THE SOUL OF ULSTER ERNEST W HAMILTON Q, The Soul of Ulster BY THE SAME AUTHOR The First Seven Divisions A detailed and authori- tative account of the part taken by the British army in the fighting from Mons to^Ypres. It is the splen- did epitaph of England's professional army, which at the end of the three months was practically annihilated. With Maps. :: $1.50 Net. The Soul of Ulster By Ernest W. Hamilton, <Author of "The First Seven ^visions." :: :: :: NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON & CO. 681 FIFTH cAVENUE COPYRIGHT. 1917, BY E. P. BUTTON & CO. printed in the Chitted States of Hmerica PREFACE IT has been very truly said that the Ulster question is only properly understood by Ulstermen, residents in other parts of Ireland having, at the best, an incomplete grasp of the real deep-down issues. It may, I think, with equal truth be added that mere residence in Ulster is not in itself sufficient to lay bare the inner soul of the people, there being in the case of the native part of the population a very wide gap between their secret feelings and that which appears on the surface. In moments of acute political interest this gap becomes sensibly lessened. North Tyrone has been the scene since the Re- distribution Bill of more closely-contested elections than any other Constituency in the kingdom; and as one who has taken an active part as principal or otherwise in all of these contests, I have perhaps had exceptional opportunities of getting occasional rather startling glimpses of the real soul of Ulster. ERNEST HAMILTON, M.P. for North Tyrone, 1885-1892. 2061346 CONTENTS PAGE ULSTER PRIOR TO COLONIZATION ... 1 THE ULSTER PLANTATION 19 THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT ... 55 THE CIVIL WAR 73 THE 1798 REBELLION 89 ULSTER TO-DAY 107 MOONLIGHT OUTRAGES 141 THE RED HAND OF ULSTER .... 153 CONCLUSION. 177 ULSTER PRIOR TO COLONIZATION fTlHE ethics of the Ulster question are fast bound up in the general ethics of colonization. Is colonization to be classed as an act of piracy, or is it a necessary part of the gradual reclamation of the world? It may be both, in which case the problem is still further resolved into the question as to whether the good resulting from colonization justifies the original act? Most people will agree that the answer must depend upon the parti- cular circumstances surrounding each case. A broad, general principle which will govern all cases seems out of reach. 4 The Soul of Ulster Religion is perhaps the most attractive excuse, because all proselytizers, if sincere in the belief that their particular gospel alone carries the secret of salvation, must equally believe that the end justifies the means. It is a logical sequence. And so it comes about that most of history's blackest or reddest acts bear the official stamp of God's service. In Australia, New Zealand and North America the Gospel has succeeded more primitive creeds, and we therefore comfort ourselves with the reflection that all is well, including the unpublished and, in many cases, unpublishable, processes by which this came about. Into these pro- cesses few care to inquire, but we find that the net result in every case is a steady disappearance of the native element. This one concrete fact is in Ulster Prior to Colonization 5 itself perhaps more eloquent than any history. It seems to point with some plainness to the conclusion that the land and not the souls of the natives was the first aim of the colonists, or, in any case, that, if the salvation of their souls was secured, it was done by the convenient sacrifice of their bodies. In a world whose most unpopular product is the naked truth, we need never expect the picture of British colonization the world over to be faithfully drawn. It would, perhaps, not be a pretty picture. But, ugly as it might be in its truth, it would still fail to suggest even to the most philanthropic any obvious and at the same time practicable act of repara- tion. The philanthropist might deplore the wicked acts of other days, but he could not undo them; he could not even 6 The Soul of Ulster neutralize them; and however sincere his philanthropy, he would hardly even if he could reconstitute the anti-coloniza- tion conditions. It can safely be said that no coloni- zation scheme has ever been more abun- dantly justified, both by antecedent conditions and by results, than has that of Ulster by James I. of England. The antecedent conditions were, in fact, very bad, and even apologetic ingenuity could hardly argue that the fault lay at the door of the English. If ever a province of Ireland enjoyed Home Rule, that province was Ulster prior to the Great Plantation of 1609. The population was almost ex- clusively native. The stream of English undertakers and adventurers which for centuries had been attracted by the rich pastures of Munster and Leinster, found Ulster Prior to Colonization 7 no similar attraction in the barren bogs of the cold northern Province. Ulster had been left severely alone. It had a poor soil, a cold climate, a savage popula- tion, and it was dangerously remote from the Pale, and all the official protection afforded by the armed forces of that British oasis. In Antrim there was, during the latter half of the sixteenth century, a certain sprinkling of Scotch Campbells and McDonnels, but these formed a migratory population, coming and going as oppor- tunity for fighting arose. Down and Armagh could also boast a handful of English settlers, eking out a struggling and miserable existence by their own labour on boycotted lands subject at all times to forays and rapine. Outside of the three eastern counties 8 The Soul of Ulster there were no agricultural settlers, and the native Irish could rule and be ruled as they wished. Taking it from shore to shore, Ulster was incomparably the most Irish of the four Provinces, and it was reigned over by the O'Neills, of whom the most interesting historically was Shane. Shane in his day styled him- self King of Ulster, and in truth he had some claim to this title. O'Reilly, O'Hanlon and O'Kane admitted his sovereignty; O'Donnell and Maguire at times disputed it and suffered accordingly. Shane was nothing but a coarse and common savage. He would seem to have had no virtues and all the vices. To secure his succession, he murdered his nearest relative. O'Donnell accused him in 1564 of having caused the death of 500 persons of quality, and of at least Ulster Prior to Colonization 9 14,000 of the poor. On one occasion, in 1562, he had a difference of opinion with Maguire, to settle which he fell upon that chieftain's harvest people at Belleek and killed 300 men, women and children. He was inordinately and grotesquely vain, especially of his least commendable exploits. As may well be supposed, the vices of Shane were not confined to the walls of his own castle at Dungannon. They appear to have been common to the whole province. Fitzwilliam, writing to Cecil towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, complained that he was "a banished man wearing himself out among unkind people a people most accursed, who lusted after every sin. Murder and incest were every-day matters, and a lying spirit brooded over all the land." Sidney, 10 The Soul of Ulster writing to the Queen herself, in 1567, says: "Surely there was never people of worse minds, for matrimony is no more regarded in effect than conjunction between unreasoning beasts. Perjury, murder and robbery counted allowable. Finally, I cannot find that they make any conscience of sin." Not only was Ulster the worst of the Provinces socially and morally, but it was by far the most backward in industrial enterprise. There was but little tillage and no settled industries. Herds of cattle formed the chief means of subsistence, and these changed hands with uncomfort- able frequency and to the usual accom- paniment of murder and outrage. Might was the only right. The rich system- atically oppressed the poor, and the lot of the lower orders was miserable indeed. Ulster Prior to Colonization 11 There was no law but the old Brehon law which invariably found a verdict for the richer and the stronger. Virtues were not accounted as such. The standard of morality was set by wandering bards known as Rhymers, whose panegyrics extolled not nobility of thought and action, "but the most beastliest and odious parts of men's doings, and their own likewise for whom the rhymes be made. Such be cherished, defended, and rewarded with garments till they leave themselves naked." * The above occasional glimpses of a Pan-Celtic Ulster under its own chieftains are not furnished as a suggestion of what might recur under Home Rule, but simply as a justification of the initial act of colonization. Where such was the Fitzwilliam to Elizabeth. 12 The Soul of Ulster state of society, it was clear that a remedy of some sort was called for, not in the interests of England but in the interests of Ulster itself. Coercion and instruction were alike failures as instruments of reform; only the example of a more advanced civilization working in their midst could be expected to open the eyes of the natives to the higher possibilities of existence. At the end of the sixteenth century, English and Irish had been in more or less close touch for over four hundred years; but though, during that period, England had advanced to a comparatively high state of civilization, Ireland had remained stationary. The contemporaries in Ireland of Shakespeare were the Rhymers extolling in verse, which merci- fully has not survived, "The beastliest Ulster Prior to Colonization 13 and most odious parts of men's doings." Century after century had passed without Ireland registering even a fractional advance in manners or culture. It sys- tematically resented all attempts to raise it out of the mire. In that mire it had lived from the back of history, and in that mire it was content and, indeed, determined to remain. Settled laws, settled industries were beyond its under- standing, and like all aboriginal countries, it resented what it could not understand. The bane of the country had always been its geographical position. It lay on the very western limit of the world an inaccessible island to which the enlighten- ment born of the interchange of ideas between nations could never penetrate except by hearsay. It was outside the radius of first-hand social and moral 14 The Soul of Ulster evolution, and the imported article it invariably regarded with suspicion. The gradual elevation of thought which has reclaimed Europe from the savagery of the dark ages can be traced by the student of history to periodical crusades started here and there against existing practices. The original crusade may be, and generally is, the work of one man, but the work which he has started is carried on after his death by sects or societies of which he remains the inspira- tion. The new ideas gradually take hold, and so the world advances, each country in turn assimilating the reforms of its neighbour. An isolated country is naturally debarred from participation in such advance, but it remains happily (or unhappily) unconscious of its stagnation, Ulster Prior to Colonization 15 through lack of opportunity for comparing itself with others. Not only this, but in the absence of a wholesome standard of comparison, it readily falls into the error of over-estimating its own merits and importance in the world. It becomes the victim of megalomania. This would be a harmless vanity enough, did it not inevitably carry with it the absence of effort or even of desire to improve. When a country is not only ignorant but also incredulous of its own relative inferiority, that country is doomed by the gods to destruction. England herself has suffered much from this common hallucination of the insular; Ireland far more so. There has been no real eradication of primitive impulses. Behind a ready but thin assumption of agreement with imported ideas, the basic nature of the native Irish 16 The Soul of Ulster Celt remains to-day the same as it was in the days of Elizabeth; the same as it was in the days of Strongbow, and pro- bably very much the same as it was in the days of Noah. The progressive views of the idealist will be glibly applauded, but they make no more lasting impression than a rainbow. It is mainly owing to this barrier between them and all recog- nized forms of thought that the Irish are so proverbially apt to mistake their best friends for their foes, and their worst foes for their friends. The peculiarities of the native Irish character were even in the days of Elizabeth thoroughly understood by those on the spot, but not so by the politicians at home an anomaly by no means confined to the sixteenth century; and as the politicians always held the Ulster Prior to Colonization 17 purse-strings, and always knew better than the administrator, it is not surprising that the heart, health and fortune of the latter unhappy functionary usually ended by being broken. After Shane's death, Essex was appointed Governor of Ulster. His ad- ministration was not a success. He was supplied with a mere handful of soldiers, underpaid and underfed, and the chieftains could afford to laugh at him. His term of office was marred by one or two acts of flagrant treachery which even the excuse of retaliation could not justify. Essex's armed incursions were directed no less against the Antrim Scotch than against the Irish. These Scotch were not colonists in the ordinary sense; they were mercenary soldiers whom the Irish chiefs employed to fight their inter-tribal 18 The Soul of Ulster battles for them. Their fighting reputa- tion was great, and they would do battle for anyone who paid them. Sir Francis Knollys reckoned in 1566 that 100 of the Scots were more formidable as foes than 200 of the Irish. In any case, they were more than a match for Essex, and he made no headway against them. He finally died in Dublin in 1576, a broken and disappointed man. THE ULSTER PLANTATION r 1 1 HE end of the sixteenth century * saw O'Neill and O'Donnell joining hands in a fresh endeavour to extend their own rule even beyond the bounds of Ulster. In September, 1601, 6,000 Spanish troops landed at Kinsale, and with these the two northern Chiefs, after a devastating march through Ireland, managed to join forces. Mount joy, how- ever, who had succeeded the second Essex as Deputy, collected an army and very easily defeated the combined forces, who were seized with an unaccountable panic. The Spaniards who, according to the historian, were not such fast runners as the Irish had to bear the brunt of the pursuit and many fell. The total casualties 21 22 The Soul of Ulster on the English side were one man killed. O'Neill himself, seeing the game was up, shortly afterwards presented himself before Mount joy, and on his knees swore eternal loyalty. This rebellion may be written down as the direct cause of the Ulster Plantation. O'Neill and O'Donnell left the country and their lands were confiscated. The Four Masters record the circumstance as follows: "It was from this rising and from the departure of the Earls that their principalities, their territories, their estates, their lands, their forts, their fruitful harbours, and their fishful bays were taken from the Irish of the province of Ulster, and were given in their presence to foreign tribes; and they were expelled and banished into other countries, where most of them died." The Ulster Plantation 23 In these few words is recorded Ireland's great grievance. The "foreign tribes" were the Ulster Protestants, and they were introduced on to the scene as follows. James VI. of Scotland succeeded to the English throne upon the death of Eliza- beth in March, 1603. The immediate effect of his accession was that England^ and Scotland now for the first time be- came united under one sovereign. The Scots became "Britons," * fellow members with the English of the joint kingdom; and to the astute mind of James the idea presented itself of utilizing these new recruits to the national flag for purposes of still further consolidating the United Kingdom. James conceived the idea of the Planta- tion of O'Neill's and O'Donnell's forfeited *The actual title was not established till 1701. 