Part 22
The long line of the O'Neill ancestry was terminated in 1607 by the flight of Hugh, Earl of Tyrone, after his unsuccessful rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, and the O'Dohertys, who were not so powerful, were compelled to surrender to the English. They were expelled from their lands, with all the followers of the Earl of Tyrone. All of the county was confiscated and sold or granted to Englishmen and Scotchmen, who came in and took possession and hold it still. Large areas still belong to the guilds of London, to whom it was granted for money loaned by them to King James I. The Tailors' Guild owns the city of Coleraine, a clean, busy town of seven thousand population, famous for its whisky and linen. It is governed by officials appointed by the Tailors' Guild in London, which collects ground rents from all the inhabitants and derives a considerable revenue from the salmon fisheries. The Fishmongers' Guild owns the town of Kilrea, the Drapers' Guild owns Draperstown, and other ancient organizations of merchants in the city of London own other towns and villages in this country which they obtained in a similar manner.
Londonderry is unique for being the only city in Ireland where the ancient walls and fortifications are preserved in the most careful manner and kept in perfect order with the antique guns mounted as they were at the time of the siege 225 years ago. They do not inclose the entire city, but only the ancient part of it, and are about a mile in length, twenty-four feet high and nine feet thick. The top of the walls between the bastions is laid out as a promenade and is the favorite resort of the inhabitants, who may be found there in large numbers every day after the close of business hours. Some of the business houses and residences open upon the top of the walls, as do several popular resorts. The walls are pierced by several monumental gates, which remain precisely as they were in ancient times, and the old guns, which date back to 1635 and 1642, are kept as relics, precious as the Declaration of Independence in Washington. The bastions have been turned into little gardens, and here and there in the angles shrubs and flowers have been planted.
One of the guns which bears the name of "Roaring Meg" was presented to the city of Londonderry by the fishmongers of London and is the most precious object in the town, because of its effective work in the siege of 1689, when King James II., with an Irish army, besieged the city for 105 days, but its determined defenders succeeded in preventing his entrance. They suffered famine and pestilence, and were reduced to eating hides, tallow, and the flesh of cats and dogs. During the siege only eight of the defenders were killed by the enemy, but ten thousand persons perished from hunger, disease, and exposure in three and a half months. When the siege was lifted by the appearance of a squadron of ships laden with arms, ammunition, and provisions, King James and his army retired from one of the most important episodes in the history of Ireland. You can still see evidences of that terrible struggle. The cathedral is decorated with relics and trophies, including a bombshell which came over the wall, containing the terms of capitulation offered by King James. The laconic reply of the Rev. George Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, who was in command of the citizens, was "No surrender."
A statue of Rev. Mr. Walker, whose courage, fortitude, and apostolic influence saved the city, was long ago erected upon the bastion which bore the heaviest fire during the siege. His noble figure stands upon the top of a shaft ninety feet high in the attitude which he is said to have assumed in the most terrible emergency, to revive and sustain the faltering courage of his parishioners. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other is pointing down the river toward the approaching squadron of deliverance in the distant bay. At another point upon the walls is a Gothic castellated structure erected by public subscription as a clubhouse for the boys and young men of Londonderry. It is known as Apprentices' Hall, and was erected as a memorial to the courage and foresight of a group of thirteen young apprentices who, during the excitement caused by the approach of the king's army, had the presence of mind to drop the heavy gate without instruction from their elders, and thus made it possible to defend the city against the assault.
Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, who was in command of the garrison at the time, was a coward, and insisted upon surrendering the city to the king's army, but was prevented from doing so by Rev. Mr. Walker, rector of the Episcopal church, and Adam Murray, an elder in the Presbyterian church. Lundy persisted in his purpose, carried on secret negotiations with the enemy, and was preparing to open the gates when his intentions were discovered. He escaped in disguise by climbing down the branches of a pear tree which grew against the wall on the east side.
Twice a year, on the 18th of December and the 12th of August, the dates of the beginning and the end of the siege, the apprentice boys of the city lead a procession of all the Protestant organizations to attend divine service at the Episcopal Cathedral and then pass the rest of the day as we celebrate the Fourth of July. At nightfall an effigy of Colonel Lundy is always burned in a prominent place. These celebrations are deplored by thoughtful people, as keeping alive religious animosities, but of recent years the collisions which used to occur between the Orange societies and the Roman Catholics have been avoided. The population of Londonderry is very largely Protestant.
The cathedral is an ugly old building, but quite interesting because of its historic associations and the relics it contains.
