WHAT IRISHMEN SAY AT HOME.
[FROM A CORRESPONDENT.] SIR,—In accordance with your instructions, I last week came to Ireland, to try to ascertain somewhat of the feeling of the mass of the Irish people,—apart from the upper class, which can always make its opinions known and felt, and of acknowledged party organs, which, even with the best intentions, are at least apt to overstate or understate facts with respect to the great matters now pending between the Liberal and Tory parties in Parliament. I came, by way of Holyhead, to Dublin, the train from London fitting better to my time by that way than by Belfast, which in
any other case I should have preferred to take first, because of its strong and representative partizanship. It was well that a few common-place facts saved me the trouble of a choice, for a few days later Dublin would have been in the whirl of excitement that set in with the visit of the Prince of Wales, and that even then was making itself felt in increased hotel charges and sundry other interesting ways, which, however conducive they may be to enjoyment, are anything but calculated to assist one in coming to calm and correct conclusions. Availing myself of the wide liberty you gave me, I began my notes in the steamboat, the neutral ground between England and Ireland.
On the main deck I found a small group of Irishmen so evidently inclined to be friendly and sociable in a quiet and rea- sonable manner that I resolved to join them, and if their conver-
sation turned into the channels I hoped for, to make what they said the starting-point of these letters. They were poor men, in
all cases uneducated, as far as schools go, but in some cases educated to an extent which may be useful or dangerous to the country, according as events turn, in a knowledge of human life as it is in many different lands.
There were among them a discharged soldier, a man of perhaps sixty-five years of age, who had seen hard service in India and elsewhere, and come home with a pension ; a man who had fought for the Southern Confederacy throughout the American War, and two men of middle age from different parts of Australia. The two Australians, I found, were Protestants, the others were Catholics; all four were on their way home to the old country, though, except in the case of the pensioner, not to stay there ; but " just to look on it once more," and then go back to the newer, and more prosperous, but not dearer homes, far away.
These four men, full of that clinging-to-the-soil feeling so characteristic of Irishmen, and telling the stories of their adven- tures to their untravelled countrymen, are an instance of the vast and multiform means that, without either government or church, are being brought to bear on the education of Ireland, and of the changes that have taken place within the last quarter of a century in the character of the Irish people. That Irishmen cannot be dealt with from old standing-grounds even the priests are finding, and may possibly find in a more unmistakable way before long.
The " Will-any-one-tread-on-my-coat ?" feeling is wonderfully modified in men who have been abroad. The cosmopolitan men have had a schooling in this respect, perhaps at a high cost, and I was surprised how little inclined the four men in the present instance were to quarrel about their respective creeds. In only one instance in my hearing was the subject referred to, and the reference was made by one of the Protestants ; but he imme- diately began to smooth away the effect of his words, with the ready help of the two travelled Catholics, who seemed to sympathize with him rather than otherwise, in the fact that he had unfortunately, and by accident, touched on so unpleasant and, at one time, dangerous a subject. There was no rancour or bitterness on the part of these men, and their spirit dominated that of all the other Irishmen present.
I noticed also, here and elsewhere, that the men who have been abroad and those at home have very different views of the relative importance of the difficult questions connected with the Church and the land tenure. In all cases that I have noticed the man from over the ocean puts himself to some trouble to show how
little he cares for the establishment or disestablishment of the Church ; he generally ends or points his remarks by saying, " It's all right enough, you know, what people say about Catholics supporting a Protestant Church. It would be better the other way, but I don't care about it ; what I want to see is a change in the land." In the instance before the reader the man who had fought for the South was enthusiastic in his praise of " Stonewall" Jackson (Puritan though he was) and General Lee, but he spoke with even greater enthusiasm of the United States, which he held to be the grandest country in the world. " There," he said, " you can take up a piece of land, a hundred and fifty acres, in the Territories for nothing but the responsibility of being a citizen of a free country ; and the richest man can take no more, direct from the Government. That's what a poor man wants, and if I had that I should care little about the Church." This, very likely, is shameful latitudinarianism ; but it is fact, and fact that on the larger scale must, in the ordinary course of events, work out a great change in the condition of Ireland.