24 The Soul of Ulster lands with a colony of British. This much-abused monarch, who certainly managed to get the wrong side of con- temporary historians possibly by out- manoeuvring them in debate could at least boast an active, if not always a tactful, brain. He was a thinker and a man of ideas, some of which were good and some bad, a phenomenon not wholly confined to the first of the English Stuarts. The Ulster Plantation idea was, when all is said and done, a good one, and based on those purely logical deductions on which James so greatly prided himself. He saw a land, by no means evilly used by nature, which from time immemorial had been a by-word a country torn by in- ternal strife, saturated with its own blood shed by itself, idle, ragged and wretched. It was fairly arguable that such a state The Ulster Plantation 25 of things, being chronic and having suc- cessfully survived all remedies prescribed, might be due not to the malevolence of fate, or to the incompetence of the English Government, but to the inherent qualities of the natives themselves, to whom every form of restraint and every form of settled industry seemed intolerable. From this it was but a step to the natural corollary that the remedy lay in the introduction of a more solid and stable race. The idea so far could hardly claim the merit of originality. It had indeed been tried in Ireland with unvarying non- success for four hundred years. The Pale was the brightest example of the system's workings, and the condition of that uneasy settlement was riot an entirely happy augury for the success of similar 26 The Soul of Ulster ventures. The other planted areas in Munster and Leinster stood out as colossal monuments of failure, sufficient to damp the enterprise even of the most logical of monarchs. James' logic, however, had an eminently practical side. The mere fact of failure was not enough for him. Like Aristotle, he burrowed below the surface for causes material or efficient. Both seemed to be found in one salient fact. ' Many of the earlier settlers had come to Ireland without their women- folk, had married with the natives, re- married in the second generation, and in the third had lost their identity and become merged in the hybrid mass of Anglo-Norman-Irish, and Anglo-Irish, which so successfully added to the con- fusion and unrest of central and southern Ireland. In the case of some of the The Ulster Plantation 27 earlier settlers, this absorption was thorough and complete. Here there had been no religious barrier. The settlers mostly men of ill-defined principles quickly assimilated the native habits, adopted native views, and even native names, and became in the words of the contemporary historian more Irish than the Irish themselves. With the later settlers the process was less thorough. These came over as Pro- testants, recent converts to whom the old faith was anathema, and, through all the mixed-up jumble of subsequent cen- turies, they retained their distinctive religion and their distinctive Anglo-Nor- man names. In many cases, however, the distinctive English characteristics of this secondary tide of settlers had under- gone marked changes. They were few 28 The Soul of Ulster and the natives were many, and, on the principle that it is easier to go down hill than up, they followed the line of least resistance and absorbed many of the manners and customs of those whom their ostensible mission was to elevate. James reviewed these former failures with an analytical eye. Why had they failed? What was the cause? The im- mediate cause was very obviously that, instead of the settlers pushing the mass of natives up the hill of good behaviour, the mass of natives had pushed them down. But it was clear that a remedy must be looked for in the discovery of more remote causes than these. To the mind of James, it seemed (1), that the earlier settlers had been too few in number; (2), that their lack of their own women-folk spelt certain disaster; (3), that they had been of the The Ulster Plantation 29 wrong class. The first two of these pro- positions were fairly obvious. The dis- covery of the third gave evidence of more acumen. The Munster and Leinster settlers had been mere needy adventurers, broken men for the most part, or ne'er- do-wells of good family, who embarked on the Irish undertaking with the avowed intention of making all they could out of it by fair means or foul ; as a rule the means were foul. Agricultural and industrial stability could never grow out of such seed. So thought James. For the suc- cess of his Ulster scheme a more sub- stantial strain was called for, and, by the ordination of fate, one lay ready to his hand. Throughout the reigns of Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth, the Border Counties of Dumfriesshire, Roxburghshire, Cumber- 30 The Soul of Ulster land and Northumberland had been a cause of unceasing trouble to the two kingdoms, the jurisdiction of which both sides of the Border repudiated in favour of a more congenial code of their own. Internal and interminable feuds, between the representatives of England on the one side and Scotland on the other, had kept the Middle and Western Marches in a state of ceaseless broil for close on a cen- tury. The Wardens were either powerless to interfere or were themselves impli- cated. With the Union of the two king- doms under James, it was clearly desir- able that these border raids and forays should cease; but they did not cease. The county boundaries still remained, and to the Border mind these county boun- daries offered every justification for a continuance of the enjoyable traditional The Ulster Plantation 31 feuds. The technical union of the two countries meant nothing to them. To James, newly installed on his English throne, came the great idea of quieting the unruly Border country and colonizing Ulster with one and the same stroke. It was true that at first sight the Borderers appeared to be little less lawless and un- ruly than the Ulster natives whom they were to replace, or rather to reform by their example; but a closer examination showed up very marked differences, and differences which pointed to James' plan being less of a wild-cat scheme, when analysed, than appeared on -the sur- face. The Borderers were lawless and unruly from the national point of view, but from their own point of view they were neither the one nor the other. All their actions 32 The Soul of Ulster were governed by a rigid code, the viola- tion of which carried with it disgrace worse than death, and the violation of which was, as a consequence, extremely rare. They could also boast some fine sterling quali- ties which, at that time, were certainly strange to the land of their prospective adoption. Their word, once given, was binding even to death. A broken word was a crime blacker than murder. To such an extent was this reverence for the sanctity of a promise carried that even a prisoner going to execution was not bound, when he had once passed his word. Treachery of any and every kind was looked upon with unspeakable abhorrence. They were brave, too, these Borderers, with a dogged, resolute bravery that was equally a part of their code, and they had a strong sense of justice which was superior to the The Ulster Plantation 33 rancour even of the bitterest blood feuds. They were exclusively Protestant. Enough has been said to show that here, at any rate, was a race endowed with many of the essentials for successful colonization. It was argued, with some show of reason, that their international feuds which were mainly a matter of tradition and of geography (the English and Scotch Borderers being of identical race) would abruptly die out amidst new surroundings, and that their common interests would weld them into solid union. In 1609 the work of deportation started and continued for several years. Arm- strongs, Elliots, Johnstones, Pattersons, Watsons, Thompsons, Riddles, Littles, Scotts, Bells, Turnbulls, Pringles, Rout- ledges, Andersons, Blacks, Bairds, Nixons, Dicksons, Crosiers, Rutherfords, Beatties 34 The Soul of Ulster and a host of other Border clans crossed the seas, with their wives and families, and turned their backs for good and all on the land of their birth. So was carried out the great Ulster Plantation. There was no armed opposition; the natives withdrew into the mountain districts, and the colonists settled down on the granted lands. They increased and multiplied; they utilized the water-power for factories; they reclaimed the bogs and tilled the land so gained. All went well in the planted districts. Peace and prosperity took the place of rapine and misery, and before the first quarter of the Seventeenth Century was passed the justification of the Ulster Plantation seemed beyond dispute. The Ulster Plantation 85 1641 Thirty-two years had passed since the first batch of British colonists had landed in Ulster. A second generation of the settlers had sprung up, strictly within the bounds of the Colony. The two races had kept jealously apart. At the same time there was no open friction. The natives, with characteristic adula- tion of success, either feigned or real, turned tolerant faces on the settlers, while these, for their part, had no cause to be other than friendly with those that they had come to live among. But there was no intermarriage. The settlers were in sufficient numbers to make this unnecessary, and racial prejudices still ran very high. Then, just as Ulster was beginning to 36 The Soul of Ulster put on the garb of her ultimate prosperity, came the great massacre of 1641-1642. Without any provocation, and equally without any warning, the native Irish, who for thirty-two years had given no sign of hostility, rose at a preconceived signal, fell upon the isolated colonists, and stripped them literally to the skin. In this condition men, women and chil- dren were turned out into the cold. All succour and sustenance to the outcasts was prohibited under very dire penalties, so that the old and the ailing quickly succumbed. The more vigorous, how- ever, hung on to life by one means or another, and at the end of a week, nature's processes were voted too slow, and the hunting down and butchery of these naked wretches became a recognized form of sport. In its turn mere killing began The Ulster Plantation 37 to pall, and tortures of various kinds were resorted to, at first as a means of finding out where the settlers had hidden their money, but later on for the mere sake of torturing. A letter was read in the English Parliament in December, 1641, which stated: "All I can tell you is the miserable state we continue under, for the rebels daily increase in men and munition in all parts, except the province of Munster, exercising all manner of cruelties, and striving who can be most barbarously exquisite in tormenting the poor Pro- testants, cutting off their ears, fingers and hands, plucking out their eyes, boiling the hands of little children before their mothers' faces, stripping w r omen naked and ripping them up," etc. 38 The Soul of Ulster The main record, however, of this terrible occurrence is furnished by Sir John Temple, Master of the Rolls at the time, who collected and published in book form the sworn depositions of the many witnesses who gave evidence before the Commission of Enquiry. Many of the witnesses had themselves been mutilated, but survived long enough to give their evidence. Others had a knowledge of the Irish language, by means of which they were able to pass themselves off as Irish, and so remain unwilling witnesses of the scenes which they describe. Forty volumes of the depositions are still pre- served at Trinity College, Dublin. The indictment they furnish is a truly appall- ing one. Sir John says: "If we shall take a Survey of primitive Times and look into the Sufferings of the first Chris- The Ulster Plantation 39 tians, that suffered under the Tyranny and cruel Persecution of those heathenish Emperors, we shall certainly not find any one Kingdom where more Christians suffered, or more unparalleled Cruelties were acted in many years upon them, than were in Ireland within the space of the first two Months after the breaking out of this Rebellion .... to let in death among an innocent, unprovoking, un- resisting people, who had always lived peaceably with them, administering all manner of Helps and Comforts to those who were in Distress: that made no Difference between them and those of their own Nation, but even cherished them as Friends and loving Neighbours, with- out giving any Cause of Unkindness or Distaste unto them." The crime of the Protestants, however, 40 The Soul of Ulster was not unneighbourly conduct, but the fact of their presence in a foreign land. They were aliens, and the elimination of aliens has always been the first item on the official Nationalist programme. They take up room. The destruction of an entire colony is no light task. Its thorough accomplish- ment, at a period when powder and shot were too good to waste, necessitated the free use of fire and water. All the princi- pal Ulster rivers where accessible were called into service. At Portadown over 1,000 were, at one time or another, drowned in the River Bann, where the bridge was broken down in the middle, and the victims thrust in with pikes from both sides. We have a similar scene recorded at the River Toll in Armagh, where a number were drowned near The Ulster Plantation 41 Loughgall. Two hundred were piked and flung into the Tyrone Blackw r ater, which for a time ran red with blood; 180 were drowned at the bridge of Gallon, and 100 in a lough at Ballymacilmurrogh; 300 were drowned in one day in a millpool at Killamoon. Where no more suitable water was available, parties were driven to bog-holes, where they were held under with pikes till dead. These drownings point to a certain dis- position on the part of the natives at any rate at the first to carry out the killings as rapidly and mercifully as cir- cumstances would permit. It must be remembered that they were acting under orders, and these orders must often have been embarrassing from their wholesale nature. For example, Phelim O'Neil, the head of the movement, after being 42 The Soul of Ulster repulsed from the Castle of Augher, ordered all the Protestants in the three adjacent parishes to be at once massacred, irrespective of age or sex. Such an order would almost necessitate some compre- hensive scheme of execution. O'Neil, who is described as a weak creature entirely devoid of personal courage, in- variably signalized his defeats in the field by an indiscriminate massacre of all the helpless victims within reach. After his defeat at Lisburn, he, in revenge, butchered Lord Caulfield, who had just been hospitably entertaining him, and fifty others with him. Fire, though obviously less merciful than water, also proved a useful agent of quick destruction 152 men, women and children were burnt in the Castle of Lisgool in Fermanagh; 22 in a thatched The Ulster Plantation 43 house at Kilmore, in Armagh; 26 at Langale, in the same county, and a number in the church at Blackwaterstown. The trouble was that the houses in which the refugees had taken shelter would not always burn, in which cases more circuit- ous methods had to be adopted. "Now for such of the English as stood upon their Guard, and had gathered together, though but in small Numbers, the Irish had recourse to their ancient Stratagem, which, as they have formerly, so they still continue to make frequent use of in this Rebellion; and that was fairly to offer unto them good Conditions of Quarter, to assure them their Lives, their Goods and free Passage, with a safe Conduct into what Place soever they pleased, and to confirm these Covenants sometimes under their Hands and Seals, 44 The Soul of Ulster sometimes with deep Oaths and Protesta- tions; and then, as soon as they had them in their Power, to hold themselves dis- obliged from their Promises, and to leave their soldiers at Liberty to despoil, strip and murder them at