, and the killing of 
 Protestants " 
 
 The speaker did not reach the end of this 
 sentence; he quoted instead from a despatch 
 to the Morning Post: 
 
 230
 
 BELFAST 
 
 "There is going on to-day a St. Bartholo- 
 mew of Protestants in the County of Cork. 
 These enemies of 'reformed* religion' are 
 being slaughtered." 
 
 A lady spoke. She advocated kitchen-meet- 
 ings of ten or twelve women. "Get together/' 
 she advised, "and talk over things. You know 
 what is wanted in Belfast. A large number of 
 our school^houses are not fit to house pigs 
 in. It's no fault of ours that our children are 
 taught sedition." 
 
 An ex-soldier spoke: 
 
 "Ex-soldiers, will you get fair treatment 
 from the party that said you were traitors to 
 your country? ... If you go to villages in 
 the South and West, you find miserable hovels 
 and among them magnificent chapels the 
 homes of the priests, but paid for by the peo- 
 pie." 
 
 The meeting closed on the chairman's note : 
 
 "We're not tired of the good old Union 
 
 231
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Jack. Let's keep that flag flying over the 
 North of Ireland!" 
 
 "Free-man ! Free man ! Early sixth ! Early 
 sixth!" 
 
 The newsboys shouted, the trams clanked, 
 the bells clanged. Was there ever such a place 
 for trams? Crowds ambulating along High 
 Street, shopping crowds and business crowds 
 colliding all day long at the junction of Royal 
 Avenue and Donegal Place the pivot of Bel- 
 fast. 
 
 And at night what a crush at the junc- 
 tion! "Antrim Road Shankhill Road Falls 
 Road Belmont." On the stroke of ten-thirty 
 silence. . . . 
 
 I took a tram to the Falls Road terminus. 
 Row upon row of newish brick tenement- 
 houses, of squalid shops, picture palaces innu- 
 merable, youths playing football in waste 
 spaces, and near the end of the long road a 
 small, quiet park overlooked by Squire's Moun- 
 tain. A feature of tbe journey was the names 
 above the shops Murphy, Ryan, Connor, 
 
 232
 
 BELFAST 
 
 Mahoney, Keogh, Molloy. And they, in turn, 
 accounted for inscriptions on blank walls such 
 as: "Up Dublin! Your hour is come! Be- 
 ware ! Shoot on sight ! Up the rebels !" 
 
 If Belfast's characteristic sound is the 
 clangour of the tramcar bells, her characteris- 
 tic hour is 5.30 p.m. Then the shipyard and 
 factory sirens hoot across the city. The ship- 
 yard workers crowd out of the docks until 
 Waring Street and High Street are blocked 
 with them. A similar scene may be witnessed 
 near the gates of the West India Docks, Lon- 
 don crowds of brawny men with grimy faces 
 in caps and blue overalls and shirts without 
 collars, carrying small wicker baskets. In Bel- 
 fast you have the spectacle of special trams 
 labelled "Workers only," crowded from roof 
 to floor and passing in procession at this hour 
 down High Street. 
 
 Enter the docks. And what a contrast when 
 you think of the Belfast of 1913! True, the 
 riveting hammers still beat out their lively 
 tune, and at Harland & Wolff's you find the 
 skeleton of a liner in the hands of a small army. 
 
 233
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 But opposite is the limbless trunk of a half- 
 built vessel which has long been lying on the 
 stocks. That, indeed, is the piano key of a 
 great port which has more shipping than 
 freight, which has not the money to complete 
 what it has begun. 
 
 A submarine re-fitting lies along Donegal 
 Quay ; just below the Fleetwood berth a Scan- 
 dinavian cargo-boat is newly in with timber. 
 Walking the length of an endless row of ware- 
 houses and sheds, you find half a dozen men 
 shovelling a few hundred-weight of condemned 
 grain into sacks. You see ships rusted, ships 
 apparently forgotten, ships to be sold, ships 
 without a buyer, ships that it does not pay to 
 repair. You see stagnancy. 
 