Among those who have not lived abroad the contrary feeling exists in an equally marked degree. I met and conversed with an intelligent and thoughtful man on Good Friday, in Dublin, and almost the first thing he said to me, after finding I was an English- man, was, " You English are treating us very badly in the matter of the Irish Church. We trusted to you, and thought you would stand by us as we have stood by you. We are the only friends you have in Ireland, and we are loyal to the backbone. My grandfather was out in '98 for the English Crown, and I should have gone out again willingly ; but if you carry this disestablish- ment, I don't know what I should have to go out for. Everything would be gone. We think English Protestants have deserted us, and are ready to hand us over to their enemy and ours." I said, " What is your opinion of the land tenure ?"—" Well, I care little about that, compared with the other. If a tenant-right Bill is needed—and I think it is, for some Irish landlords (not all, mind you) at times behave scandalously—I don't see why Parliament should not deal with it, but when they propose to disestablish the Irish Church they take away from us what they can never restore." It was useless to combat the views of this gentleman. He knew and had considered every argument on the other side of the question, and he spoke with the earnestness of a settled conviction, not, as far as I could judge, tinged with unkindness to any one, but with- out an atom of compromise on the subject of Protestant ascend- ancy. The only thing an Englishman could say was, that England had a duty, which admitted of neither doubt nor question, to deal fairly with a whole nation, and that the subject of the Irish Church was as painful to many Englishmen as to any Irishman, but that no pain to either the one or the other could be allowed to inter- fere with the settlement of a great question, if circumstances, rest- ing on high laws (laws even of a national life, which some think involved here), pointed to the settlement as a stern duty. Some such slight remark was necessary in some cases, in common honour, but as a rule I listened for instruction and gave no opinion.
Among other subjects to which reference was made on the deck of the steamer, was the murder of Mr. D'Arcy Magee. The old soldier said, " He was a fine man, I suppose." The American replied that the Fenians did not say so, but were his bitter enemies, and thought him one of the worst of their enemies in America. The soldier stamped his foot on the deck, and said the Fenians were " a lot of rascals." The American replied very quietly that there were rascals, he dared say, among them, but he did not see why Ireland should not rule itself in its own way. " Who," he said, "could look without grieving on the old deserted Parliament House in Dublin? " In this calm way these men talked of subjects that within this generation would have instantly set them by the ears. It is the education of experience, and is a striking contrast to the spirit with which the same subjects are dealt with from the home point of view.
On Good Friday morning I went to the "Church of St. Francis Xavier," in Upper Gardiner Street, expecting to hear, in this noted church of the Jesuits, some reference to that proposed disestablishment which I believe is now the chief topic of conver- sation in all parts of Ireland, and among all classes of the people. As one additional evidence that it is so, I may say that while the waiter was setting out tea for me on Saturday night, in a hotel at Drogheda, where I had not been more than half an hour, he said, " There's great talk just now, Sir, about the Established Church." I said, " Do you mean in Drogheda ?"—" Yes, but there is no anger in it here, as there is a little further north."—" 'Well, what do the people say about it? do you know what the proposals are ?" —" 0 ! yes,"—and he stated clearly enough the case at issue in Parliament, using the names of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Disraeli in correct connection with facts. " Which side do people generally take?" I asked. " I'm a Catholic," he replied, " and may be prejudiced, but as far as I know the greater part of the people seem to think that nearly all our bitterness would be gone if our clergy and the clergy of the Established Church were on the same footing." I give the opinion for what it is worth. It is probably of less value, in one way, than an opinion picked up in the streets, because a waiter in a hotel hears conversations the groundwork of which may belong to districts far away from his own, but it is one instance of many scores that have come before me, of the way in which the subject of the Establishment is uppermost in men's minds. A conviction of this led me, with some expectancy, to the Church of St. Francis Xavier.
I went there at half-past ten in the morning, half an hour or so before the service began, but every part of the beautiful church was crowded with people, most of whom I could see were wor- shippers. I had passed through the porch and was entering the church, when an elderly priest, a kindly looking old man, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, " Pardon me, Sir, but have you come unprepared?" I was afraid I had unwittingly done some- thing disrespectful to the place, or the worship, though I could not imagine what it could be, for I had taken my hat off at the outer door, and I did not think so kindly looking a man likely to be offended that I had passed without using the holy water. It was only the plate at the door I had forgotten, an omission that I was glad to think did not imply disrespect to things sacred to many millions of men. I was merely able to get within the church door, a seat was out of the question, and there I remained crushed up against a wall till more than half-past two, during which time two priests preached five sermons ; the sixth sermon was beginning when I gave it up and escaped. The preachers (Fathers Kyon, or Keon, and Bannon) are Jesuits, with voices as clear as the ring of a bell, and loud enough to fill St. Paul's as I dare say it has not been filled for a very long time. How many sermons they preached after I came away I don't know, but their store seemed inex- haustible, and not a word of the sermons was written, or at least read to the congregation.