their Pleasure." These tactics were adopted with com- plete success by Rory McGuire at Tullah, and at Liffenskeagh in Co. Fermanagh; by Phelim O'Neil and his brother Tullach at the Cathedral of Armagh, and by Phil O'Riley at Belterbert, at Newtown Church and at Longford Castle. In every case all those who surrendered under promise of safe conduct were stripped and butchered. The apparent disposition on the part of the natives to despatch the earlier of their victims quickly and mercifully was not long-lived. After the first big batches The Ulster Plantation 45 of captives had been got rid of by drown- ing or burning, some very horrible forms of death were devised for small detached parties, the details of which are too revolt- ing for reproduction. Women and children would seem to have been the worst sufferers, and on the side of the natives the gentler sex and even the children joined eagerly in the horrible work. One small boy was heard to boast that his arm was so wearied with hacking and stabbing that he could not raise it. Sir John Temple comments on the apparent want of defensive organization and coherence among the British settlers, and explains this by pointing out that in the first place these were completely taken by surprise, having so far lived on terms of perfect amity with the native Irish; and in the second place that the farms 46 The Soul of Ulster of the settlers being very much separated it would have been impossible for the men to mass together for defence without abandoning their women and children to inevitable torture and death, so that they preferred to stay and die with them. In Derry, Coleraine and Carrickfergus the English settlers were able to concen- trate in certain numbers, and on these places no attempts were made by the natives. The latter, according to Sir John Temple, would appear to have been better murderers than fighters. On the last day of December, 1641, a small force, con- sisting of one regiment, was landed in Dublin under Sir Simon Harcourt. This force was shortly afterwards supplemented as follows: "Soon after a considerable Number of Horse as well as of Foot, sent over by The Ulster Plantation 47 the Parliament in England, arrived in Dublin, and having in some petty en- counters thereabouts tried the metal of the Rebels, and found their Spirit of a poor and base Alloy, they began extremely to disvalue them, and would be no longer abased with the fabulous Reports of their great Strength or Numbers, which with much advantage they had long made use of. Therefore, now they began to seek them out in all Places, and where- soever they came to meet with them they always prevailed, even with small Numbers very often against great Mul- titudes of them, sparing not many Times to pursue them into the midst of their greatest Fastnesses, and with so great Success was the War prosecuted by the English, from the first Landing of their Forces out of England until September, 48 The Soul of Ulster 1643, as that, in all Encounters they had with the Rebels during that Time, they never received any Scorn or Defeat, but went on victoriously, beating them down in all Parts of the Kingdom." The actual number of the Protestant colonists who were massacred, or who died of cold and hunger, is not easy to arrive at. A large proportion of the victims were babies or young children, who would not be included in any recent census. Even the census of adults could be no more than approximate. Dr. (after- wards Sir William) Petty, one of the ablest men of the day, with a marked genius for statistics, reckoned the Pro- testant settlers in Ireland as numbering 260,000 in 1641, and 150,000 in 1653, showing a wastage in the twelve years of 110,000. The latter figure is largely The Ulster Plantation 49 borne out by a petition of the Irish Roman Catholics to James II. in 1687, in which they reckon the then total population of Ireland at 1,200,000, of whom 170,000 were Protestants. The priests in the weekly returns which they furnished from the various parishes concerned, claimed 154,000 victims be- tween October, 1641, and April, 1642. A Cork priest, named Mahoney, pub- lished in 1645 an "exhortation" to his fellow-countrymen in which he said: "You have already killed 150,000 enemies in these four or five years, as your very adversaries howling openly confess in their writings, and you do not deny. I think more heretic enemies have been killed; would that they had all been! It remains for you to slay all the other heretics, or expel them from the bounds of Ireland." 50 The Soul of Ulster Mahoney's estimate, however, clearly includes those killed in the earlier years of the fighting which succeeded the massacre. It is probable that the great discrepancies between various estimates as to the numbers killed, arises from the same confusion. The actual massacre may be said to have been over by the middle of 1642, but it was succeeded by eleven years of ceaseless guerilla warfare little less bloody, during which a further number of the Protestant settlers in Ire- land undoubtedly lost their lives, and subsequent estimates would find it hard to draw a clear dividing line between the victims of the massacre proper, and the victims of the subsequent fighting. Crom- well himself, when interviewing the Dutch Ambassador in London in connection with the Waldensian massacres, in which some The Ulster Plantation 51 Irish troops had been concerned, said that the natives in Ireland had butchered 200,000 of the settlers. This figure seems, at first sight, at variance with Dr. Petty's estimate, which only shows a falling off of 110,000 Protestants in twelve years; but to this 110,000 must be added, not only the natural increase of the resident Protestants during this period, but the whole of Cromwell's army (36,000), and the many British "adventurers" who swelled the influx of Protestants during the general scramble for the forfeited lands which succeeded the rebellion. In any case, the sworn depositions which can still be seen by the curious make it quite clear that the massacre was not only of a wholesale nature, but was carried out with many circumstances of horror. 52 The Soul of Ulster This rebellion was the first systematic attempt to exterminate the British in Ireland since the rising of the natives against the very early settlers in 1230. Desmond had made a personal effort in this direction in 1598, as to which the Four Masters make boast that "after seventeen days, not a son of a Saxon was left alive in the Desmond territories," but this patriotic effort was only local, O'Neil in Ulster being at the time too much harassed by Essex to co-operate. The 1641 massacre may unhesitatingly be put down as the most disastrous occurrence in the history of the island, for apart from its own intrinsic horrors it laid the seeds of an undying distrust among future generations of Colonists, and, in its own generation, it brought in its train twelve years of unintermittent The Ulster Plantation 53 civil warfare. These twelve years proved the most devastating Ireland had known. All the worst passions of men were let loose. Reprisals followed on atrocities, and further atrocities followed the re- prisals. On the top of both came famine and plague, and, by the time peace was finally established, nearly a third of the total population of Ireland had perished. "The cause of the war," says Petty, "was the desire of the Romanists to recover the Church revenue, worth about 11 0,000 per annum, and of the common Irish to get back all the Englishmen's estates, and of the ten or twelve grandees to get the empire of the whole. But, as for the bloodshed of the contest, God knows best who did occasion it." In Ulster, which was the principal scene of the massacre, the affair was largely 54 The Soul of Ulster engineered by Phelim O'Neil, whose aim was, of course, to get back the O'Neil estates, which had been forfeited as the result of thirty years of brigandage and broken covenants on the part of first Shane, and then Hugh. THE CROMWELLIAN SETTLEMENT A T the end of eight years of carnage, ** Cromwell landed at Dublin in 1649. His military genius at once made itself felt. Order and system took the place of independent guerilla warfare, and a permanent settlement seemed at length within sight. Ireton succeeded Cromwell, and Coote and Monro succeeded Ireton, but it was four years after Cromwell's landing before peace was finally estab- lished. Irish writers are fond of stigmatizing Cromwell's regime as a reign of terror, but, as a matter of fact, this was not so. He was scrupulously just in his dealings with the natives, and never brutal. His 57 58 The Soul of Ulster first act on landing was to publish a general order that no violence should be done to any persons not in arms with the enemy: that soldiers taking goods without payment should be punished ac- cording to the articles of war, and that officers who allowed this rule to be dis- obeyed should forfeit their commissions. These rules were strictly adhered to. Soldiers were hung for stealing chickens, and no act of rapine passed unpunished. Ireton, who succeeded Cromwell, was, if anything, more punctilious. It is more than probable that, in his own day, Cromwell was respected and even admired by the natives, as such men invariably are in Ireland. Rowley Lascelles, who in the early part of the nineteenth century was appointed by the Government to examine the Irish State The Cromwellian Settlement 59 Records and Rolls, reported that his examination led him to the belief that Cromwell's Government was the most popular Ireland has ever known. He was no promiscuous butcher, like Coote. At Drogheda and Wexford he was un- doubtedly severe, but only with such severity as was recognized by the then usages of war. In the case of Drogheda, the town was summoned to surrender unconditionally. Aston, the Governor, who had stored within the city large supplies of food and munitions, refused, thinking that Cromwell would follow the traditional procedure in such cases, and sit down before the town for a protracted siege which might end anyhow. Crom- well, however, who was no respecter of traditional methods, outraged all calcula- tions by immediately assaulting the town. 60 The Soul of Ulster Twice he was repulsed, but the third assault, led by himself, was successful. All those found in arms were put to the sword, and of those that surrendered, one out of every ten was shot and the re- mainder deported to Barbadoes. Very much the same programme was carried out at Wexford, to the immense surprise of the garrison, who were not used to such energetic forms of warfare. The effect in Ireland of these two swift strokes was electrical. All the principal towns hauled down their flags, and were treated with a leniency which was new to Ireland. The strong probability is that Cromwell owes his unpopularity with Irish writers of the Prendergast type, not to his severity with the sword, but to his banish- ment of the natives across the Shannon. By this edict he became in great measure The Cromwellian Settlement 61 the official father of the grievance which is the starting point of all Ireland's Philippics against England and English rule. He made it possible for the first time for the native lands to be occupied with security by Protestant colonists from across the water. James I.'s scheme, as an act of permanent plantation, may be said to have failed, for half the settlers had been butchered, and the rest driven to concentrate for protection in such towns as Enniskillen, Derry, Coleraine and Carrickfergus. The dreadful fate of the immigrants of forty years before could not but scare the mere agriculturalist from any desire he might otherwise have had to make Ulster his home. It was clear that the goodwill of the natives could not be won by individual acts of kindness. All such were outweighed, and. 62 The Soul of Ulster indeed, wholly neutralized by the initial act of usurpation. Nothing could have been more conciliatory than the James I. settlers, but their conciliation had counted for nothing in face of the one salient fact that they were in arbitrary occupation of Irish soil. This has always been the Irish attitude of mind, and is, in fact, the keynote of the whole Irish question. It explains why neither local charities nor national concessions elicit so much as a glimmer of gratitude from those who benefit by them. What call is there for gratitude towards those who dole back in fragments that which they originally stole en bloc? It was evident, then, that friendly over- tures on the part of the British Colonists could make no permanent impression on the native mind, which was incapable of The Cromwellian Settlement 63 seeing anything beyond the main fact of dispossession. This left two courses only open: either the evacuation of Irish lands by the Protestants, or the re- colonization of the eastern half of Ireland under conditions which would ensure se- curity of life and property to the colonists. Cromwell preferred the latter course. The bulk of the native population was banished to the west of Ireland, only such numbers being retained in the east as would keep the land tilled without acting as a stand- ing menace. There was to be no possi- bility of a recurrence of 1641. Cromwell's act has secured for him the undying hatred of the native Irish, because it laid the foundation stone of colonial stability in Ireland; but there can be no doubt that it was a statesmanlike measure, had it only been carried out in 64 The Soul of Ulster a more practical manner; and it was a measure which was morally justified by the fact of the recent massacre. The natives outnumbered the colonists by six to one, and in the face of recent experi- ences, no more British agriculturalists could be expected to settle in east Ireland unless the great mass of the natives were removed to a safe distance. Cromwell foresaw all these things, and took his measures accordingly, but in detail his scheme proved unworkable. The first step was the forfeiture of the lands of all those implicated in the late rebellion, who were bidden to betake themselves across the Shannon. By this edict over 2,000,000 acres became forfeit. This figure included not only native Irish lands, but the lands of prominent Royalists, and "ma- lignants." Glebe and Crown lands were The Cromwellian Settlement 65 also confiscated, and thrown into the common basket with the lands of the rebels. An elaborate and costly survey, under the direction of Sir William Petty, followed, after which came the question of distribution. Here was the real trouble. The general idea was that the lands should be divided among the Cromwellian soldiers in satisfaction of their four years' arrears of pay, and also among those who had advanced money to finance the expedition. This, on the face of it, was as it should be, but when it came to paying 36,000 soldiers, to whom varying amounts were due, with allotments of land of very varying value, the difficulties of just dealing were felt to be insurmountable. In the end it was decided (with the army consenting) that the distribution should 66 The Soul of Ulster be by lot: each regiment taking its pay in the meadows, bogs or mountains, as the case might be, of the particular dis- trict for whose subjugation it had been responsible. Munster lands were valued at 12s. per acre, Leinster at 8s., and Ulster at 4s., figures which are of no small interest in view of the relative prosperity of the three Provinces to-day. The scheme was worked out with military precision, but as a Land Act it was fore- doomed to failure. The Ironsides were great soldiers, but they were not agriculturalists, and in most cases they were only too glad to barter their newly-acquired lands for a lump sum down. Their officers and many of the old residents took advantage of the soldiers' difficulties to build up big estates at small cost to themselves, and the The Cromwellian Settlement 67 prime object of the settlement was on the high road to defeat even before the death of the Commonwealth. In place of a militant British population evenly distributed over the whole of the newly- forfeited