 All Belfast was talking of the Craig-de Va- 
 lera meeting, girding itself with an illusive 
 expectancy, girding sometimes at its own 
 leader, sometimes at the other leader, tending 
 to lose sight of the major question in the mo- 
 mentary issue. The first thing I asked the 
 
 234
 
 BELFAST 
 
 Finance Minister-Designate when he received 
 me, was: 
 
 "Is there any prospect of Ulster accepting 
 or devising such guarantees or safeguards as 
 may bring her into a Dublin Parliament?" 
 Mr. Pollock's energetic answer was : 
 "Why should we go to Dublin ? Why should 
 we, law-abiding citizens, associate with these 
 people who murder and outrage?" 
 
 I have seldom met a more uncompromising 
 man. I have seldom met a man whose de- 
 meanour expressed such inflexibility, such de- 
 termination. With a face strong to the point 
 of fierceness, with a dark beard and forward 
 chin, bushy eyebrows and stern eyes, the 
 Northern Government's first Finance Minister 
 can hardly be described as concessionable. 
 "Can you suggest steps to peace?" 
 "The present Act of Parliament is the only 
 form of Home Rule acceptable to us. We 
 never asked for the Government of Ireland 
 Act, but in my opinion it's a good Act, and 
 we mean loyally to work it, whatever happens. 
 
 235
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 In doing that we're only carrying out the 
 law." 
 
 "Does it make for the ultimate unity of the 
 country, in your opinion?" 
 
 "Through the Council of Ireland, yes. North 
 and South would be brought into constant con- 
 tact, and the possibilities of ultimate union are 
 on the whole great." 
 
 Mr. Pollock leant back in his office chair 
 with his thumbs hooked in the sleeve-holes of 
 his waistcoat, and stared thoughtfully in front 
 of him. 
 
 "English people are stupid," he said bluntly. 
 "Why can't they see that Ulster is the only bul- 
 wark between them and complete dissolution 
 of the British Empire? Once concede inde- 
 pendence to Ireland, and you'll have Egypt, 
 South Africa, India claiming it too." 
 
 "Can you visualize any concession in the 
 direction of Dominion Home Rule fiscal 
 autonomy, for instance?" 
 
 "On the subject of concessions Ulster is 
 adamant. We must have free trade with 
 Great Britain. We prefer to remain part of a 
 
 236
 
 BELFAST 
 
 big country in a free Customs Union. Why, 
 the first thing a Dublin Parliament might do 
 would be to impose duties on English imported 
 goods. England would retaliate you've only 
 got to read history: how, for instance, Eng- 
 land ruined the Irish wool trade in the seven- 
 teenth century. Well, we don't want any of 
 these Customs barriers. We are practical peo- 
 ple here. These Southerners are full of sen- 
 timental ideas about nationality." 
 
 "What about the boycott?'* 
 
 ''It does not hit Ulster very hard. Our busi- 
 ness with the South is only a distributing trade, 
 circulating English imported goods. Ulster- 
 manufactured tobacco goes to England, very 
 little to the South, linen mostly to the United 
 States, cattle to England." 
 
 "Feeling down South is, as you know, in- 
 tense on the subject of the Catholic workers 
 in the shipyards." 
 
 "Yes, but the religious question here is really 
 more apparent than real. The trouble in the 
 
 shipyards arose from the attitude of the Sinn 
 237
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Fein element imported from the South during 
 the war, when labour was short. When the 
 yiolence campaign began they took up an ag- 
 gressive attitude towards their fellow-work- 
 men. They also stood in the way of the 
 ex-soldiers returned to their old jobs. The 
 murder of District-Inspector Swanzy at Lis- 
 burn actually lit the match. Before the I.R.A. 
 campaign began Catholics and Protestants 
 were working happily together, as they are 
 now in other trades. Many thousand Catho- 
 lics are still employed by Unionist firms, Cath- 
 olics are still employed in the dockyards. The 
 Nationalists, you must remember, have chased 
 Protestants out of the Derry shipyards. But 
 here the hostility is to Sinn Fein rather than 
 to Catholics as such." 
 
