Part 12

The famous battle of Clontarf, the final struggle between Christianity and heathenism on the soil of Ireland, was fought here on Good Friday in the year 1014 between the Danes under Sigtryg, the Viking, and the Irish under Brian Boru. Eight thousand men were slain on one side and four thousand on the other, including every prominent chief. The Irish were victorious, and, although the Danes were not immediately driven from the island, it was the end of their domination. They came in a thousand boats all the way from Denmark, from Scotland, the Orkneys, and from the many islands of the north, and when their leaders were killed they fled to the water to regain their ships, which lay at anchor or were beached on the shore of Dublin Bay. The Irish warriors followed and continued to slay them until the sea was crimson with heathen blood.

Brian Boru was not a myth, although we commonly associate him with fairy tales. He was the real thing, and it is often said that he was the only Irishman that ever did rule successfully over all Ireland. He was the first of the O'Briens and was King of Munster. His early career was very much like that of Alfred the Great, who lived but a short time before him in the middle of the ninth century, and he was not only the greatest warrior, but the greatest lawgiver and executive, and the greatest benefactor of his native country in the semi-savage days. His rival was Malachi the Great, the first of the O'Neills, who became king of Meath in 980 and reigned at Tara. To keep the peace Brian Boru and Malachi agreed to divide Ireland between them; but they did not get along well together, and Brian drove Malachi from his capital far into the north. Malachi finally submitted, and then all Ireland, for the first time in its history, was at peace under a single monarch for nearly forty years.

Brian devoted himself to the development of the industries, the encouragement of agriculture, and the education of the people. He made wise laws and enforced them with justice. He founded schools and colleges. He encouraged art and science, he built roads in every direction, and he gave the distracted country the blessings of peace and prosperity. Instead of fighting among themselves, the people gave their attention to farming, cattle-breeding, trade and manufacturing, literature and the polite arts, and the historians say that another twenty years of Brian's reign would have changed the entire history of the country. Rare Tom Moore has given us a picture of Ireland in those days, when, according to his verses, a beautiful young lady, "Rich and rare were the gems she wore," traversed the entire country, from north to south and from east to west, without being molested.

When Brian became an old man, Mailmora, king of Leinster, conspired with the Danes, the Manxmen, the chiefs of the Orkneys, and the Scots to overthrow him. Sigtryg of the Silken Beard arranged with them to consolidate their forces to overcome the Irish. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, brought an army ten thousand strong. Broder, the great Viking of the Isle of Man, brought a fleet of two hundred ships and ten thousand men, covered with mail from head to foot, to meet the Irish, who always fought in tunics. Broder had once been a Christian, but had fallen from grace. He was the tallest and the strongest man of his time. His hair was so long that he had to tuck it under his belt. He wore a coat of mail "on which no steele could bite," and he had "no reverence for God or for man, for church or sanctuary."

The venerable Brian Boru, then seventy-three years of age, was camped in what is now Phoenix Park, surrounded by twenty thousand warriors representing the different Irish clans. His sons prevailed upon him not to engage in the battle, and he gave the command to his son Morrough. But he led the column to the Hill of Clontarf on the morning of Good Friday, and when the invaders were in plain sight Brian Boru, holding aloft a crucifix, rode from rank to rank reminding his men that on that day their Lord had died for them, and exhorting them to smite the heathen hip and thigh for their religion and their homes. Then, giving the signal for the onset, he withdrew to his tent at the top of the hill, where he could observe the conflict.

Battles in those days were a series of hand-to-hand encounters. The commanders selected each other for single combat. The fighting extended for two miles along the shores of the Bay of Dublin, and human beings were cut down like stalks of corn. The aged king remained in his tent engaged in earnest prayer for victory while the air was filled with the clash of steel, and the Danes and his own soldiers were dying by thousands around him. Toward nightfall the heathen gave way and began to retreat. Their commanders were all slain or desperately wounded. Brian's grandson, Thorlough, smote the Earl of Orkney with his battle-axe and cleft his head down as far as his neck. Broder, the great Viking, desperately wounded, was flying from the field when he recognized Brian of the Long Beard at the door of his tent. He rushed upon the old man with a double-edged battle-axe. Brian seized his trusty sword and they struck together. Brian's head was amputated and Broder's legs, one at the knee and the other from the ankle. At sunset when they returned from the battle, Brian's servants found their king dead and Broder stretched by his side.

The body of Brian and that of his son Morrough were conveyed with great solemnity to Armagh and laid at rest in the cathedral, but their tombs have disappeared. The funeral ceremonies lasted for a fortnight, and all Ireland was filled with lamentation. Every petty chief and prince in the island tried to grasp the power. As the old song runs--

"Each man ruled his own tribe, But no man ruled Erin."