The first sermon, about the usual length of sermons in the Church of England, was preached by Father Kyon, on the subject of the Crucifixion, in a style so intensely rhetorical as to border on play-acting, if indeed, the border was not passed,—the well trained voice modulated to the verge of sobbing, and then raised to tones suited to wild and fierce denunciation. The preacher pictured the death of our Lord, the great point of the sermon being its application to present living human beings. " You pierced the blessed side," he said, pointing to the people ; " you nailed the blessed hands ; you planted the thorns on the blessed brow ;" a forcible way of putting the oneness of the human race through all its generations, but losing in force by the unreal rhetoric,—as little like an expression of real feeling as anything I ever heard, except the sermons of Father Bannon, who followed his colleague after a brief litany. His first subject was the " dying thieves," the bad one of whom was lucky in not hearing what was said of him, for if language can roast a man he was roasted by Father Bannon ; while the repentant one was extolled to the highest order of saintship. After another brief litany, Father Kyon preached on the Immaculate Conception. Then, after another litany, Father Bannon went still farther into the details of the Crucifixion, and then Father Kyon followed with a practical appeal, in the midst of which he turned, with an indescribable air and gesture, to the altar, and as the officiating priest interceded with the Lord for the faithful but often erring people before him. The five sermons filled up the greater part of the three hours and a half, during which very few of the congregation left their places. Anything wilder than Father Bannon's rhetoric it would be difficult to con- ceive, and I never heard a louder or more authoritative voice ; but- with the exception of a few side-knocks against heretics and infidels who tried to lead the faithful to hell, the sermons were not in any sense controversial. They contained nothing whatever bordering on political matters. The truth probably is that the priests are rather at sea on the subject, owing to Mr. Disraeli's "cross-fishing." They would of course like the University—and who can blame them ?—but they are doubtful of the terms. Mr. Gladstone's Resolutions they are bound to support, but there is not, I should say, enthusiasm in their support, though there is plenty of bitterness in the Protestant opposition. I have found few Irish- men in the lower walks of life, in Ireland, who see the character of Mr. Gladstone as it is seen by English working-men ; and, as a rule, I think, Mr. Bright is best understood in those of his speeches or those parrs of his speeches that are denunciatory. The people do not understand his moderation. His stout defiance when, only as yesterday, he had to assert his place and the place of his prin- ciples in Parliament, they could heartily appreciate, for if there is one thing more than another that the teachers of the people hero have striven, and successfully striven, to instil into the taught, it is a love of denunciation, which too often passes for the earnestness it is not. But now that Mr. Bright and his principles no longer need indignant self-assertion (they never needed or had mere rant), and he comes to the treatment of great questions with the authority of a man certain to be heard and regarded by opponents as well as friends, there is a little wonder iu Ireland whither it is all tending, and what it means. It may be power—power in reserve—but in the absence of the thunder it is not comprehended. Mr. Gladstone has certainly the honour of being spoken of on the one side as a good and sincere man, and on the other as a rene- gade. There is a certain heartiness in support of him, and an undoubted and intense bitterness in opposition to him ; but as far as I have known, his name is not mentioned with enthusiasm as it is by the operatives of Lancashire, though it is still mentioned very much more warmly than that of Mr. Disraeli, who, I imagine, has neither warm friends nor bitter enemies in Ireland. I have heard him spoken of as a clever workman, doing what is in demand, and holding his place by right of brilliant conquest, but not as a states- man working for things that would live long in the nation's life. A gentleman, a Conservative, but an evidently earnest man, said to me, " I don't think Mr. Gladstone, or Mr. Disraeli, or indeed any English statesman understands what the Irish are like, or how they live at home. We need a few social tea parties, or banquets, to bring them and us together ; or if we could exchange Members of Parliament, say South Lancashire and Belfast, it would be far from a bad thing. The country is beautiful enough, is it not, for any one ?" I could not help thinking of these words as I afterwards went northward, through a rich and fertile country, with the trees in blossom, and the land iu many parts in high cultivation, but with the cottages poor and miserable, in many cases, indeed, more like pens for cattle than houses for human beings.
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