 "Does religion play any part in education 
 here?" 
 
 "The Roman Catholic Church offers no pub- 
 lic education. We want popular education." 
 
 "There's a good deal of unemployment in 
 Belfast, isn't there?' 1 
 
 238
 
 BELFAST 
 
 "There is.* The causes are : 
 
 "(1) The difficulty of obtaining raw mate- 
 rials. Before the war seventy-five per cent, of 
 our flax of the coarser sort was imported from 
 Russia, the finer sorts from Holland and 
 Belgium. Irish-grown flax made up the re- 
 mainder. Canada now supplies some. Conse- 
 quently the cost has gone up and the demand 
 has diminished. 
 
 "(2) Ship-owners are cancelling orders. 
 Shipbuilders are delaying work, and proposing 
 to reduce wages by six shillings a week. Ships 
 lie half -finished because it doesn't pay to build 
 them. As a result men are thrown out of em- 
 ployment." 
 
 "On the whole, you see very little hope of a 
 settlement through the 'Partition Act' ?" 
 
 " 'Partition' is a political catch-phrase. The 
 fact is we cannot rely upon safeguards offered 
 by rebels and murderers." The words that 
 followed were almost identical with those used 
 
 * Ministry of Labour statistics of unemployed in Ireland 
 showed: Belfast, 28,434; Dublin, 16,291; Cork, 10,922; Lim- 
 erick, 4,188; Derry, 4,176; Waterford, 2,264. Of the total for 
 Ireland, 79,046 are men, 1,809 women, 2,585 boys, 2,845 girls. 
 239
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 by my friends in Banbridge: "When they've 
 shown they know how to behave themselves, 
 then perhaps in two or three years' time 
 we'll talk it over with them." 
 
 One morning I called at a Roman Catholic 
 college in North Belfast. 
 
 In a very small, very bare room I talked 
 with a youngish, rather shy-mannered priest 
 who introduced himself as the President. 
 From him came an echo of the South, only 
 with an added, a keener note of resentment. 
 
 "The Protestants here are bigots. We're 
 living in a prison. If I walk down the street 
 the children spit at sight of me. Our letters 
 are censored and our telephone tapped." 
 
 The first question that occurred to me was 
 as to the schools and the alleged anti-English 
 propaganda in the Roman Catholic colleges. 
 
 "There is some anti-English if you like the 
 phrase education, because we teach the his- 
 tory of Ireland," was the reply. "For instance, 
 I take every opportunity of knocking down 
 your English 'heroes,' men like Clive and Nel- 
 
 240
 
 BELFAST 
 
 son, and the story that Burke was cruel to 
 Warren Hastings! For the rest, the Protes- 
 tants must build schools for themselves if they 
 don't want their children to be 'contaminated/ 
 At any rate, their children ought to be put to 
 school in their own parish or district where 
 they are known, instead of being sent, as they 
 are, broadcast about the city." 
 
 I chanced to mention the burnt houses at 
 Lisburn. 
 
 "They were the homes of friends of mine, 
 prosperous farmers," the priest said. "I often 
 visited there. They lived their own life and 
 kept to themselves had to, indeed. So when 
 the Roman Catholic shipyard workers were 
 turned out of the docks the Protestants came 
 and burnt them out. Oh! it's this so-called 
 'religion,' not 'loyalty to the Empire,' that's 
 at the back of it all." 
 
 "How far do you think the boycott is affect- 
 ing Belfast?" 
 
 "To this extent: two-thirds of the distribut- 
 ing trade in Ireland was done by Belfast, and 
 Belfast merchants travelled all over the coun- 
 
 241
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 try. Only the remaining one-third was han- 
 dled by the South. Where ten thousand 
 pounds a week was earned by the wholesale 
 houses before, a hundred pounds is turned over 
 now." 
 
 "What's to be the end of it all?" 
 
 "A Republic is the only solution. We can't 
 trust the British Government. They've played 
 us false over and over again. You see, we are 
 idealists in Ulster they are 'practical men/ " 
 
 I stopped at the Nationalist Club on my way 
 to see a "high Government official." Here Mr. 
 Joe Devlin, surrounded by friends, was dis- 
 cussing his Election Address, whilst imbibing 
 a whisky-and-soda. 
 