lands, the year 1660 saw a scattered British population working lands of unwieldy extent with the aid of the very natives who had lately been dis- possessed of them. Unnatural conditions such as these could only breed trouble, and it was not long before the native labourers by day became Tories or Rapparees by night, maiming, killing or burning the live and dead stock of those they worked for. The accession of Charles II. still further added to the confusion and unrest. This episcopalian Monarch confirmed the Crom- wellian Settlement as a whole, but restored 68 The Soul of Ulster many of the native proprietors to their forfeited lands, and, as was only to be expected, handed back to the Bishops and Protestant Church generally the glebe lands of which Cromwell the Nonconfor- mist had mulcted them. This pious act deprived many of the Ironsides of the lands to which they considered them- selves justly entitled in respect of their four years' unpaid service in Ireland, and seeing nothing on the horizon but the accession of the Roman Catholic Duke of York thousands of these sturdy non- conformists emigrated to America, there to found that remarkable New England society so famous in romance and verse. Although the Cromwellian Settlement may be said to have failed of its full intention, its effect on the ultimate Ulster question, i.e., the relations existing The Cromwellian Settlement 69 between the native Irish and the British Colonists, was very far reaching. The Calvinistic tendencies of the new Settlers accentuated more than ever the im- passable social and religious barrier be- tween the two races. Intermarriage with the natives had always been forbidden by law from the earliest days of British colonization in Ireland. In 1367 the law was so strict that any colonist marrying a native Irish woman was liable to be hanged, drawn and quartered. Ireton himself pronounced the direst penalties against any who should so offend. But, however much such stern measures may have been called for in Munster and Leinster, there was no need for them in Ulster. Here there were Protestant girls in plenty, and there was no disposition on the part of such Ironsides as remained 70 The Soul of Ulster and settled to look beyond these. Prendergast quotes a stanza which well illustrates the mental attitude of the seventeenth century settlers, and, indeed, of their descendants to-day in the twentieth century. " rather than turne From English principles would sooner burne, And rather than marrie an Irish wife, Would batchellars remain for tearme of life." On the side of the natives there was no such prejudice. Intermarriage had been the admitted cause of the failure of all previous attempts to implant British ideas and British customs in Ireland by means of colonization. Intermarriage was, therefore, the obvious weapon with which to defeat the intended effect of the Cromwellian Settlement. By the laws of the Roman Catholic Church the children of mixed marriages must always be The Cromwellian Settlement 71 brought up as Catholics, so that the interests of the priests lay very palpably in that direction. A standing testimony to the stern resistance of the colonists to the allurements of the native girls is to be found in present-day Ulster's 800,000 Protestants, all of whom would to-day be profitable members of the Church of Rome, had their forbears at any time through the centuries yielded to the charms of the native daughters of Erin. THE CIVIL WAR modern Ulster question may be said to have germinated on the 23rd of October, 1641, a date solemnly commemorated for many years afterwards among the natives. Prior to this la- mentable outbreak, religious antagonism had been merely clerical; from that date on it became political. Evidence of this changed spirit was soon forthcoming. The wholesale emigration of the Ironsides under the heavy burden of the Restora- tion, though a serious blow to the fighting power of the settlers, still left them sufficiently strong to be safe from open attack; but there were other means 75 76 The Soul of Ulster open to the natives by which they could make life unprofitable and unpalatable. The Rapparees had made their appear- ance as early as the first allotment of forfeited lands in 1655, but, till the accession of James II., they could hardly be said to have constituted a real menace to the settlers. These were armed and well capable of self-defence. But with the last of the Stuarts on the throne there came drastic and ominous changes, eloquent to future generations of the basic principles of Home Rule. The Pro- testant settlers were deprived of all civil and executive offices, and, at the instance of the national councils, were forbidden under pain of death to carry or possess arms. The native Roman Catholics were not disarmed, and the boldness of the Rapparees increased in exact ratio to The Civil War 77 the helplessness of the settlers to defend themselves. These were now harassed and persecuted in every conceivable way. Their stock was mutilated or carried off, their crops destroyed. Men were executed for having in their houses arms which the search parties had themselves con- cealed there. There can be no doubt that had James' short (two and a half years) reign been prolonged by so much as one year, the scenes of 1641 would have been re-enacted. All the native interests, religious and political, were working up to that pious end, when the deus ex machina suddenly burst on the scene in the person of William of Orange, son-in-law to James and claimant to his throne. The worst possibilities of the situation were now averted, but the trials of the 78 The Soul of Ulster settlers were by no means at an end. The Rapparees were strong in numbers and fully armed, and their suppression was a slow process. They were finally extirpated by the primitive device of putting a price on their heads. The effect was instantaneous. The receiving stations were almost embarrassed by the numbers of heads that daily arrived on the scene. "The Irish bring them in;" reported Major Morgan, who was re- sponsible for the idea; "brothers and cousins cut one another's throats." The plan was not a pretty one, but it worked. Within twelve months of the posting of the notice, the bulk of the Rapparees were no more, and the survivors were correspondingly prosperous. The appearance of William of Orange on the political horizon of Ulster was The Civil War 79 sensational in its results. In the eyes of the Protestants he was from the first the lawful king, and organized resistance without treason was now for the first time possible. The armed bands of James were, however, still very much in the ascendant. Tyrconnell had a force of 40,000 well-equipped men, and there was no organized army on the other side with which to oppose him. The dis- armament of the Protestants had been thorough, and their re-equipment was necessarily a gradual process. The first collective stand of the per- secuted settlers was of a highly dramatic nature. The city of Derry, or London- derry, as it was now called, had always been prominent in Ulster politics. It had been very conspicuous as a Pro- testant stronghold during O'Dogherty's 80 The Soul of Ulster 1608 rebellion; and during the massacres of 1641 and 1642 it had proved a safe and sure sanctuary for all the scattered settlers from the surrounding district; and now, in 1689, it was destined to make itself famous for ever by a defence which stands out as one of the most gallant and stirring achievements in the history of the world. On December 9th James' forces were seen approaching the city from across the Foyle, and the Town Council, meeting in hasty conclave, decided that the city was indefensible and must be surrendered. Some apprentice boys of the town, how- ever, thought differently, and, taking the matter into their own hands, shut the gates in the very faces of James' aston- ished troops, who thereupon marched off to Coleraine without firing a shot. This The Civil War 81 act on the part of the " 'Prentice Boys" is still commemorated in Derry on each successive 9th December, and the name of Crookshanks, Spike, Campsis and Sher- rard are still, and ever will be, famous in the Maiden City. The consequences of this daring defiance of James II. were not long in falling on the little town, which four months later found itself invested by James himself with an army of 25,000 men, including 5,000 French under de Rosen. In the meanwhile the inhabitants had been making such preparations as lay in their power, and a defence was now set up which stands out to this day as the one episode of military heroism in the history of Ireland. The Governor, Lundy, was suspected of treachery and expelled from the city, and a clergyman named George 82 The Soul of Ulster Walker was elected to take his place. Under his leadership the gallant little town held out for three months, under circumstances of appalling hardship. Famine and sword reduced the effective garrison from 7,500 to 3,000; 10,000 of the civil population (two-thirds of the total number) died of hunger or disease, but "no surrender" was still the watch- word of the gaunt skeletons that manned the walls. Finally, on July 30th, when the few survivors were at their very last gasp, Kirk with three store ships and a frigate broke the boom across the Foyle, and Derry was relieved. Derry and Enniskillen, so far, had been the only towns in Ireland which had refused submission to James II., but, with the firm establishment of William on the English throne, the work of recovering The Civil War 83 Ireland was promptly taken in hand. Schomberg landed at Carrickfergus with an army of 20,000, composed of French mercenaries and raw English levies, and, marching south, cleared the country as far as Dundalk, where he entrenched himself. Here he lay inactive for the rest of the autumn, and in November withdrew with his army to Belfast. William, greatly incensed by this laxity on the part of Schomberg, now resolved to take the field in person, and in June of the following year he crossed the channel and took over command. James was in Dublin at the time, and, moving north with his army to the Boyne, he took up a strong defen- sive position on the right bank of that river, about a mile above the town of Drogheda. Here, on July 1st, the rival monarchs 84 The Soul of Ulster met. The opposing forces were about equal in number, but the advantage in position was greatly in favour of the Irish, who acted solely on the defensive. William, however, forded the river, scaled the heights opposite, and easily dislodged the native army, which, after the feeblest show of resistance, fled to the south. William now returned to England, and Ginkel assumed command of his army in place of Schomberg, who had fallen at the Boyne. The Irish army, retreating southwards, took up a strong position on the hill of Aughrim, near Ballinasloe, a hill surrounded on all sides by bogs, and difficult of approach. They numbered 25,000 and were commanded by St. Ruth, a French general of high repute. Ginkel had only 18,000 troops, but he attacked the hill with complete confidence and The Civil War 85 totally routed the defenders, who scattered and took to flight in all directions. This victory was shortly followed by the surrender of the Irish garrison at Limerick, and the war was at an end. The Irish war between William and James can hardly be classed as a religious war. It is true that, with hardly any exceptions, the Protestants were on the side of William and the native Roman Catholics on that of James, but the real cause of quarrel lay in no question of doctrine, but in a dispute between two Princes as to the right to the English throne. The effect of the war, however, was undoubtedly to heighten the barrier already existing, and to increase the bitterness between the two races living side by side in the one island. Open hostilities, at no time congenial to the 86 The Soul of Ulster native temperament, were at an end, but in their wake followed the stealthy mid- night houghings and burnings which have always played so conspicuous a part in the Irish struggle for independence. The Rapparees had been put down by methods which have already been de- scribed, but their place was taken by various patriotic Societies organized on the same lines. In 1711 a secret society known as the "Houghers" appeared in Connaught, with the usual programme of maiming and mutilation of farm stock. All the victims were Protestants, and no convictions could be obtained. In 1761 the "Whiteboys" appeared in Tipperary. This was a purely Roman Catholic Society, organized and officered by priests. Like all similar societies in Ireland, it worked solely by night, and The Civil War 87 it perhaps excelled all others in the hideous cruelty which characterized its outrages. For five and twenty years it terrorized the entire country. THE 1798 REBELLION TN 1791 was founded the United Irish- -* men's League. Its prima facie in- spiration was the French Revolution, which at the time was supposed to be setting the world a practical example of the potentialities of oppressed humanity against organized tyranny. The movement in its opening stages was as its name indicates non-sectarian. The Presbyterians of Ulster, at that time, numbered some 100,000, and under an intolerant Episcopalianism, their griev- ances as loyal and law-abiding subjects were very real. They could also, with perfect justice, complain of other most substantial grievances, both agrarian and 91 92 The Soul of Ulster commercial; so that, what with one thing and another, they were in a perilously ripe state for any justifiable agitation against authority. The ostensible aim of the movement was to bring these Northern Presbyterians, greatly discontented at the moment, into line with the Roman Catholic natives who were always discontented, and so present a common face to the English Government. But there was more in it than this, as very soon became apparent. In those days a very definite gap separated the Presbyterians from the members of the Church of Ireland. At the present day both denominations are loosely bracketted together as "Protestants," but it was far otherwise at the end of the eighteenth century; and the primary design of the native Roman Catholics The 1798 Rebellion 93 was to utilize the Presbyterian strength against the Episcopalian Protestants; after which the Presbyterians themselves could have been dealt with easily enough. This simple scheme was naturally not made public. The United Irishmen orators were as Irishmen always are impassioned, eloquent and even plausible, and it was some time before the sinister designs behind their smooth utterances began to be suspected. In the mean- while many Home County Protestants of good family joined the League, which for a time presented all the appearance of a national movement. In the Irish Parliament the situation was much debated, many well-meaning Protestant members taking the line that the movement was genuine and justifiable, and, in fact, all that it represented itself 94 The Soul of Ulster to be. To these the usual words of warning were given by those who were more clear-sighted. During the dis- cussion in 1793 on the bill for the removal of Catholic disabilities, Dr. Duigenan made a statement which considering the source from which it came may be taken as the most momentous pronouncement on the Irish question which has ever been uttered. Dr. Duigenan was of the humblest origin. Born in a cabin, of a native Roman Catholic family, he was reared and educated like all those around him as a Catholic, but later on, for political reasons, adopted Protestantism. "The Irish Catholics," he said, "to a man esteem all Protestants as usurpers of their estates. To this day they settle those estates on the marriage of their sons and daughters. They have accurate The 1798 Rebellion 95 maps of them. They have lately published in Dublin a map of this kingdom can- toned out among the old proprietors. They abhor all Protestants and all English- men as plunderers and oppressors, exclusive of their detestation of them as heretics. If the Parliament of this