Magee College, the leading Presbyterian institution of Ireland, occupies a beautiful site about fifteen minutes' walk from the center of the city. It was built and endowed by the widow of Rev. William Magee of Lurgan, was opened in 1865, and is under the care of the general assembly of the Irish Presbyterian Church. There are several departments, a staff of seven professors, and an average of two hundred and fifty students, most of whom are studying for the Presbyterian ministry. Magee is the only college in Ireland which has been founded and supported entirely by private benefactions. It has never received a dollar from the state, although there is an annual grant from the Irish Society, which owns the city of Londonderry. Under a recent act of parliament it is united with Queen's College, Belfast, on equal terms in the new university bill. There is no religious test for students or professors, although the latter, upon accepting appointment, are required to sign a pledge that they "will not do, write, or say anything which might tend in any way to subvert the Christian religion or the belief of any person therein." Magee has always taken a high stand for scholarship, and although the building is small it is noble in design, massive in construction, and well equipped for its purpose.
The principal business of Londonderry is to make shirts, collars, and cuffs, which are shipped to Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonies. There are several large factories which employ about two thousand men to do the heavy work and twenty thousand women who do the stitching and laundering by old-fashioned methods. An American buyer I met in Belfast spoke rather contemptuously of the Londonderry shirt factories, which, he declared, "are not in it for a minute" with those of the United States. He insists that a single factory in Troy makes more shirts and collars than all the factories in Londonderry combined, and that by their modern machinery and processes the Troy factories can make and finish half a dozen shirts while they are making one there.
Londonderry is unique for another reason. The ordinary relations of husband and wife and their domestic responsibilities are reversed here. Many women work in the shirt factories whose husbands stay at home, keep the house, do the cooking and washing and take care of the children, because there is nothing else for them to do. There is a large excess of women in the population. They number two to one man, which is not due to natural causes, but because women are attracted here from the neighboring towns and counties to obtain work in the factories, and the young men have to leave Londonderry and go elsewhere to find employment.
Many of them go to the United States and Canada. Three lines of American steamers touch here every week--the Anchor Line, the Allan Line, and the Dominion Line--which offer low rates of transportation and carry many third-class passengers away.
The Giant's Causeway, of which much has been written, for it is one of the wonders of the world, lies on the north coast of Ireland, about two hours by rail from Belfast, and there are several trains daily to the nearest town, called Portrush. There is an excellent hotel there, owned by the railway company, which ranks as one of the best in Ireland, and several other smaller hotels, inns, and boarding-houses innumerable for the accommodation of the crowds of people who go there every year as "trippers" and to spend their holidays.
The Giant's Causeway, about five miles from Portrush, is reached by an electric railroad, which, I am told, was the first ever successfully operated in all the world. It was built in 1883, designed by the late Sir William Siemens, the celebrated electrician, and operated with power generated by the water of the Bush River. It was originally on the third-rail system, but was changed into an ordinary overhead trolley seven or eight years ago. The first trolley railroad was built in Richmond, Va., three years later than this.
The most interesting object at Portrush is an ancient but well preserved Irishman of the type you see in pictures and formerly on the stage, who stands at the street corner, where the railway tracks take a curve, with a big dinner bell and rings it with almost superhuman energy whenever the cars approach from either direction. This occupation engages him from some unknown hour in the morning until some unknown hour in the night, and if he ever eats or sleeps or rests that fact is not easily ascertained by a stranger. There are no bells on the cars, no alarm can be given for some reason, but nobody ever complained that he was not warned of danger at the crossing by the bell ringer, who seems to have a profound sense of his responsibilities.
It is a delightful ride along rocky cliffs that have been worn into fantastic forms by the incessant pounding of the ocean, and, although many people express their disappointment at the Giant's Causeway, it is well worth a visit because it is unique in geology. A stream of lava, at the most twenty-six hundred feet wide and about fifteen miles long, was arrested by some means upon the extreme north coast of Ireland, and in cooling took the form of detached columns from six to thirty feet long and from eight to twenty-four inches in diameter. There are more than forty thousand of these columns in three parallel terraces, standing upright and presenting a smooth surface, but they are all separate and no two of them are of the same size or shape. There is said to be only one triangle, only one nonagon, and only one of diamond shape in all the forty thousand. Most of them are pentagons and hexagons and octagons.