 He told two stories (one of which I cannot 
 remember) and launched into a diatribe against 
 the Government : 
 
 "There was a man charged with blasphemy 
 cursing the Pope. He stoutly denied the 
 charge in the witness-box. Then his mother 
 was called to give evidence. 
 
 " 'And did he call the Pope a damned old 
 swindler, now?' 
 
 242
 
 BELFAST 
 
 " 'Ach, sure, and he did not. Mike never 
 was a religious man. He couldn't have said 
 it!' 
 
 "Ulster only thinks of Ulster," was the bur- 
 den of the Nationalist dreadnought's discourse 
 or harangue. 
 
 "But the boycott is a bad business for Bel- 
 fast. As to the Government, I'm fed up with 
 them. They've done nothing but turn, twist, 
 shilly-shally. A settlement could probably be 
 arrived at on Dominion Home Rule lines, but 
 Lloyd George ought to come out straight with 
 what he's prepared to offer in the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 And with that the redoubtable "Joe" shut 
 up, deftly turning the conversation to such 
 subjects as the late Tom Kettle and the wick- 
 edness of the coal strike and the awkwardness 
 of the boat-sailings. 
 
 The "high official," when I ran him to earth, 
 proved to be a model of his kind. That is 
 to say, he talked a great deal and told very 
 little." 
 
 "But," said he, "you can take it from one 
 
 243
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 who is 'inside things' the war is nearly over. 
 The I.R.A. are getting sick of it." 
 
 Four months passed before his prophecy was 
 fulfilled. . . . 
 
 I inquired whether as events appeared to 
 indicate at the time Republican activities 
 were not trending North and East. Two con- 
 stables had been shot dead in Donegal Place 
 during the previous week, while on the pre- 
 vious day a police-inspector had been danger- 
 ously wounded in the Falls Road district. 
 
 "The Police-Inspectorship of Falls Road is, 
 I should say, the most dangerous position in 
 the whole of Ireland. These 'gunmen' do not 
 wear uniform, and in a great city like Belfast 
 outrages are only possible because of the free- 
 dom citizens enjoy." 
 
 I questioned him as to the effect of the boy- 
 cott. 
 
 "The boycott, you must remember, cannot 
 touch the three main industries of Ulster 
 linen, not one per cent, of which goes to the 
 
 South, shipbuilding, and agriculture. The big 
 244
 
 BELFAST 
 
 manufacturing firms are, in my opinion, not 
 very much affected; the small manufacturers 
 and distributors are." 
 
 "Has Belfast any retaliatory weapon an 
 embargo, for instance, on the export of South- 
 country cattle or perishable goods?" 
 
 "No. But one thing not generally realised 
 is that more potatoes are grown in Down 
 and Antrim than in any other counties in Ire- 
 land." 
 
 "On what terms, if any, do you think Ulster 
 would enter a Dublin Parliament?" 
 
 "There would have to be at least a one- 
 fourth representation. Compare the distribu- 
 tion of population and of wealth. Outside 
 Ulster you have 327,000 Protestants living in 
 a population of 2,812,000 Roman Catholics; 
 in the Six Counties 430,000 Roman Catholics 
 living amid 820,000 Protestants. Roughly, you 
 have three Catholics to one Protestant if you 
 take the whole of Ireland." 
 
 "Can you suggest no adequate safeguards, 
 then?" 
 
 245
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 "I would not say that. But to understand 
 the Irish question as a whole you have to real- 
 ise what the prospect of living under the rule 
 of a man like de Valera means to these peo- 
 ple. De Valera has defined 'safeguards' as 'the 
 safeguards of common sense.' He has also 
 said (at Killaloe, July 5th, 1919): 'If the 
 Unionists do not come in on our side they will 
 have to go under.' And at Ballaghadaveen a 
 fortnight later : 'Ulster must be coerced if she 
 stands in the way.' These are the man's real 
 sentiments." 
 