And that condition continued for a century and a half, all Ireland being distracted by the rivalries of the several chiefs, the O'Briens, the O'Neills, the O'Connors, and the O'Loughlins.

That part of the battleground lying on the shore of the bay has been built over, and behind it the land has been divided into small country places where the rich men of Dublin spend their idle hours. Their homes are encircled with high fences, and are divided by a maze of roads and lanes concealed by canopies of green foliage that overhangs the walls.

A little farther on are the ruins of a church surrounded by a silent battalion of gravestones. It was the Abbey of Kilbarrack, and one of the tombstones, badly defaced, marks the burial place of Francis Higgins, a detested government spy who betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald to the government in the insurrection of 1798. He is known as "The Sham Squire," because for a time he succeeded in passing himself off as a country gentleman of wealth and was married to a lady of good family. When the fraud was detected he was sent to jail, and she died of shame and mortification. Being boycotted by all honorable men, he became a spy and informer, and popular hatred pursued him to the graveyard, which had to be watched because the people resented his burial in consecrated ground and would have thrown his body into the bay.

The car line follows the curves of the coast down to the shore of the Irish Sea, where a monstrous mass of rocks, covered with heather and rhododendrons and gorse, now as yellow as gold, rises five hundred or six hundred feet, with here and there a dense mass of foliage. It is known as the Hill of Howth, and is considered one of the most picturesque places in Ireland. At its foot is the village of Howth, and on either side are the ruins of ancient strongholds, located so as to command the entrance to the harbor.

The title of the Earl of Howth dates back to 1177, and was bestowed in battle. It has been held honorably by the Lawrence family, one of the oldest in Ireland. They won their name and their lands by the sword. The founder of the house was Amory Tristam, a Norman adventurer, who followed Strongbow to the conquest of Ireland, and has been immortalized in Wagner's opera, "Tristam and Isolde." While Tristam, loyal knight and true, was attending a red-haired Irish princess to her destined husband, the King of Cornwall, they drank by mistake a love potion which bound them forever in a frenzied romance. It ended with Tristam dying in his castle and Isolde coming over the sea to perish like Juliet upon her husband's lifeless form.

Amory Tristam assumed the name of St. Lawrence, because of a great victory that he won over the Danes on the anniversary of that saint; and Howth Castle has been the seat of the family from the beginning. A long line of overlords lie under the shadow of a ruined old abbey, and the present earl, William Ulick Tristam St. Lawrence, must join them soon, because he is more than eighty years of age. He was a member of parliament in his younger days, succeeded to the earldom in 1874, and until he became too feeble was a famous sport. His son and heir, Thomas Tristam St. Lawrence, is a man of fifty, who married the daughter of Benjamin Lee Guinness, the great brewer of Dublin, and inherited many millions from her father.

Many interesting legends are told of the hill and the Castle of Howth and of events that have occurred during the eight hundred years since it became a center of activity. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Princess of Connaught, Grace O'Malley, landed at Howth on her return from England and found the gates of the castle closed. The warder refused her entrance because the family were at dinner. Indignant at this breach of hospitality she returned to her ships, and meeting on the way the heir of the house, she picked him up and carried him off to Mayo, where she held him until she had obtained a pledge from the earls of Howth that they would never again close the doors of their castle against hungry travelers. And they have faithfully kept the vow.

The Howth family holds the almost unique distinction in Ireland of perpetual loyalty to the English crown.

Another trolley line runs out to Donnybrook, the scene of the famous fair, which was abolished, however, nearly one hundred years ago, even before the time of Sir Walter Scott's visit to Ireland in 1825, for he says: "We dined at Walter's, and in the evening drove to Donnybrook--the scene of the noisy fair which is now dissolved and abolished. It was a charming ride, thick with villas and all the insignia of ease and opulence; in fact, not to be distinguished from the innumerable hosts of jaunting cars plowing the fine road in every direction at a speed apparently most cruel." Sir Walter's description holds good to-day. Donnybrook is the most respectable and aristocratic of all the suburbs of Dublin. The tract of land where the cattle fair was formerly held in the fall of each year is still vacant and is used for a pasture. A "merry-go-round," or a "whirl-about," as they call it here, was the only diversion that we could find in the silent and orderly surroundings, but every year in August on the adjoining land and reached by parallel roads the Dublin horse show is held, and it is the great event of the season socially, and otherwise. It brings over from London and other parts of England large crowds of fashionable people, it draws the sporting element from every part of the kingdom, and all Ireland is represented.