In one place on the cliff there has been a landslide, which has thrown the pillars in that locality into horizontal positions, but elsewhere along the coast they are upright. At what is called the Giant's Loom the columns are exposed for about thirty feet, but the rest of them form a curious and extraordinary mosaic flooring, stretching out into the sea and extending for several miles with remarkable regularity. Each column is absolutely distinct from the rest of the forty thousand; none of them are monoliths so far as can be seen, but they are divided into drums about two feet in thickness, which fit into each other like a ball and socket. The geologists generally agree that these extraordinary forms are the result of the contraction and division of the lava in cooling, and the process may be illustrated by the experiments with ordinary laundry starch, which takes the form of similar miniature columns when it cools.
Mr. S.S. Knabenshue, American Consul at Belfast, has been searching out the ancestry of the late President McKinley, who lived in the village Conagher in County Antrim in the north of Ireland. The family were Scotch Presbyterians and came over at some date unknown, and settled upon a little farm of forty-two acres. Generation after generation were born and lived and died there, leaving no record but that of honest, hardworking, God-fearing tillers of the soil. The family burying lot is in Derrykeighan Churchyard, where, among others, rest the remains of Francis McKinlay, who was executed for participation in the Revolution of 1798, and those of his wife and daughter. Francis J. Bigger, a widely known Irish archæologist and historian, has traced the descent of the late President from a great-great-grandfather who emigrated in 1743 and settled in York County, Penn. His son David McKinley emigrated to Ohio in 1814, and had a son named James whose son, William McKinley (Senior), was the father of the late President.
The cabin in which the family lived for generations is now used as a cow-shed, the present owner of the property having built himself a more pretentious residence. It has three windows and a door facing on the street. The door opens directly into a large room, which was the dining room and kitchen; the two bedrooms on each side of the fireplace have been turned into cow stables, the windows being cut down and replaced by doors so that the animals can enter from the outside.
In the Irish village at the recent Franco-British Exposition in London the McKinley cottage was reproduced, and the original doors, door frames, windows, attic floor, staircase, and the iron crane and the big pot from the fireplace all came from the real cottage, having been sold to the owner. Consequently there is nothing left of the original cottage except the stone walls and the thatched roof.
XVIII
IRISH EMIGRATION AND COMMERCE
A gentleman from Erie, Penn., who had been traveling about Ireland for several weeks made a suggestion which seemed to me to be worth adopting, and I proposed it to several organizations for promoting the welfare of Ireland without exciting much enthusiasm. There seems to be an apprehension that somebody will make political capital out of it, and very little is done without such motives. Politics and whisky are the curses of Ireland. However, the plan is to apply to Ireland the principle of "the old home week" that has been so popular and successful in New Hampshire and other parts of New England, only it is proposed to make it a month instead of a week and have special days set apart for reunions in the different counties, at which as many natives of those counties and children of natives as possible may come over from the United States to visit their old homes and birthplaces. They can thus renew their acquaintances with their former neighbors and the playmates of their childhood, revive their interest in Irish affairs, and stimulate the patriotism and love of "the ould sod" which are marked characteristics of the race.
It would be easy to make arrangements with the different steamship lines to give low rates, not only those which touch regularly at Queenstown, but also the Holland, Antwerp, Italian, Scandinavian, and other lines which go by but do not stop at Irish ports. The tide of emigration is westward and there are comparatively few steerage and second-class passengers going east on the Cunard and White Star steamers that touch at Queenstown. The steamship companies would make a low rate for the round trip which would give an opportunity for thousands of Irish-born citizens of the United States to spend a short vacation across the sea visiting their old homes and the homes of their fathers. The fact that everybody is doing the same would be a great incentive, and for a few weeks Ireland would be crowded with her former sons and daughters.
A very important result of such a visitation would be to leave in Ireland large sums which would quicken business, increase the demand for labor, create a market for everything that is made or grows, and flood Ireland with money. Each visitor would contribute his share, although it might be a little, but the total of the expenditures of such pilgrims would be enormous and create a condition of prosperity greater than Ireland has ever seen. Five million dollars has been expended in New Hampshire by visitors from other States since the Old Home Week celebrations and the advertisement of abandoned farms were first undertaken. If that amount of money should be spent in Ireland it would be of everlasting benefit to the people. If ten thousand visitors came from the United States and spent only a hundred dollars each, which is a very low average, it would leave a million dollars in circulation here.