country can be so infatuated as to put the Irish Catholics on a better footing than the English Catholics, and if the English nation shall countenance such a frenzy, either this Kingdom will be for ever severed from the British Empire, or it must be again conquered by a British Army. The Protestants of Ireland are but the British garrison in an enemy's country, and if deserted by the parent state must surrender at discretion. English ministers are simply blind. I tell them they are greatly deceived if 96 The Soul of Ulster they have been induced to believe that an Irish Catholic is, ever was, or ever will be, a loyal subject of a British Protestant King, or a Protestant Government." The extraordinary educational value of this utterance lies in the fact that it is a disclosure from within, by one of the natives, of the secret soul of the Irish people. It was not long before there was further confirmation of Dr. Duigenan's warning. Later on in the same year the entire south-west corner of Ireland rose simultaneously, and a number of outrages were committed on Protestant farmers and clergymen. The rising was easily quelled, and at Carrick a number of prisoners were taken. These volunteered the information that, when matters were rather more ripe, all the Protestants and The 1798 Rebellion 97 Presbyterians in Ireland were to be killed in one night. Disclosures such as these began to open the eyes of the Ulster Presbyterians to the precipice towards which they had been drifting. There were other disquieting signs, too, in the firmament. For some time past bands of midnight ruffians, describing themselves as Defenders, had been terrorizing the agriculturists of Ulster. So far these had not been identified with the United Irishmen, but that was shortly to come. In January, 1791, they broke into the house of Mr. Alexander Barclay, a school- master at Forkhill, near Dundalk. They tightened a cord round his neck till his tongue protruded, which they then cut out. They cut off the four fingers and thumb of his right hand, after which they proceeded to treat his wife in exactly the 98 The Soul of Ulster same way. Her brother, a boy of thir- teen, had arrived that morning from Armagh on a visit. They cut out his tongue and the calf of his right leg, and left them all in that condition. This outrage was entirely unprovoked. Barclay was not only inoffensive but philanthropic, for he taught thirty chil- dren in the village gratis. His supposed offence was teaching in a school of which the Defenders i.e., Defenders of the Roman Catholic faith did not approve. All the native Irish in the village ex- ulted openly over this hideous act, as though it had been some glorious feat of arms. The Defenders continued their depreda- tions for some time before they were finally identified with the United Irish- men. The moment this identity was The 1798 Rebellion 99 established, and it became generally known that the United Irishmen by day became Defenders by night, outraging the persons and property of those with whom they were nominally "united," the movement was dead, as far as the Ulster Presbyterians were concerned. The name, however, was still retained on account of its plausible sound. The outrages perpetrated by the De- fenders soon became so unendurable that, in self-defence, the Ulstermen started a counter-organization, known as "Peep-o'-' Day Boys," mainly composed of Presby- terians. The relations between Protestant and Catholic were now at the breaking- point, and in September, 1795, matters may be said to have culminated in a miniature battle which was fought at a village in Tyrone, known as the Diamond. 100 The Soul of Ulster The Catholics, who were the aggressors, outnumbered the Protestants by more than two to one, but they were completely routed, leaving 48 of their number dead upon the field. On the same night the Orange Lodge was instituted. This Society was a purely defensive organization, which was called into being out of a most acute necessity for some combined front to be shown, by a persecuted minority, to those whose avowed object and boast now was their total extermination. It was not long before it had enrolled 20,000 sturdy and determined men, and there can be very little doubt that it was the existence of this body, ready at any time to face and defeat more than double their number, as they had at the Diamond, that alone deterred the natives from an attempt to The 1798 Rebellion 101 repeat the scenes of 1641. Later on, when the rebellion actually did break out, the Orangemen served as yeomanry, and were of incalculable service to a govern- ment which at the time hardly knew which way to turn for reliable troops. The Orange Lodge took its name in honour of William III., and the adoption of the colour naturally followed on the adoption of the name. It is, however, interesting to bear in mind that, at the battle of the Boyne, William's colours had been green, and James's white. There is something peculiarly Hibernian in the thought that the wearing of the green was instituted by the man whose name no good Catholic ever mentions without some pious expression of hope as to the tem- perature of his present surroundings. The rebellion which had been smoulder- 102 The Soul of Ulster ing for seven years actually broke into flame in 1798. To the student of Irish Politics who looks below the surface, there is no episode in the history of the island more in- structive, or that holds up a more minatory hand to the half-informed, than this rebellion. The initial success of the movement was due in great part to the organizing energies and influence of such Protestant gentlemen as Lord Edward Fitzgerald and Bagenal Harvey. No sooner, however, was the rebellion on the apparent high-road to success, than the mask was thrown off, a holy war was proclaimed, priests assumed the command of the rebel army, and the extermination of the Protestants became the avowed aim of the victorious in- surgents. Roman Catholic ceremonies The 1798 Rebellion 103 preceded all actions. The murder of Protestants was solemnly blessed as an act pleasing to God. For one whole month in Wexford, Wick- low and Kildare the rebellion ran riot. The insurgent army could boast 30,000 well-armed men. Vinegar Hill was made its Headquarters. Here, day after day, batches of unoffending Protestants were brought in, tried before a mock tribunal, and butchered in cold blood. The scenes enacted on this hill recall the worst episodes of the French Revolution. In France the victims were butchered because they were aristocrats; at Vinegar Hill they were butchered because they were Protestants, or, in other words, foreigners. Everything was done to a fitting accom- paniment of prayers, genuflections, and holy water. But there were worse deeds 104 The Soul of Ulster even than the deeds done on Vinegar Hill. In Kildare Mr. Crafford and one of his young children were impaled on pikes and roasted alive before a slow fire. One hundred and eighty-four men, women and children were imprisoned in a barn at a village known as Scullabogue. When news came on June 4th that the fight at Ross was going against the rebels, orders were issued to at once kill all the prisoners. This was done by setting fire to the barn, and all within it perished miserably. Two or three of the native Catholics who protested against the horrid act were themselves tossed into the flames on the points of pikes. This deed forcibly recalls similar acts at Lisgool, Kilmore, and Langale one hundred and fifty years earlier. There is a further striking analogy between the butcheries on the Bann at The 1798 Rebellion 105 Portadown in 1641 and that at Wexford Bridge in 1798. The latter showed a distinct advance in brutality. At Port- adown the bridge had been broken down in the middle and the victims were simply forced by pike-points into the water. At Wexford Bridge two men in front and two behind thrust their pikes into the victim's body and, lifting it up, held it writhing on the points till the arms of the executioners wearied and the body was tossed over the parapet. Ninety-seven met their death in this way on June 20th. The pro- ceedings were then mercifully cut short by a report that Vinegar Hill was being attacked, whereupon the butchers made off. At the end of a month the triumphant career of the rebels was cut short by General Lake, who collected an army of 106 The Soul of Ulster very mixed elements and utterly defeated the rebels within a stone's throw of their headquarters. The leaders were hanged, and Ireland settled down once more to a state of apparent tranquillity. Irish Roman Catholics and Anglo-Saxon Pro- testants dug the fields side by side, but in each there was an inherent and in- eradicable distrust of the other a distrust born of different temperament, different race, different interests and different religion, but before all else, born of historical facts. '98 and '41 were not forgotten. ULSTER TO-DAY above brief historical sketch brings us to the Ulster of to-day, and broadly explains the political attitude of the two sections of the population in that little understood Province. The Protestant attitude is often stigmatized as being uncompromising. It is un- compromising. There is probably no community in the world where political sentiment is more united and more deeply rooted. It may also be claimed that there is no community in the world where the political opinions held are more logically justified by anyone who takes the trouble to investigate the facts. Few 109 110 The Soul of Ulster people do. The fundamental idea at the back of the Ulster-man's attitude is that what has once happened may well happen again. It is argued that when, through- out a period of several hundred years, certain occurrences have invariably suc- ceeded the opportunity for such occur- rences, it is not unreasonable to assume that given the same opportunities the same occurrences will again make appearance. When such occurrences invariably take the form of systematic attempts to rid the country of the British element by any and every means, it is only natural that those chiefly interested should be strongly opposed to the introduction of any fresh opportunities for such attempts. It is a pity that English politicians, who think to settle the Irish question with smirks Ulster To-day 111 and smiles, do not in the first instance make study of the historical facts which govern the situation. Through these they might then get not only a truer sense of values but an illuminating glimpse into the soul of the Irish people. They might ultimately arrive at the great truth that the soul of the native Irish has not at the present day changed by the width of a hair from what it was in 1641, and again in 1798. They would then understand why all their smirks and smiles are thrown away; why all conciliatory measures fail to conciliate, or to elicit the faintest spark of gratitude. The reason is that they do not so much as touch the fringe of the real grievance, which is briefly the existence on Irish soil of a million and a quarter of British colonists. This million and a quarter are variously known in 112 The Soul of Ulster England as the Irish Loyalists, the Irish Unionists, or the Irish Protestants; some- times as Ulstermen, or even more vaguely as "Orangemen." But to the native Irish mind they simply represent the one unspeakable evil, that is to say, the British Usurper. The only attraction of Home Rule to the inner soul of the Irish (especially in Ulster) is the hope that it will provide the machinery by which the British colonists can be got rid of and Irish soil revert once more to the Irish. Even a partial realization of this salient fact must make clear the utter fatuity of the pretty pictures which represent Carson and Redmond as shaking hands and crying, "Irishmen all." As well draw a picture of Von der Goltz and King Albert embracing in Brussels and crying, "Bel- Ulster To-day 113 gians all." Residence is not nationality; and when residence is forcible and un- welcome residence, it is the very antithesis of nationality. It is the accursed thing against which nationality revolts. In the Northern Province of Ireland we find two races living side by side, between whom is little sympathy, little temperamentally in common, and between whom there has never been any inter- mixture of blood. These two races are on the one side the original natives, on the other, the British colonists. The former are exclusively Roman Catholic, the latter are almost exclusively Pro- testant, but not quite. However, for general purposes of distinction, it may be taken as an undeviating rule that the Roman Catholics are the natives, and the Protestants the British colonists. The 114 The Soul of Ulster second half of the rule, in any case, holds good without exception. The existence of these doctrinal divisions often leads the half-informed into the error of supposing that Ulster is the seat of a bitter but suppressed religious strife. Technically speaking, this is not the case at all. It is true the Protestants have little good to say of the Roman Catholics and vice versa, but the mutual antipathy is racial and not religious, only as has already been explained the religion marks the race, so much so, in fact, that religion actually stands for nationality. The Pro- testant, therefore, looks askance at the Catholic, not because of doctrinal differ- ences, but because he recognizes in the Catholic an inveterate foe nursing a deathless grievance. Similarly, the Roman Catholic scowls on the Pro- Ulster To-day 115 testants not because of their supposed prejudice against the triple mitre at the Vatican, but because their Protestantism stamps them as usurping British colonists who have wrested from them the best of their lands. This is the Ulster question as it stands to-day under the Imperial Government. The Ulster question under a native Irish Government would be a very much more serious affair. We should then be faced with all the potential tragedies behind a situation in which one race tries, by every known means, to get rid of another race which does not mean going. An exact parallel would be fur- nished if the Red Indians outnumbered the Canadians by five to three, and if the Government of the Dominion were to be placed in the hands of the former. The 116 The Soul of Ulster parallel, too, would hold good, not only politically but also as to the more practical developments which would inevitably follow. To benevolent but Boeotian politicians, with a knowledge of Ireland gleaned from patriotic fiction, or to the casual visitor with a judicial sense warped by flattery, these views may appear extravagant. To the Ulster Protestant they will seem such threadbare truths as to be hardly worth reciting. To him they are the A B C of a creed which has been handed down from father to son during three hundred years of residence in a foreign land, and to which the experience of each successive generation adds force. But the Pro- testant will seldom, even to his own brother-Protestant, draw aside the curtain of his soul, and show to the world the root Ulster To-day 117 matter of the whole question. That root- matter, though it is known to all, is rarely bared to the eye perhaps because all know that behind it lurks an ominous cloud, the colour of which is blood-red. It is, therefore, the thing which is not written, and not said even in whisper; but written here it must be, for the understanding of the aforesaid politician and casual visitor. When the native Irish say, "Ireland for the Irish," they mean what they say. In the South and West the cry has little meaning, for the Irish have Ireland. The foreign element is a negligible quantity, but a negligible quantity which scatters money, and is therefore not unwelcome. In Ulster we have a very different state of things. Here we find half the Province in the occupation of settlers who are not 118 The Soul of Ulster Irish at all. The tourist, the politician, and many others East of the Irish Sea would call them Irish. They speak a half-Scotch lingo with an Irish brogue; their forbears have been in Ireland for over