THE 



COUNTRY GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 



NOVEMBER 1872 



IRISH TENANT-FARMERS AND THEIR LABOURERS, 



A CORRESPONDENT of the Daily 

 Netvs gives an interesting account of 

 the condition of the small tenant-farmers of 

 Ireland and their labourers. We had thought 

 that since 1862, when we drew attention to 

 the abject state of the Irish peasantry, that 

 such an order of things had since then given 

 place to a better. Our remarks on the sub- 

 ject referred to the country between Dublin 

 and Limerick. " The dwellings of the agri- 

 cultural labourer," we said, " are generally 

 very wretched, though there is manifest im- 

 provement going on — a neat whitewashed, 

 well-lighted, tolerably high-roofed, and skil- 

 fully thatched cottage, taking the place of a 

 low mud or dry-stone built cabin, with a low 

 tarf and straw-patched roof, and cracked 

 ridge-tree — a broken-backed thing, with a 

 little light and no chimney, and sitting in a 

 bog. Poverty-stricken creatures wade bare- 

 legged through the puddle at the door, or 

 gaze out vacantly at the passing train over 

 the dilapidated wooden half-door, which 

 serves to keep in the ' childer' and to 

 ' hould out the pig.' Where this precau- 

 tionary measure is not adopted, you may see 

 the bairns playing at mudlarks in the puddle, 

 and the pig taking ' his aise loik a gintle- 

 man,' in the door-way." If we are to accept 

 the account given by our contemporary's cor- 

 respondent — and in view of possible disbelief 

 in his statements the writer gives emphatic 

 assertion to the truth of the picture — social 

 improvement is making very slow progress in 

 the rural districts of the Emerald Isle. It is 



VOL. IX. 



to be hoped that Irish landlords will move 

 more energetically with a view to effect 

 reform than they seem to have done during 

 the past ten years. The following is the ac- 

 count referred to : — 



The County of Cork is essentially a dairy 

 district, possessing an agricultural industry 

 in the manufacture of butter. The genuine 

 Irish farmer, be it known, has a great aver- 

 sion to hard work, and the several people 

 dependent upon him, whether men, women, 

 or children, appear to have the imitative 

 faculty very strongly developed in that direc- 

 tion. One consequence is that the farmer 

 does not generally make his own butter, but 

 lets his cows to a butter-maker, and the 

 whole of his farming operations are con- 

 ducted on the same principles. As a 

 specimen, we may take an honest, sober, 

 lazy occupier of about 60 acres, who has 

 been on the verge of bankruptcy for some 

 years, and has been kept afloat by the assist- 

 ance of a rich brother-in-law. The appear- 

 ance of this man would not disgrace the 

 professional " casual." His outer garments 

 had once been frieze, but what with holes 

 and rents, patches and darns, the origina 

 material would have been difficult to dis- 

 cover, but for the fact that it still constituted, 

 so to speak, the framework of his habiliments. 

 As to underclothing, apparently he had none ; 

 and his hat would have made the fortune of 

 an '' Irish comedian " at a low-class music- 

 hall. This man's farmhouse was approached 

 by an almost impassable occupation road. 