 "Whatever you do, though," my authority 
 urged with much earnestness, "don't do or say 
 anything which will embitter the question or 
 make things worse than they are." 
 
 At Queen's University is another more or 
 less aloof observer of events Professor 
 Henry, author of "The Evolution of Sinn 
 Fein." 
 
 His views chiefly concerned the future. 
 
 "The Southern Parliament will not func- 
 tion. In the long run, the Northern Parlia- 
 ment will fail because : 
 
 246
 
 BELFAST 
 
 "(1) The area delimited under the Act is 
 too small. One and a quarter millions of peo- 
 ple cannot form practically a separate State 
 with any prospect of success. 
 
 "(2) The expense of administration will 
 prove ruinous. 
 
 "(3) There is a total ignorance of practical 
 administration in the new Government. 
 
 "(4) There is an absolute lack of agreement 
 on a definite domestic policy. 
 
 "In Education, for instance, there are no 
 signs of a definite policy. Labour is dissatis- 
 fied, not knowing where it stands. Above all, 
 this Northern Government is organisedly and 
 avowedly anti-Catholic. 
 
 "There can be no question of a lasting set- 
 tlement through the Partition Act," he contin- 
 ued. "Under it, the British Government keeps 
 everything that matters for the commercial 
 and industrial prosperity of Ireland. The 
 number of our members at Westminster is re- 
 duced. No common trade arrangements are 
 possible while you have one form of Govern- 
 ment in the North and another in the South. 
 
 247
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 On the other hand, we have to pay eighteen 
 millions a year to the English Exchequer, and 
 England generously returns a small propor- 
 tion of it ! The root of the matter is that it is 
 not to the interest of England to have us as a 
 commercial rival." 
 
 "How far do you consider the boycott affects 
 Belfast?" 
 
 "The distributing trade is almost smashed. 
 That is the first-fruit of Partition." 
 
 "Cannot Belfast start a counter-boycott?" 
 
 "Doubtful. The only articles Ulster wants 
 from the South are Limerick bacon and stout." 
 
 "You see no likelihood of an early and per- 
 manent settlement?" 
 
 "The further the Northern Administration 
 commits itself the worse the eventual smash- 
 up will be. The really important point is which 
 side breaks down first that will make a dif- 
 ference to the form the ultimate settlement 
 takes. At the same time, I do not exclude the 
 possibility of Ulster entering a Dublin Parlia- 
 ment when her incapacity for separate govern- 
 
 248
 
 BELFAST 
 
 ment is proved, and a disunited Ireland is seen 
 to be politically impracticable." 
 
 Saturday afternoons among the Belfast 
 workers are as often given up to political 
 demonstrations as to games. Only the middle 
 and upper middle classes clothe themselves in 
 white and board .the trams that take them to 
 the cricket-grounds and tennis-courts. 
 
 And at 3 p.m. on the afternoon of May 7th, 
 great numbers of working men might have 
 been seen congregating in the neighbourhood 
 of Carlisle Circus. It was the occasion of the 
 first Elections for the Northern Parliament. 
 At the corner of the side - street in which 
 the procession was forming up, numbers of 
 women, girls, and children stood. Every few 
 minutes a brass or a drum-and-fife band 
 marched up, and by degrees three large ban- 
 ners were unfurled on which were emblazoned 
 the names of the candidates for North Belfast, 
 together with such exhortations as : 
 
 "Vote for Union, Home and Empire! Ex- 
 
 249
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 soldiers, don't betray your comrades who shed 
 their blood!" 
 
 When the procession set off along Antrim 
 Road, it was to the strains of a rousing march 
 and to facetious en joinders down a column 
 nearly a quarter of a mile in length to "Keep 
 step left, right, left, right!" and "March by 
 the left there !" These men had served in the 
 British Army, most of them in the Great War 
 that was evident. 
 