three hundred years, but for all that, they have not a drop of Irish blood in their veins. If they had, they would for reasons already shown be Roman Catholics. In the eyes of the natives they are foreigners, land-grabbers and enemies in a word, the "English Garrison." In Ulster, then, the cry of "Ireland for the Irish" is not the mere innocent expression of a laudable patriotism; it has a deeper and a far more sinister meaning. It means the expulsion from Ireland of the Protestant colonists, and is so understood clearly by both sections Ulster To-day 119 of the population. There are no senti- mental illusions in Ulster, whatever there may be in England. Among the Irish of the South and West, the popular conception of Ireland under Home Rule may be said to be, and, in fact, is, nebulous. The aspirations of the peasant, when reduced by persuasive inquiry to concrete form, will generally be found to stop short at a kind of Pan- Celtic Arcadia, where all will be rich on a minimum of work and a maximum of whisky supplied by American millionaires. The picture stimulating though it is excites no real enthusiasm. It is believed in much as a favourite fairy tale is believed in by a boy of eight. Get your peasant alone well out of earshot of his fellows and as likely as not he will blast the pretty picture (and, incidentally, those who 120 The Soul of Ulster draw it) with a torrent of picturesquely obscene scorn. In Ulster, however, a very different spirit broods over the land. Here Home Rule holds out to the native Irish, not the elusive mirage of the south, but a coveted and substantial prize which lies under their very hand to pluck, and faces them enticingly at every turn of their daily labour. Half the lands of Ulster, and these the best and the richest, are in the hands of the stranger within the gates. It matters nothing that the lands, when originally granted, were waste, and that the industry of the colonists has made them rich. It matters nothing that Ulster was then a sink of murder, misery and vice, and that now it is a land of smiling prosperity. The natives know none of these things; they are not politi- Ulster To-day 121 cally educated on these lines. All they know is that the lands were once theirs, and that now they are occupied by colonists of another race and another religion. And so they cry, or, rather, they mutter under their breath, "Ireland for the Irish," a cry which, under the expanding influence of J. Kinahan, becomes freely translated into "to hell or to the sea with every bloody Protestant." There is not a Roman Catholic in Ulster to whom the promise of Home Rule does not mean the promise of the recovery of forfeited lands. In some districts the lands of the Protestant farmers have already been officially allotted among the native popula- tion. Out of a consideration of such a state 122 The Soul of Ulster of society, two prima facie questions arise : (1) Are the aspirations of the native Irish for a restitution of their forfeited lands justified? (2) Would Home Rule give practical expression to such aspirations? The first question obviously opens up problems which reach far beyond the case of Ulster. It touches, more or less, the whole civilized world. Should Eng- land be evacuated in favour of the Welsh, the relics of the ancient Britons? Canada in favour of the Red Indians? New Zealand in favour of the Maoris? Should the French clear out of Algiers, the British out of Uganda, the Spanish out of the Argentine? We can extend the problem even further. Has any race on the globe a direct charter from God to Ulster To-day 123 be where it now is? Where, for instance, are the Firbolgs of Ireland, according to the Four Masters overthrown and super- seded by the Milesians? All will agree that this first question can be summarily dismissed. It does not call for serious attention. Two wrongs have never yet made a right. Even assuming of the purpose of argument that the original act of plantation was an injustice, the dispossession of the colonists, after three hundred and ten years of exemplary occupation, would be an act of tenfold greater injustice. The colonists were neither pirates nor marauders. Their deportation was not even of their own doing. By a State measure they were willy-nilly taken from their own surroundings and dropped down in a strange land. In that strange 124 The Soul of Ulster land they have an unbroken record of industry and loyalty. They can and do claim that every good thing, civil or military, that has ever come out of Ire- land, has come from the side of the colonists. On the reflected glory glancing off these achievements of the British colonists are built up all Ireland's claims to honourable mention in history. While in Irish home politics the Protestants are branded as foreigners, land-grabbers and interlopers, or, in local parlance, as the "English Garrison," on British platforms, or in the British Press, the deeds of the same "English Garrison" are proudly pointed to by Nationalist patriots as home products. It may truly be said that there is no race in the world which confers its nationality with a more generous hand on all successful and dis- Ulster To-day 125 tinguished men. This, however, is for foreign consumption, and is a form of advertisement which is perhaps legiti- mate, and which is certainly successful. The point is that, as such successful and distinguished men eagerly claimed for Ireland are invariably of the race im- ported from England or Scotland, it may fairly be argued, even on the Nationalist showing, that the colonization of part of Ireland with men of another race has not proved an unmixed evil for the country. The second question at once raises more practical issues than the first. Would Home Rule result in attempts to dispossess the Protestant settlers of their footing in Ireland, and, if so, how? The first part of the question can be shortly dis- posed of. The attempt would be made; 126 The Soul of Ulster it has been made on every occasion in the history of Ireland on which the native element has been in the ascendancy, and it would be made again. The intention, moreover, is tacitly admitted in the native shibboleth of "Ireland for the Irish;" it is more than tacitly admitted in moments of alcoholic or electioneering excitement. The attempt would not be made by methods of open violence. Of such de- velopments the Protestants have no fear. They are of a combative race; the natives are essentially non-combative in the British sense, that is to say, face-to-face fighting does not appeal to them. However, there is no question of face- to-face fighting. Every Protestant knows that this is so, and registers the knowledge without exultation. The attempt to rid Ulster To-day 127 Ireland of the foreign element would be made by more characteristic methods, of which the more conspicuous would be as follows: (1) Petty injustices and persecu- tions which may be further sub- divided as follows: (a) Faking the Parliamentary re- presentation ; (6) Establishing native officials in every executive and remunera- tive post in the country. (2) Agrarian outrages. (3) Tammany methods. As the success and impunity of (2) would depend on (1) we will take the latter first. PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION In Ulster, Parliamentary elections are 128 The Soul of Ulster not won, as in England, by persuasive oratory, by house to house canvassing, or by the proclamation through artistic posters of the candidates' views on social questions. Here no pictorial posters decorate derelict walls and gateways, no announcements of public meetings meet the eye of the wanderer through streets or country roads, no fervid exhortations to the public to vote for this or that candi- date; no ribbons, no party colours. During an election in which it is known that the majority one way or the other will be represented by single figures, and where the intensity of feeling is infinitely deeper than anything of which England has knowledge, there are no outward signs in the streets or market-places that anything outside of the ordinary daily routine is in progress. Ulster To-day 129 To the eye experienced in local signs, there is something significant in the slightly furtive movements of the good citizens as they pass up and down the streets. They wear an air of mild conspiracy; at street corners they whisper eager inquiries as to the health of certain electors whose appearance at the poll is doubtful, accom- panied by pious expressions of hope for a change for the better (or for the worse, as the case may be) in the health of the patient concerned. Priests and members of the Royal Irish Constabulary are more in evidence than is usual, but otherwise there is no external sign that an election of consuming interest is in full swing. Meetings are held, but they are attended more as a sign of respect to the candidate than for educational purposes. The candi- date, for his part, dispenses ancient but 130 The Soul of Ulster congenial party maxims rather than argu- ment. Argument indeed would be thrown away, seeing that no Nationalist ever attends a Unionist meeting, or vice versa. Why should they? Operations, in fact, between the day of nomination and the poll have little effect on the result of the election, except in so far as the organization of the party machinery for getting voters to the poll is concerned. The real election is won or lost at a tedious and wordy function known as the Revision Sessions. In English politics this operation has an entirely secondary importance, as political views are apt to change according to the humour of the moment, or the mis- demeanour of this or that government, so that party zeal at the Revision Sessions may, in the event, prove to have been in Ulster To-day 131 the interests of the other side. In Ulster no such danger exists. There is only one issue Home Rule or no Home Rule and as to this, one race votes one way and the other race votes the other way, and so will to the end of time. The Revising Barrister, specially selected for the occasion, sits daily in the Court House over a period sometimes extending into weeks, during which he decides as to who is to be entitled to vote during the next twelve months. In the hands of this functionary lies the fate of the con- stituency. From seven to eight thousand names are paraded seriatim before him. The right of each name to be on the register is contested with much volubility and a good deal of earnest but conflicting per- jury. Dead men are sworn to be alive, live men are sworn to be dead. The 132 The Soul of Ulster national lack of originality in nomencla- ture adds to the difficulties of judicial decision. One townland has been known to produce as many as forty men with the same Christian and surnames, these being domestically distinguished from one another by such descriptive terms as "Red," "Black," "The Pig," "Fire the Thatch," etc. It will easily be understood then, that, in a country where the imagina- tive faculty flourishes, the perplexities of the honest Revising Barrister are con- siderable, and he may have to sit daily for a month before the new register is officially stamped. However, he is well paid and content. The moment it is so stamped, the result of any election which may take place within the next twelve months becomes an ascertained quantity. Even the majority Ulster To-day 133 of the Unionist or the Nationalist candi- date can be calculated with a truly sur- prising accuracy. A complete stranger to the district with a leaning towards ethnology could do it. The Celtic names are the Roman Catholics, the British names are the Protestants. The former will vote to a man (dead or alive) for the Nationalist candidate, the latter will vote for the Unionist candidate, but not to a man. Some will abstain owing to personal grievances, and some such as the Coven- anters will abstain owing to religious scruples, the exact nature of which no one who is not a Covenanter has ever been able accurately to gauge. But the conclusion of the whole matter is that the Revising Barrister, with a few strokes of his pen, can knock off a couple of hundred voters from one side and put on a couple of 134 The Soul of Ulster hundred (new voters) to the other. There would be few seats in Ulster repre- sented by Protestants under Home Rule. (2) A Home Rule Parliament sitting in Dublin would probably be remarkable (among other things) for the appointment of more highly-paid and incompetent officials than any other institution of the same size in the world. But these good things which Ireland (at the cost of great sacrifice to the country generally) will provide for the upper stratum of patriots, will not come the way of the Protestants. The Law, the Police, the Post Office, Land Valuation, Inland Revenue and Excise will all be in the hands of the native Irish party, and they will push their advantage to the utmost limits. Senti- mental regard for a fallen foe is not one of their weaknesses. Ulster To-day 135 This brings us to the point of (1) seeing the Protestants defrauded of their proper parliamentary representation by a mani- pulation of the register, and, in other cases, no doubt, by a manipulation of the geographical boundaries of the con- stituency, and (2) seeing them excluded from all official appointments under the Government in favour of native com- petitors. These two steps will be a necessary preliminary to carrying out (3) with impunity. No. 3, or, in other words, the third method which will be made use of to make Ulster unendurable to the Protestant settlers will be the time-honoured method of midnight prowlings and agrarian out- rages. The prevalence of such outrages in Ireland has always been in inverse ratio to the power of the law to deal with 136 The Soul of Ulster them. They have, from the very back of history, been the favourite national weapon for inflicting injury on obnoxious persons, whom it might be dangerous to attack openly. With the entire machinery of the law and the police (as then consti- tuted) in sympathy with the "National" movement, it needs no profound student of Irish character to predict that outrages would advance in popularity with a leap. The hoisting of the green flag would be the signal for a vigorous revival of the stock programme of ham-stringing of horses, houghing of cattle, burning of rickyards, and last but not least clandestine attacks by armed groups upon solitary men returning home at night. Such have been the native methods from time immemorial. We have, in rhythmical succession in the annals of Ireland, the Ulster To-day 137 Rapparees, the Houghers, the White-boys, the Defenders, the Molly Maguires, the Ribbonmen, the Moonlighters, and the Land-Leaguers, stretching over two and a half centuries, but all identical as to their methods; and that such methods will whenever opportunity offers continue to be identified with the Nationalist clamour for independence, or, in other words, freedom from the "English Garri- son," no sane man can doubt. They are the fighting methods of the race, to which the fear of conviction and punish- ment have always been the only deterrent; and under Home Rule neither convictions nor punishment would follow. Magis- trates, constables, judge and jury would be on the side of the perpetrators. The context is familiar. Blind policemen, deaf neighbours, witnesses with no memory, 138 The Soul of Ulster are they not written in the book of the Chronicles of the Land of Erin? In such cases, where law and justice fail him, the Ulster Protestant will in- fallibly take his own measures for his protection. He is built that way. His resolution and his courage are unshakable. He has all the unflinching determination of his Border ancestors and by a question of principle he will stand to his last gasp. There is, at the moment of writing, no such mutual protection organization in Ulster, except the Orange Society. This society contrary to the common belief in England is at present a comparatively small organization, embracing quite an insignificant proportion of the total Pro- testant population; nor is it probable that it could ever form