Romantic Ireland. M. F. Mansfield
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is melting like the snow: he lingers in little patches in the corner of the field, and hands are stretched on every side. It is human to stretch hands to fleeting things, but as well might we try to retain the snow.”
From this it would appear that Ireland and its institutions, as they have existed in the past, and as they exist to no small extent to-day, are not yet the familiar ground that many might suppose.
Just what the reason for this indifference to its charms may be, it is impossible for any one to state; but, at all events, it is traditional to a large extent, and is a long time being lived down.
During the period of the varied fortunes of the ancient kings of Ireland’s four great divisions—from perhaps the fifth century until the coming of Henry II. of England—there was little connection between Ireland and the outside world, excepting always the Church which attached Ireland to Christendom.
It was, perhaps, small wonder that the Plantagenet Henry, who was in favour at Rome, was desirous of uniting the four kingdoms of Ireland as a Roman Catholic whole. He had already sent three bishops to Rome, and its most famous of all “Irish bulls,” if the levity be pardoned, came forth naturally from Nicholas Breakspeare, the English Pope.
The Church in Ireland, or, rather, religion in Ireland, is a subject that one approaches with dread. So much so, that it had best be avoided altogether so far as its controversial elements are concerned.
The real significant ecclesiastical aspect of Ireland of the past—or of the present, for that matter—can be discussed with less trepidation.
Of the devotion of the people to their Church there can be no question, though it smacks not a little of the devotion of the ivy to the tree.
It has been said before now that “the houses of the people are indecently poor and small, and the houses of the Church are indecently rich and large. Out of the dirt and decay they rise always proud and sometimes ugly and substantial, as though to inform the world that at least one thing is not dying and despondent, but keeps its loins girded and its lamps trimmed.”
All of which is—or was—perhaps, true enough in the abstract; but, tempus fugit, and Ireland, if not actually grown, as yet, more prosperous, or, in many parts, any less primitive, is without question becoming, throughout, more enlightened; and the traveller, walking or driving across the wastes of the west, will not cavil at the fact that the first thing to break the monotony of the horizon is a church spire or tower, or that it towers over a little group of cottages huddled about it. Sometimes, indeed, these church buildings are poor and rough; but these are becoming fewer and fewer, and are now gradually, even in the poorest districts, being replaced by more pretentious structures. The last few years have seen in Ireland a great activity in the building of these chapels, though they are not always of the artistic value of many of the older examples.
The economists and political agitators have, of late, drawn attention to the “positive sinfulness” of the increase of chapels and religious buildings side by side with the increase of poverty. This may have existed up to the last half-century, but, as surely as the seasons change, a new era for Ireland is close upon it,
and the increase of what is called the “religious vocation” is not the bugaboo that it once was.
One should pay a hearty tribute to the patriotic efforts of the Gaelic League to inspire throughout Ireland a wholesome and invigorating sense of nationality, and to guide its energies into industrial and intellectual channels. This movement, from within and without, is doing noble work, and, if it is uninterrupted in its progress by religious or political jealousies, Ireland may yet come to her own again.
More than seven centuries have rolled onward since the English have become intimately connected with Ireland, and yet how little is really known of the land and its people, in spite of all that the political economists, the ecclesiasts, and the antiquarians have written concerning it.
Professor Van Raumer, a German, in his “Letters from Three Kingdoms” (which it is only proper to say has been criticized before now as a mass of bold trivialities and solemn inaccuracies), says that he never knew what poverty meant until he travelled in Ireland. Its existence, to a very large extent, is undeniable; and, in times of stress and strife, it has even become virulent; but ragged dress, frugal fare, and mean houses do not always indicate actual distress. The trouble seems to be with those who commit themselves to written observations that they never appear as apologists, but condemn, from the start, anything and everything which falls below a certain preconceived standard which they may have unknowingly set.
In spite of the fact that the population in certain parts of Ireland was proclaimed as being, at the beginning of the Victorian era, at its lowest ebb—in many parts of Ulster conditions have since changed but little—there was often no apparent haggardness or lack of nourishment to be observed; the children notably, like the children of the slums in great cities, were rosy, chubby, and high-spirited—a very good indication of the general health of a community. This is one of the anomalies of travel and observation which cannot be explained.
A statement was made in the public prints, at the beginning of the year 1903, that Ireland had lost, in the twelvemonth previous, a population equal to that of Limerick, the fourth largest Irish municipality, and greater than that of at least one Irish county (Carlow). This awful drain by the outflow of the virile young of both sexes should be controlled by the well-wishers of Ireland’s prosperity.
What the future is to bring forth for Ireland is doubtless quite problematical; but there is no gainsaying that the hour is ripe for any action which it may seem advisable to take. It is difficult to believe that even the fieriest of the patrons of Ireland can fail to perceive England’s present willingness to make what perhaps she thinks is a sacrifice, but which in any event is intended as an atonement for the past, and an eager desire for the prosperity of the country at her doors. There are many respects in which Ireland is eminently fitted by nature for prosperity. There is hardly to be found anywhere in the world such natural facilities for the development of a great mercantile marine as exist on the eastern coast from Londonderry and Antrim to Waterford and Cork, and Belfast to-day contains one of the world’s greatest and most able ship-builders. There is, it is said, no part of the country which stands at a greater distance from a waterway to the sea than four and twenty miles. The country has immense stores of iron, still unutilized, mainly because of the scarcity of native coal; but some day, in this epoch of cheap and rapid transportation, they will yield a rich harvest. There was once a considerable industry carried on in the copper-mines of counties Waterford, Wicklow, and Cork, but of late it has greatly declined. So it is with the sulphur-mines of Wicklow, which at one time yielded nearly a hundred thousand tons per annum. The bogs, which cover one-seventh part of the surface of the whole island, have never yet been turned to such economic uses as most certainly await them—the production of a really well-cured compressed peat fuel. There are vast deposits of lignite, already proved to be of great depth, but which can be worked on a large scale only at a greater expenditure of capital than has yet been applied. In point of fact, Ireland is potentially a rich country, but her mineral deposits have been practically neglected. It will be a happy day for England when she finds, as she yet may,
a prosperous and contented Ireland at her doors.
A prosperous Ireland means, ultimately, a healing of whatever sore remains open; and may, perhaps, mean the removal of the last bar against the real federation of the English nation. The recent visit of Britain’s king and queen may be taken as a good omen, and its effects may turn out to have been far-reaching. At its least, it stimulates good-will on either side, and does its own quota of work in the inspiration of a hopeful spirit in a natively buoyant people, who have long chafed at neglect. At its best, it may hope to make