 Crowds, or rather clouds, of women, chil- 
 dren, and youths accompanied the march, 
 which encompassed the whole electoral dis- 
 trict. Through innumerable side-streets of 
 red-brick tenement-houses exactly and meticu- 
 lously alike, with glimpses of washing and 
 washing apparatus up alley-ways, along the 
 Shankill Road, scene of so many fierce encoun- 
 ters, past gasworks, past stretches of blank 
 brick wall, and warehouses and factories so 
 back to Clif ten Street and Petej's Hill. There 
 were no untoward incidents. 
 
 "Up Dublin!" chalked in yellow on a wall 
 roused no comment. The rain, which began to 
 250
 
 BELFAST 
 
 fall steadily, could damp neither bands nor en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 At the end of the march speeches were made 
 and questions asked. 
 
 "Will the British public stand by Ulster, 
 whose sons stood by them, or will they support 
 Sinn Fein Ireland, which stabbed Britain in 
 the back and has such a ghastly record of dis- 
 loyalty and crime?" 
 
 Torrential cheering was the answer, and 
 cries of "She'll stand by us!" 
 
 Yet the sombre realities of Ireland, 1921, 
 could not be ignored even in Belfast. The 
 Black and Tan lorries and tenders and the 
 vansful of soldiers careered about the streets 
 as they had done further South only one had 
 grown so accustomed to them that one hardly 
 noticed them. 
 
 It was in Belfast that I met Mr. X. of Cork, 
 Charleville Junction, and Limerick for the 
 last time. He came out of the big restaurant 
 in Donegal Place as I entered it. The same 
 grey tweed suit, flash tie-pin, and the same 
 defiant sneer at the world. 
 
 251
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 After 10.30 p.m. silence fell upon Royal 
 Avenue. It was Curfew-hour. The broad 
 street lay empty. 
 
 It was unusual to hear a motor-car rush past, 
 but on my last night in Belfast this happened. 
 
 "Crack crack crack crack !" 
 
 We ran to the window overlooking Belfast's 
 principal thoroughfare. Fifty yards away the 
 car drew up with a grating of brakes and wild 
 jazzing of wheels. The driver jumped out 
 ran to his back tyre. Three men tumbled out, 
 bewildered and rather frightened. The sound 
 of a rifle-bolt being worked and cartridges 
 ejected broke the brief interval of silence. A 
 military patrol, three men and a corporal in 
 steel helmets, came up at the double. 
 
 A long altercation followed. Names, num- 
 bers and addresses were taken. At length the 
 party were allowed to proceed, and silence fell 
 upon Royal Avenue once more. 
 
 It was the 10th May. . . . 
 
 Again the Lough lay glooming beneath ?, 
 
 252
 
 BELFAST 
 
 rainy sky above the Antrim hills. But as the 
 boat edged slowly away from Donegal Quay, 
 the beams of the setting sun broke between 
 Cave Hill and the cloud above it, and lit up the 
 spires, the factory chimneys, the confused 
 roof-tops of Belfast. Crowds stood on the 
 quay a party of young men was leaving for 
 London, if not beyond. There were men, 
 women, and children in the crowd chiefly 
 women. There were facetious calls, cries, 
 waving of handkerchiefs and raising of hand- 
 kerchiefs to eyes as the boat slipped farther 
 and farther out into the main stream. And 
 there was loud singing as between those on 
 the quay and those on the boat and back 
 again. . . . 
 
 The sunset kindled trams and foot-passen- 
 gers on the gradually receding Queen's Bridge. 
 Two four-oared skiffs raced past, the cox- 
 swains audibly counting the number of strokes 
 to the minute. We glided by Harland & 
 Wolff's, we were soon passing the submarine 
 and the coloured funnels of the idle steamers 
 in the docks. 
 
 253
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 The shouts and the singing grew fainter. 
 Presently they came as a f ar-off fitful cadence 
 across the water. The handkerchiefs contin- 
 ued to wave. .
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 (Text of the Typewritten Document referred 
 to on pages 38 and 65. ) 
 
 THESE facts must be repeated: as to "who 
 began it." 
 