even the nucleus of a more comprehensive movement, many of Ulster To-day 139 the most determined anti-Home-Rulers being out of sympathy with its way of expressing itself. Recent activities, how- ever, though they produced no universal protective league, have given evidence of very considerable organizing power, and of a unanimity of purpose which leaves little doubt but that an absolutely united front will be turned to the common danger when it arises. MOONLIGHT OUTRAGES fTlHE psychology of moonlight out- * rages, and of their invariable asso- ciation, through the centuries, with all Irish political movements, is worth a moment's consideration by the student of the Ulster question, because it (the psychology, that is) is a factor in the situation of the very first importance. The amiable tourist, or the occasional visitor to Ireland, with about as true a grasp of the Irish question as he (or she) has of the Zenda-Vesta, finds a constant difficulty in associating the good-humoured Paddies or Micks, who minister to their wants, with the inhuman cruelty to man and beast which so often characterizes 143 144 The Soul of Ulster agrarian outrages in Ireland. The peasant appears such a pleasant, light-hearted fellow, so appreciative of the visitor's personal appearance, so sceptical as to his, or her, revealed age, and so fiercely denunciatory of the dirty villains who recently perpetrated the outrage at this or that farm, that it seems difficult to associate him and his kind with such cold-blooded brutality. But that he is associated with it, and closely too, is undeniable. The explanation lies in the domination of the "bad man." Every district in Ireland has its "bad man," and sometimes its "bad men." This is not peculiar to Ireland, but the terrorizing influence of the bad man over an entire district is peculiar to Ireland. If the bad man has the support of the parish priest, the state of that district Moonlight Outrages 145 will be bad indeed. If as is very often the case he is opposed by the parish priest, but supported by his curate, the latter combination will win the day, for they will threaten while the parish priest can only persuade, and intimidation is a weapon to which the Irish peasant will always yield. He does not by any means love the role of cut-throat into which he is pressed. He is at bottom as the tourist rightly judges a pleasant fellow enough. He has many gentlemanly char- acteristics to which his counterpart in England is a stranger; his instinct is to be courteous and even sycophantic to his social superiors. In the absence of whisky he is essentially non-aggressive, with a keen nose for danger and no quixotic prejudices. He has a protean genius for adapting his own views for the moment 146 The Soul of Ulster to those of his interviewer, and, though weak, he is by no means inherently wicked; nor is his apparent friendliness by any means all a pose. There is a good deal of pose in it, but at the back of the pose there is a genuine desire to live and let live all round. What is it, then, that transforms this pleasant fellow into a demon capable of Balkan atrocities? Alas! it is the "bad man" backed up by bad whisky. In other countries the bad man is a pariah, hunted out of society and shunned by the decent. In Ireland he is cock of the walk. His rule is wholly one of terror. The peasants hate him, but they will not stand up to him; it is not in their nature; it is easier and safer to toady him and to go the way he points. And so it happens that any devil with Moonlight Outrages 147 a glib tongue and a gallon of potheen can sway the proletariat as he wills. Potheen, it may be explained, is raw spirit distilled mainly from potatoes. It emanates from secret stills in the mountains, and pays no duty, but its effect on human nature is bad maddening and brutalizing and, taken in quantities, it quickly transforms kindly, peaceable men into fully-equipped fiends. Then the bad man preaches his crusade. This limb of Satan is gifted, like all his race, with the complete equipment of the mob-orator; he knows the material he has to deal with from A to Z. He knows that his following is weak, timid, and lamentably lacking in a thirst for blood. That is where the potheen comes in. It pays no duty, and he can afford to dispense it with a free hand. And so, in due course, he leads forth his maddened 148 The Soul of Ulster band to their bloody work. He himself, as the head and brain of the enterprise, takes care to drink no more than will fill him with the military ardour necessary for the enterprise; but his following are primed up to any devilry. In the morning comes repentance, as it ever has done, and ever will as long as the sun sets and rises again. To some come also a sickening horror of deeds only dimly remembered, and a hatred of the leaders who have organized and engineered such devilries. Out of these mixed feelings is evolved the informer. The Irish are often stig- matized as a race of informers. This fallacy for it is strictly speaking a fallacy arises from a misconception of the real motives which so often lead to the giving of information from inside. The truth is Moonlight Outrages 149 that it frequently happens that an asso- ciate in a conspiracy becomes an informer, not from motives of treachery, or greed, or even fear, but because he really loathes at heart the business into which he has been drawn. The curse of Ireland is, and always has been, lack of moral courage. The native Celt will do anything rather than incur the unpopularity of his fellows, and so, from inability to say no, he is dragged into a conspiracy which he loathes. His ineradicable desire to be on good terms with all parties leads him, for a time, to attempt the complicated manoeuvre of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, till in the end he finds the double role an impossibility, forsakes the conspiracy and becomes an informer. But it is important to bear in mind that he 150 The Soul of Ulster becomes an informer, not out of deliberate treachery, but rather from the promptings of an over-charged conscience. The first cause of trouble is the moral weakness which prevents him from standing up to the insinuating overtures of the bad man; the second cause of trouble is the potheen. In all forecasts of the possibilities and probabilities which may follow on the administration of Home Rule; in all analyses of the national temperament, and of the prospects of brotherly harmony between the two conflicting elements living side by side in Ireland, potheen is a factor to be reckoned with. It is the one certain intervener in the debate. From the earliest days of stills in Ire- land, the administration of potheen has been an indispensable preliminary to all Moonlight Outrages 151 native excursions under arms. Every horrid act in the long red list of Irish atrocities has been perpetrated under the spur of this fiery stimulant. And as long as potheen is distilled, or as long as cheap fusil-oil whisky can be bought, the march of events in Ireland will be largely shaped out of its fumes. THE RED HAND OF ULSTER rflHE red hand of Ulster, as its motto * makes clear, is a friendly and not a threatening hand. Its sinister colour, founded on legend, was painted many hundred years before Ulster was planted with British colonists, and must not be taken as indicative of its habits or designs. It was adopted by Ulstermen ready- painted, and red as it is it is the hand of good will, and never yet has it been raised by them against a neighbour, except in self-defence. In order to sub- stantiate this statement by statistics, the rest of Ireland's Protestants must be taken into partnership. Then the per- sistent good will of this much-hated colony 155 156 The Soul of Ulster towards those who so hate them may be partially understood. It will be generally admitted that when an expanding race encroaches upon the lands of weaker nationalities, and estab- lishes itself in their midst, there is a tendency on the part of the invaded races to disappear. In the vast territories of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zea- land the native populations have almost reached vanishing point. We do not look too closely into the cause. In Ireland the reverse has been the case. In 1650 the native Roman Catholic population was reckoned at 750,000. To-day it numbers three and a quarter millions. Although the Nationalists openly pro- claim that their ultimate aim is to regain "Ireland for the Irish;" although in The Red Hand of Ulster 157 moments of alcoholic expansion they make the same announcement in more expressive terms; although on two historic occasions they have attempted the wholesale exter- mination of the Protestant settlers, there has never been any corresponding attempt on the part of the settlers to exterminate the natives. The bloody raids of the soldiery in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be laid at the door of the settlers; they were essentially military raids, carried out by paid soldiers, of whom many were themselves native Roman Catholic Irish. A settler is a farmer, or a trader, and his ways are for peace. Again, agrarian outrages, the foremost of the stock weapons employed for regain- ing Ireland for the Irish, have always been exclusively associated with Nation- 158 The Soul of Ulster alist or native tactics. The Protestants are not built that way. Let us turn to another dark chapter in Ireland's history, which the English Government and the "English Garrison" in Ireland had they been so evilly dis- posed might have used as a weapon put into their hands by Providence with which to rid Ireland of the native ele- ment. In the great famine which followed the potato rot of 1846, many thousands of the Irish died. If it had not been for the intervention of the British Govern- ment, and the British Protestant residents in Ireland, the mortality would have been incomparably greater. The Govern- ment voted 10,000,000. The further con- tributions of the resident settlers can never be assessed in actual figures, as no formal records were kept; but this much, The Red Hand of Ulster 159 at least, is on record that they gave with an unstinting hand, and of their best, in money, in kind and in charitable labour, for which they received the usual guerdon of curses. Mr. W. Stewart Trench, one of the most active workers throughout the famine, in his famous book, "Realities of Irish Life," says: "Presentment Sessions were held, relief committees organized, and the roads were tortured and cut up; hills were lowered and hollows filled, and wages were paid for half or quarter work but still the people died. Soup kitchens and stirabout houses were resorted to. Free trade was partially adopted. Indian meal poured into Ireland; individual exertions and charity abounded to an enormous extent but still the people died. Many of the highest and noblest in the 160 The Soul of Ulster land, both men and women, lost their lives or contracted diseases from which they never afterwards recovered in their endeavours to stay this fearful calamity but still the people died." The clearances which followed (favourite theme of the Nationalist tub-orator), viewed through any other medium than those of green spectacles, were a plain work of charity. The population was greater than the resources of the country. Nature had for the moment adjusted this discrepancy with her usual callous bru- tality, but the adjustment was only temporary. The prolificity of the native element was proverbial and was openly encouraged by the priests. A recurrence of the disaster sooner or later was in- evitable; all the circumstances of the case were clamouring for it. The Red Hand of Ulster 161 An enfeebled, but recklessly fruitful, population, with no genius for agriculture, was, by the irony of fate, densely packed in a land where no employment offered but agriculture. A merciful considera- tion of these desperate conditions led to what are locally known as the "clear- ances." In the more congested districts, families were financially assisted to migrate to the newer world, where they and their descendants have since reaped prosperity, with wider elbow-room, and in more congenial urban pursuits. Lord Lansdowne alone made a free gift of 17,000 to assist emigration from his Kerry estate. In England a man who opens his purse-strings for such a purpose would be hailed as a philanthropist. In Ireland he is shot at from behind walls. Here again the bed-rock grievance is 162 The Soul of Ulster clerical. The "clearance" crime lay in helping to remove from the country large blocks of the native Irish, who might more profitably have been engaged in paying dues to their respective soggarths. It might be admitted that they could not have stayed where they were under existing conditions, but they could have stayed had the lands in occupation of the foreign Protestants been at their disposal. Here we come down once more to the one and only root of the Irish question. There is method and very systematic method behind the apparent unreason- ableness of Irish political agitation. Nearly seventy years have passed since the Clearances, and for the benefit of the third generation knowing nothing of the real circumstances it is easy for the agitator to draw up a moving picture of The Red Hand of Ulster 163 injustice. But however bitter his words may be (and he is nothing if not bitter) it is never so much as suggested that the primary object of the Clearances was the extermination of the native population. The venom of the speaker is rather directed against landlords and rent-paying in general; "pheasants have taken the place of peasants," and so on. The English Garrison qua Garrison is not attacked nor even directly associated with the Clearance grievance. All this has a value as evidence of the non-aggressive character of the militant Protestants in Ireland. In view of the very wrong im- pression which has gained ground among the half-informed in England, it is im- portant that this should be understood. The policy of the Protestants towards the natives is, and always has been, 164 The Soul of Ulster honestly pacific. They have no wish to interfere with anyone's possessions, re- ligion or liberties. They only want to live and let live. Their parades, their drills, their "no surrender" resolutions are neither aggressive nor even pro- vocative in intention. They are simply precautionary measures against dangers, the reality of which Ulstermen know, and England will not be persuaded of. THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT This organization was originally started by a few ecstatic cranks whose aim was the revival of bombastic native poetry, and of ancient dresses which had never existed. Highland kilts and Highland pipes were frankly pirated, and ante-dated as native products. All this was perfectly The Red Hand of Ulster 165 harmless as far as it went, but it goes without saying that a society started on such lines would not retain its original character for long. A fruitful recruiting ground was soon found among hooligans, corner-boys and loafers generally, to whom any form of pageantry and torn-foolery was preferable to work. Gradually came the inevitable playing at soldiers, which culminated in April, 1916, in the abortive attempt to seize Dublin by force of arms. As an act of militarism the attempt was the most dismal of failures. A number of inoffensive citizens and some wounded soldiers were shot by the "rebels," but as soon as bullets began to fly in the opposite direction, the rebellion collapsed. A few a very few of the ringleaders were tried by Martial Law and executed, and at once entered the ranks of Irish Martyrs. 