Donnybrook, originally Dombenach Broc, in Gaelic, is a small but rapid stream, which comes down from the hills of Wicklow and empties into the Bay of Dublin. The cattle-dealers of Ireland for two hundred years used to meet upon its banks for the sale, exchange, and exhibition of animals for eight days in the month of August annually, and drew around them saloon and restaurant keepers, peddlers of every sort, and shopkeepers, who went out from Dublin with stocks of goods and exposed them as a temptation to the men who had sold their cattle and had the money in their pockets. In addition to the tradesmen, itinerant shows gathered to entertain the ranchmen, strolling players, jugglers, Irish bards with harps and songs, bagpipes, and other public entertainers made it their rendezvous. Naturally these attractions called together the lads and the lasses, who flirted, danced to the music, and had a good time generally.

"Donnybrook capers, that bothered the vapors, And drove dull care away."

But the entertainments were not entirely innocent, and the fair finally became such a scene of disorder, thievery, and murder that the authorities were compelled to abolish the annual festivities. It attracted all the toughs and roughs and the desperate characters in Ireland, and the old rhyme says:

"Such crowding and jumbling, And leaping and tumbling, And kissing and grumbling, And drinking and swearing, And stabbing and tearing, And coaxing and snaring, And scrambling and winning, And fighting and flinging, And fiddling and singing."

More misery and madness, more crime and unhappiness, more devilment and debauchery, vice, and treachery was crowded into that little space for a fortnight annually than might have occurred during an entire year in any country of Europe. In those days fighting was a common pastime. But the "broth of a boy" with his "shillelah" of black bog thorn wood, is no longer seen dragging his coat over the ground at Donnybrook and inviting any gentleman present to step on the tail of that garment. Those days, as I say, are over, and Dublin is one of the most orderly cities on earth, except for the drunkenness.

IX

THE LANDLORDS AND THE LANDLESS

The population of Ireland by the census of 1901 was 4,450,456, a falling off of 248,204 in ten years since the previous census. In 1848, before the great famine, the population was 8,295,000, which shows that it has decreased nearly one-half since that time, during the last sixty years.

The area of Ireland is 20,157,557 acres, including bog and mountain. Of this area only 2,357,530 acres are under the plow, 14,712,849 acres are devoted to hay and pasture, of which it is estimated that 12,000,000 acres could be cultivated to crops. But it is a question whether such a thing would be desirable, considering the great demand and the high price for hay and cattle, beef and mutton. It would give employment to a large number of people if 12,000,000 acres more were plowed and planted, no doubt, but the experts assert that the profits on hay and cattle are larger than on grain and potatoes.

Next to hay, the largest area, something more than 1,000,000 acres, is planted to oats and only 590,000 acres to potatoes, which is surprising when you consider that potatoes are the principal food of the Irish peasant, and, as some one has remarked, "are his food and drink and clothing."

William F. Bailey, one of the gentlemen intrusted with the work of settling the land question and distributing the population of the island more evenly than at present, estimates that thirty acres of average land in Ireland is necessary to support a family, but the tax returns show that the 20,000,000 acres are divided among 68,716 owners; that is, one person in sixty-four is a landowner, with an average of 300 acres each, counting men, women, and children, although that is not a fair basis of calculation in Ireland, because so many of the young and middle-aged people emigrate and leave more than a natural proportion of old men and young children on the island.

The tax returns show that the land in 1907 was actually divided among the 68,716 owners as follows:

Owning 100,000 acres or more 3 Between 50,000 and 100,000 16 Between 20,000 and 50,000 90 Between 10,000 and 20,000 185 Between 5,000 and 10,000 452 Between 2,000 and 5,000 1,198 Between 1,000 and 2,000 1,803 Between 500 and 1,000 2,716 Between 100 and 500 7,989 Between 50 and 100 3,479 Between 10 and 50 7,746 Between 1 and 10 acres 6,892

The changes in the size of Irish farms has been remarkable. In 1841, 81 per cent of the holdings were less than ten acres. To-day, as you will see by the table, out of 68,000 farms, only 6,892 are of ten acres and less.