It might be natural also, as has occurred in New Hampshire, that many natives who went to the States in their childhood and have become wealthy and are now approaching the period of their rest and leisure would purchase homes in Ireland and spend their declining years in the scenes of their youth as Mr. Croker is doing, and three or four other persons I met. There was a man at the hotel from Chicago looking for a country place. He expects to invest a hundred thousand dollars in an Irish home somewhere near Dublin. Then, think of the contributions that would be made in aid of the churches, the benevolent institutions, and other charities as well as to insure the comfort and happiness of individuals in whom the visitors might be interested. One might suggest many other ways in which Ireland might be benefited by such celebrations, and those who participate in them will certainly have a deep sense of gratification for their share. Perhaps the most important result would be to correct the misapprehensions that are almost universal concerning the material condition of Ireland. Things are much different in many respects from what Irish-Americans have been led to believe by newspaper articles and other publications, and it is right and necessary that misapprehensions should be corrected.
If the month of July, three or four years ahead, were selected for reunions of the sons of Ireland, it would give sufficient time to make the necessary arrangements, and local organizations in the different countries could fix their own dates most convenient for reunions of those who would come from those particular localities. Irishmen in Australia, Canada, South Africa, and other parts of the world would be glad to join their American cousins in carrying out such a plan. I met an American priest at Cork who was enthusiastic over the suggestion and declared that twenty families in his own parish would undoubtedly come over on such an occasion to visit their old homes. And he expressed the surprise that I felt about the improved conditions of the Irish people and the prospects for peace and happiness and prosperity in the island.
There are now nearly two million natives of Ireland in the United States, and nearly six million people whose parents were born there or who were born there themselves.
The following statement will show the number of natives of Ireland in the United States as returned by each census since 1850:
1850 961,719 1860 1,611,304 1870 1,855,827 1880 1,854,571 1890 1,871,509
The census of 1900 shows 3,991,417 citizens of the United States both of whose parents were born in Ireland.
Since the census of 1900 was taken the average arrivals from Ireland have been about thirty-eight thousand per year, which has added at least three hundred thousand to the total of 1900, and, making due allowance for deaths and departures, increased the number of natives in the United States to nearly two millions.
The improved conditions in Ireland during the last few years have caused a considerable decrease in emigration. At the present time a smaller number of people are seeking work in other countries than ever before since the famine of the '40s. This is the most significant evidence of the prosperity of the country and the success of the government in promoting contentment and improving the condition of the peasants by the enactment of the land laws and the work of the Congested Districts Board, of which I have written at length in previous letters.
Low tide in emigration was reached during the first six months of 1908, when the total number departing from Ireland was only 13,511, being a decrease of 8,713 in comparison with the corresponding period of 1907. Of these 9,974 went to the United States and 1,598 to Canada; 1,868 went from Leinster Province, 3,762 from Munster, 4,611 from Ulster, and 3,270 from Connaught.
The total number of emigrants from Ireland in 1907 was 39,082, but unless something extraordinary happens the total for this year will fall below 25,000.
During the last fifteen years the population of Ireland has decreased 292,370, and during the last fifty years it has fallen off three and one half millions. During the last fifteen years the population of Scotland has increased 689,825 and that of England and Wales has increased 5,461,197. The birth rate in Ireland is larger than it is in either England or Scotland, and the death rate is about the same, so that the decrease in population has been entirely due to emigration.
Since the distribution of the great estates in Ireland among the tenants in small farms there is a growing complaint concerning the lack of labor; and the emigration of young men to the United States and the migration of farm laborers who spend from five to nine months in Scotland every year where wages are higher than in Ireland are creating a very serious problem.
There are in Ireland about 400,000 farms, of which 165,000, embracing three-fourths of the total area, average more than thirty acres, and that is all one man can cultivate. All farms more than thirty acres in extent, and many of smaller area, require hired labor, which has usually received about 12 shillings per week until the last two or three years, when farm wages were advanced to 14 shillings and 16 shillings a week--that is, $3.50 and $4. The recent census shows that 217,652 men are employed as laborers upon these 165,000 farms and that an average of 76,870 extra hands are employed during the harvest. During the last three years, although the area under cultivation has been growing smaller annually, it has been difficult to obtain a sufficient amount of labor to carry on the harvests, and wages, in many cases, have advanced to 18 shillings a week.
Notwithstanding the demand for home labor, 24,312 persons, including 750 women, left Ireland in May, 1907, and went to England and Scotland, where they remained to work on the farms until the following November. Most of them went from the northwestern part of Ireland, from counties Mayo, Roscommon, Donegal, Galway, and Sligo, which have the least land under cultivation in the country.