166 The Soul of Ulster This was quite in keeping with recognized procedure, and illustrates very in- structively the absolute immutability of native Irish aspirations, and the distorted perspective which is created by the sanctity of those aspirations. In this perspective all persons executed for taking part in rebellions are ipso facto martyrs. It matters not in the least what barbarities they may or may not have committed; it matters not to what extent they may have violated all recognized laws of God and man. These things count for nothing, because they were done in the sacred cause of ridding Ireland of the British resident element (i.e., the Protestants). Not only does the end in this case justify the means; it actually sanctifies them. Whether that end is a legitimate one The Red Hand of Ulster 167 or not is a matter of opinion, but it must be remembered that to the native mind it is par excellence the one sacred cause for which they have struggled for seven hun- dred years, and therefore any acts what- soever committed in furtherance of that sacred cause become themselves sacred. Thus, when we hear Napper Tandy pathetically complaining after the 1798 rebellion that "they're hanging men and women for the wearing of the green," it cannot but occur to the ordinarily- balanced mind that the hangings in question were not for the wearing of the green, but for a succession of particularly brutal and cold-blooded murders. But to the native mind they were not murders at all, but justifiable and even glorious acts of war, because in furtherance of the sacred cause. 168 The Soul of Ulster It must be remembered, before wholly condemning such a point of view as extravagant, that the native mind has for centuries been trained to the idea that the art of war lies in the attack of the defenceless and the avoidance of the strong. This fixed idea is reflected throughout the history of the country. We search in vain for Bannockburns and Floddens. They are not there. In their place we find Lisgools and Scullabogues. It is not surprising then, that, where such a baffling confusion of ideas, as between murder and fighting, is traditional, there should be a general outcry among the natives when the murder penalty is exacted for that which, in their perspec- tive, amounts to no more than an ordinary act of war. They see no ethical difference between the killing of a hundred enemy The Red Hand of Ulster 169 soldiers in battle and the killing of a hun- dred enemy neighbours in cold blood, except that the latter is the safer and therefore the preferable course. It there- fore arouses, not simulated, but honest and genuine surprise and indignation when those convicted of unprovoked murders are not treated as honourable prisoners of war. Though defeated in the field, the Sinn Fein organization gained strength instead of losing it. Its exact aim in its new military character was obscure, but this did not affect its popularity. Sinn Fein means "ourselves alone," and it may safely be said that an aim so commendable would receive the active support of every- one east of the Irish Sea were it not for the existence of thirteen hundred thousand solid objections. At present the fact that 170 The Soul of Ulster these thirteen hundred thousand are in existence puts any such proposal out of court, for reasons which the foregoing pages have tried to make clear. It is quite possible, however, that the Sinn Fein, in its ultimate development, may alter all this, and may, in fact, in another generation or two even bring about the long-sought solution of the Irish problem. The colossal possibilities of the move- ment towards an ultimate settlement lie in its anti-clerical character. In this respect it constitutes a wholly new de- parture in the history of Ireland. The rebellion of 1798, it is true, started on non- sectarian lines, but all parties concerned retained their distinctive religions, merely joining hands temporarily to defeat or paralyse the executive forces of the moment. We know now how during the The Red Hand of Ulster 171 short period when this object was effected, the native population of Wexford and Wicklow merely took advantage of the paralysis of the law to attempt the ex- termination of their Protestant neighbours. The clerical element was throughout the preponderating influence. The Sinn Fein, on the other hand, acknowledges no standardized religion. Its numbers include both native Celts and British settlers, the former being, of course, in a very large majority; and it is not only a non-sectarian body but a non-religious one. Herein lie its limitless potentialities. It is true the old racial boundaries are still clearly defined by the names, but in another generation if the Sinn Fein move- ment continues to spread these boun- daries will be far vaguer, for Celt and Anglo-Saxon will, for the first time for 172 The Soul of Ulster three hundred years, intermarry and so mix the races. The bar to intermarriage so far has always been that the offspring must be brought up Roman Catholic. To the trained Protestant mind this is a contingency so detestable as to be outside of contemplation. The Sinn Feiner, how- ever, has no such prejudices. His or her children will be brought up free of alle- giance to any fixed creed. The religious boundaries will disappear, names will no longer be an infallible indication of race, and the bridgeless chasm between the native and the colonist will be a thing of the past. The building up in this way of a new breed, cleansed of traditional prejudices, and educated on broad and liberal lines, cannot fail to revolutionize political aspira- tions in Ireland. The probability is that The Red Hand of Ulster 173 the clamour for Home Rule, being (outside of predatory politicians) based on a foun- dation of ignorance, will die a natural death, and that its place will be taken by a vigorous internal socialism. The swing of the pendulum, after centuries of clerical bondage, will probably be to its limit, and iconoclasm of all sorts will run riot. For this reason the movement is feared by both priests and politicians. These see their long-coveted control of the exchequer seriously threatened, and would gladly see the movement and all its supporters at the bottom of the Atlantic, but for prudential reasons think it wisest to simulate sympathy. How far this enforced pose will serve then remains to be seen, but it is a matter of little general interest. The interest lies in the possible transfiguration of the 174 The Soul of Ulster Irish question by the spread of Sinn- Feinism. A cry will arise which will be a genuine national cry, not the screech of threadbare party saws. On the great crucial question of Home Rule or no Home Rule, Ireland will become of one mind. The strong probability is that the verdict will be against Home Rule. When the priests can no longer cherish their dream of seeing the surface of Ireland peopled with Irish Roman Catholics, who pay dues, in place of British Protestants, who do not, all the driving force will be out of the Home Rule crusade. As in the case of many other movements decorated with a picturesque veneer, the bed-rock motive is purely sordid. In the almost inconceivable contingency of the verdict, under such conditions, being in favour of Home Rule, the British The Red Hand of Ulster 175 Government will be able, without com- punction, to cut adrift an island which is valueless as an asset, and the considera- tion of whose affairs ceaselessly clogs the wheels of Parliament. This is always supposing that by the disappearance of religious obstacles consequent on an anti- clerical campaign the race distinctions which have always divided Ireland become so blurred that native is indistinguish- able from colonist, and that therefore no persecution of the latter will be possible. If Sinn Feinism prospers, such a state of things is within reach of imagination. A generation hence and Hugh O'Kane may have had an Anglo-Saxon mother, and David Baird a Celtic one both impossible contingencies at the present day. While, from the pacificist point of view, there is much to be said in favour of such 176 The Soul of Ulster a removal of the religious distinctions which at present advertise the racial origin of every Ulsterman, it is doubtful whether the Province as a whole would be a gainer. The experience of the other three Pro- vinces in the past goes to show that the effect of mixing the two races is not always elevating, but rather the reverse. In any case, it is safe to predict that in Ulster any such revolutionary ideas will take hold very slowly. The religious habit, whether it be Protestant or whether it be Catholic, is too firmly rooted. A mixed breed may, and probably will, arise; but its spread will be slow, and the true Ulsterman will relinquish his birthright reluctantly, and only by the pressure of very gradual processes. CONCLUSION WHEN a de novo inquirer has gained a glimpse into the secret soul of Ulster, so carefully screened from public gaze by both parties (though for widely different reasons), he is only nearer a solution of the general problem by this much that he can clear his mind of current fallacies. Unfortunately, how- ever, this clearance highly necessary as it may be as a preliminary step to con- structive experiment only leaves the difficulties greater than they were before. This is quickly realized, and with the realization comes the gradual conviction that legislative overtures are powerless to deal with the situation, and that no 179 180 The Soul of Ulster lasting removal of existing conflicts, or of bitter party friction is possible, except by a mergement of the two antagonistic races into one homogeneous mass. The root matter of the antagonism is too real. If it were sentimental, traditional or merely religious, as many people in England still suppose, a gradual incline towards tolerance from both sides might be hoped for. But as long as our race, clearly ear-marked by its religion, occupies lands belonging by tradition to another race, also clearly ear-marked by its religion, harmony is no more possible than it is between the dog with the bone and the dog without it. The situation is sublimely simple in its general outline. On the one side we have the Roman Catholic natives, an emotional and a credulous people, dispossessed of Conclusion 181 lands which have since become responsive and profitable a people happily ignorant of the horrid circumstances which justi- fied the dispossession, and wholly lacking in the judicial sense to weigh those cir- cumstances, even if known. As a con- sequence, they waste the centuries in nursing an eternal grievance which, though real in substance, is easily weighed down by the other side of the Balance Sheet, but which from its very nature is capable of being magnified to any extent by a skilful distortion of facts. This they get in plenty. On the other side we have the Pro- testants British Colonists occupying half the lands of Ulster, but, in their occupa- tion, conscious of having done no man wrong. The vexed question of right and wrong lies between the native proprietors 182 The Soul of Ulster and the English Government. It is no concern of the Ulster Protestants. Their lands at least have been honestly come by, either by direct dealings with the English Government, or with those hold- ing under the English Government. If the title of the Government was faulty, then the immorality of transfer lies at the door of the Government, not of the unhappy transferees. A man is not re- sponsible for the back history of every Chippendale chair he buys. But in the eyes of the natives the Ulster Protestants are the practical ex- pression of a systematic policy of dis- possession, and as such they are the very abomination of desolation standing in the holy place. Even if not principals, they are looked upon as agents, and it must not be forgotten that in Ireland Conclusion 183 agents are shot, not because they are themselves cruel or bad men, but because they are representative of a system. And so, in the native privy councils, the Protestants are doomed to be returned to their own shores, or, at any rate, eliminated from Irish soil whenever the opportunity may offer. Of this impend- ing doom the Protestants are profoundly aware, but they do not anticipate its easy fulfilment. They are a strong race, brave and true, and with a clean con- science, and to the position which they have built up for themselves in the country they will cling with the last gasp of their bodies. In the conflict between these two points of view, it would be easy for a lawyer to argue hotly and convincingly on either side. The main Irish case, however, 184 The Soul of Ulster strong as it can be made on public plat- forms by a careful selection of cir- cumstances, seems hopelessly prejudiced, from the strictly judicial standpoint, by the one initial fact that the English originally came over to Ireland, not as invaders, but on the express invitation of Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, in order to expel the Danes, who were then over-running the land. Henry II., who in the following year (1171) landed at Waterford, was solemnly received as a deliverer and named supreme King of Ireland. Roger Hoveden, the historian of the day, says: "All the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots of all Ireland came to the King of England at Waterford, and received him for King and Lord of Ireland; swearing fealty Conclusion 185 to him and his heirs, and the power of reigning over them for ever; and then they gave him their instruments and after the example set them by the clergy, the aforesaid Kings and Princes of Ireland (namely, the Kings of Cork, Limerick, Ossory, Meath, and Reginald of Waterford), who had been summoned by King Henry's command to appear in his presence, and almost all the nobles of Ireland (except the King of Connaught) did in like manner receive Henry, King of England, for Lord and King of Ire- land, and they became his men, and swore fealty to him and his heirs against all men." Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught, followed suit in 1175, he being the last of the native Princes to come in. Here, then, we have the whole of Ireland, through its Church and State representa- 186 The Soul of Ulster lives, acknowledging the King of England as their King for ever, on account of military services rendered, by which Ire- land had been saved from the invader. In the light of this one starting-point, subsequent rebellions in Ireland do not stand out as noble struggles for liberty on the part of a conquered people, but as treacherous repudiations of a solemn covenant which had been entered into at the instigation of the Irish themselves. It follows logically that all confiscations of land consequent upon such rebellions were not acts of oppression, but perfectly just and proper penalties imposed for disloyal conduct. If this standpoint can be maintained, the entire "confiscation" grievance falls to the ground. In this connection it is useful to bear in mind that the material aims of the Conclusion 187 native proletariat, and of the priests who educate them, are in widely different directions. The priests, quite naturally, aim at seeing Ireland entirely peopled by Catholics who would be a source of profit to them; the proletariat aims at the re-occupation of forfeited lands now in the hands of the Protestants. But the latter aim, which is necessarily ill- defined in detail, and at the best is a somewhat far-off cry, is only kept alive by constant hard work on the part of the priests, backed up sporadically but not very effectively by politicians. The anti-Protestant land agitation is merely the lever by which these two associates in patriotism hope to arrive at their own ends, which are perfectly well-defined, though likely in the case of success to be somewhat conflicting. 188 The Soul of Ulster The present barrier to the mergement of the two races, which alone can solve the Ulster question, is the Roman Catholic Church, which interposes impassable barriers of moral barbed-wire between the native population and the Protestant colonists. It is possible that for reasons already given the Sinn Fein movement may ultimately remove that barrier. When that takes place, hatred of England, with all its convenient accessories in the way of conscientious objection to service in time of war, will die a natural death. It is a manufactured article, and the driving- power of the factory will give out. THE END UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILIT A 000032545 6