The following is a list of Irish landlords who owned more than 30,000 acres each, and the average annual rentals collected from their tenants prior to the passage of the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, which authorizes the purchase with government funds of their estates, and the division into small farms for the tenants who occupied them:

Annual Acres Revenue

Law Life Assurance Company 165,804 £6,384 Marquess of Lansdowne 123,634 32,412 Marquess of Sligo 122,902 16,018 Marquess of Downshire 107,828 86,269 Earl of Kenmore 105,359 26,951 Lord Ventry 91,505 15,282 Earl Fitzwilliam 89,468 45,568 Viscount Dillon 78,898 16,933 Sir Roger W.H. Palmer 74,857 12,829 Earl of Bantry 73,360 11,628 Duke of Leinster 71,581 48,841 Marquess of Waterford 71,056 33,412 Lord O'Neil 65,857 45,308 Marquess of Hertford 63,265 75,699 Earl of Lucan 59,478 12,194 Earl of Kingston 54,165 32,565 Duke of Abercorn 51,919 26,689 Marquess of Clanricarde 51,006 18,472 Sir Charles H. Bart Coote 48,739 18,691 Viscount Powerscourt 47,551 13,563 Marquess of Ely 47,076 22,126 Earl of Bandon 46,129 20,438 Trustees of Kilmorrey Estate 46,054 20,663 Earl of Annesley 45,263 22,297 Capt. Henry A. Herbert 42,939 9,695 Thomas S. Carter 41,406 2,138 Earl of Leitrim 39,382 9,890 Lord Laconfield 39,048 16,558 W.H. and John T. Massey 37,241 9,001 Viscount Lismore 37,137 14,113 Lord Stuart DeDecies 36,788 15,473 Earl of Bessborough 36,372 22,649 Viscount Clifden 36,166 19,705 George Clive 35,513 836 Marquess of Londonderry 34,949 30,617 Lord of Antrim 34,493 12,600 H.L. Barry 34,376 26,464 Marquess of Conyngham 33,693 18,373 Lord DeFreyne 33,120 12,719 Earl of Devon 33,100 12,764 Duke of Devonshire 32,776 19,441 T.C. Bland 32,540 2,638 Hon. H.L. King-Harman 32,531 17,090 Sir George V. Colthurst 31,993 11,042 Lord Annaly 31,826 13,740 Marquess of Ormonde 31,794 17,457 Earl of Erne 31,069 16,758 Earl of Granard 30,725 15,816 Lord Digby 30,627 13,409 Earl of Caledon 30,502 15,725 Earl of Arran 30,346 7,111 Lord Farnham 30,191 19,347 Earl of Enniskellen 30,146 13,883

The owners of other large tracts and the persons who own between 10,000 and 30,000 acres are also nearly all noblemen. It would seem that titles of nobility and large estates go together over here. That is the rule in other countries, and is perfectly natural, because a poor man has no use for a title of nobility and a rich man is usually anxious to get one.

A peer has just as much right to own land as anybody, and the complaints heard in Ireland are not on account of the rank or the station of the landlords, but because of their neglect of their interests and their tenants, especially because most of them do not spend the incomes from their estates in making improvements or for the benefit of their own people; they do not spend it in Ireland, but reside in London most of the time and spend the money there, where the people who earn it receive no benefit from it directly or indirectly. It is unnecessary to discuss the evils of large estates. They are too numerous to mention, especially when they are owned by people who live outside of the country. That is the great obstacle to the development of Mexico, where millions of acres in large tracts, granted to Spanish grandees before independence, still remain in the ownership of their descendants, who live in Spain or Paris, and spend the revenues there. It is true, also, of Russia, Poland, Austria, and of many other countries, and to a certain extent of Cuba, where a number of the valuable and productive plantations belong to families who are living in Spain, Paris, or New York, and never even visit them.

A few years ago, by order of Parliament, an investigation was made to ascertain the habits of the large Irish landowners in connection with their estates, and the following table shows the result:

Acres Rents Landlords owned collected

Resident on or near the property 5,589 8,880,549 £4,718,497 Residing elsewhere in Ireland, occasionally on property 377 852,818 371,123 Residing elsewhere in Ireland 4,465 4,362,446 2,128,220 Residing out of Ireland but occasionally on property 180 1,368,347 601,072 Never resident in Ireland 1,443 3,145,514 1,538,071 Owned by charitable institutions or corporations, 161 584,327 234,678 Not ascertained 1,350 615,308 331,633

No country ever suffered so much from absentee landlordism as Ireland, and many great estates here have been entirely neglected, or practically abandoned and allowed to go to ruin by the owners who intrusted them to dishonest or incompetent managers and took no interest in their own property. No one can blame the tenants upon such estates for their enmity and resentment toward the proprietors, or condemn them for their refusal to pay rent when they received very little or nothing in return. But the system in Ireland has been very much improved of late years by various acts of parliament, and many people think that the tenants now have the advantage in every respect. Fifty years ago the landlord was the owner and autocrat of the soil and everything that stood upon it. The tenant had no legal rights beyond what was written down in his lease, and when that expired the landlord could raise or lower his rent or drive him off the land at pleasure.