 In 1917, no police killed in Ireland. But 
 Irish houses raided, 250 men and women ar- 
 rested; 24 political leaders hauled out of their 
 country without trial; meetings suppressed; 
 men, women and children beaten; newspapers 
 suppressed; savage sentences for "seditious" 
 speeches, etc.; 2 civilians murdered; 5 died in 
 prison from ill-treatment. Not one of the 
 Government criminals brought to justice. 
 
 In 1918, no police killed in Ireland. But 260 
 private houses raided by night; 1,100 Irish 
 men and women arrested for their Irish poli- 
 tics; meetings suppressed; men, women and 
 children wounded; many of the 1,100 political 
 prisoners maltreated in prison, one died of the 
 
 255
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 maltreatment; 5 civilians murdered by mili- 
 tary; fairs and markets suppressed. No pun- 
 ishment or even reproach for the murderers. 
 
 The Irish in 1917-18 showed what a distin- 
 guished foreign visitor called "an almost crim- 
 inal patience." They devoted themselves to 
 preparing by English form of law under 
 English constitution for the election of De- 
 cember, 1918, to show the English and the 
 world, peacefully and "constitutionally," what 
 they asked. They had their reward in worse 
 persecution. 
 
 Therefore, in 1919, the first policeman as 
 persecutor and spy was shot; and throughout 
 1919, 16, most of them in conflict with men less 
 well armed than they. 
 
 In 1919, 14,000 houses were raided at night 
 by armed soldiers and police ; 335 meetings sup- 
 pressed. The elected government and every 
 national organisation declared illegal; 476 
 armed attacks on orderly gatherings ; 260 men, 
 women and children wounded ; 959 arrests for 
 politics; 20 more leaders deported; 35 papers 
 suppressed ; 8 civilians murdered. 
 
 256
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 In 1920, more arrests, deportations, raid- 
 ings, lootings and wrecking of houses. Sack- 
 ing of towns and murders of civilians more fre- 
 quent; mills, factories, creameries wrecked in 
 an attempt to starve the people into submission 
 to English rule in practice against English 
 theory. 
 
 These were the answers to the municipal 
 elections of 1920 repeating the "constitutional 
 demand of the people for self-determination." 
 
 In June, 1920, at the rural elections, 83 per 
 cent, of the people declared for Independence. 
 Therefore in the following 3 months 74 towns 
 were sacked and burned, and 43 innocent men 
 murdered by police and military. Flogging of 
 men and boys, and torturing prisoners, and 
 attacks on women and children became a regu- 
 lar part of England's military terrorism in 
 Ireland. 
 
 It is absurd, therefore, to say that murders 
 of police caused the policy of which they were 
 the result. It was Gessler "began it," not Tell. 
 (And if there have been 100 armed police 
 killed there have been hundreds of unarmed 
 257
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 Irish killed.) The plan of the so-called Gov- 
 ernment is not to suppress murder and restore 
 law and order, but to suppress a people, and to 
 restore over them a lawless domination whose 
 infamies they hate and whose spirit they 
 despise.
 
 AFTER-NOTE 
 
 ALMOST simultaneously with the conclusion 
 of this book, a truce was happily proclaimed 
 in Ireland. 
 
 This, and the protracted negotiations which 
 followed, had the effect of making it inadvis- 
 able (in the public interest) to publish an 
 account, however non-partisan, of a journey 
 through the country in its stormiest period. 
 
 That phase, and the phase succeeding it, 
 have now definitely passed. The book is there- 
 fore Of necessity retrospective instead of con- 
 temporaneous, as was at first intended, but for 
 this very reason it may have an additional in- 
 terest for the reader. How far have the 
 prophecies and the prognostications, the diag- 
 noses, the recommendations, the hopes and 
 fears expressed in it stood the test of nine 
 months' negotiation? 
 
 And isn't any conceivable settlement likely 
 
 259
 
 A JOURNEY IN IRELAND 
 
 to prove less disastrous to the people of Ire- 
 land than a relapse into that sinister condition 
 of subterranean manoeuvre and assassination 
 now frankly called War? 
 
 W. E. 
 
 U) 
 THE END
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRA 
 
 A 000028304 4