IRELAND (SOCIAL STATE.) 



133 



up the rent. Where no land is attached to the 

 cabin, the average rent of it being 35s. , at least 20s. 

 of this sum must be made up from wages ; so that 

 the 4d. per day suffers a diminution of nearly three 

 farthings. Where a little potatoe land is attached 

 to the cabin, the value of the potatoes may be con- 

 sidered an equivalent for the amount of the rent. 

 In the country, the landlords of cabins are generally 

 small farmers, who are quite as hard set to make up 

 their own rent, as their humbler dependents are to 

 pay theirs. In the suburbs of the towns, great land- 

 owners, and often noble lords, are the landlords. 

 In Wicklow, Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, and 

 Tipperary counties, 30s. and 40s. is the usual rent 

 of a cabin, either altogether without land, or with so 

 inconsiderable a patch, that its value is scarcely any 

 set-off against the rent. In the more western and 

 more northern parts of Ireland, with the same rent, 

 a little potatoe land generally accompanies the 

 cabin, excepting in the suburbs of the towns. The 

 only difference between the best and the worst of 

 the mud cabins, is, that some are water-tight and 

 some are not ; air-tight I saw none ; with windows, 

 scarcely any ; with chimneys, tliat is, with a hole in 

 the roof, for the smoke to escape through, as many, 

 perhaps, with it as without it. As for furniture, 

 there is no such thing ; unless a broken stool or 

 two, and an iron pot, can be called furniture. I 

 should say, that in the greater part of Leinster and 

 Munster, and in the flat districts of Connaught, 

 bedsteads are far from general ; and bed clothing is 

 never sufficient. In the greater part of Ulster, 

 cabins, and their furniture, are considerably su- 

 perior." 



Tiiis is a most melancholy picture of a people 

 starving in a land of fertility a land surpassed by 

 no other in its physical adaptation both to agricul- 

 tural and commercial purposes. Into the causes of 

 the condition of Ireland, it would be difficult to inquire 

 in a limited space. Hundreds of volumes have 

 been written on the subject,and thousands of speeches 

 spoken. It has been the leading theme of every 

 magazine and review since the beginning of the 

 century, and the favourite topic of every orator; 

 yet the question is still unsettled. The most 

 popular method of accounting for the miseries of 

 Ireland used to be to attribute them all to the injustice 

 or oppression of the British government ; but how- 

 ever much Ireland may have suffered from England 

 in former days, she has now little cause of complaint 

 against this country. She is much more moderately 

 taxed than Britain, and the parliamentary grants 

 annually bestowed on her much exceed the propor- 

 tion of those bestowed on any other part of the 

 empire. Ireland, in short, for many years back, 

 has received almost the exclusive patronage of both 

 Tory and Whig administrations, and its interests 

 have occupied more of the attention of parliament 

 and the press than the interests of all the rest of the 

 empire put together. The only public evil of which 

 the Roman Catholic part of the population, have now 

 to complain is the exaction of tithes for the support 

 of a protestant clergy ; but, as will be seen from 

 tables given in a previous page, the Catholics, in 

 reality, have all along borne a very slender portion 

 of this burden, and of late years have refused alto- 

 gether to pay their modicum, in which refusal govern- 

 ment has acquiesced. The entire abolition of tithes 

 in Ireland would do good, in as far as it might tend 

 to soften the asperities which exist between Protes- 

 tants and Catholics ; but it is questionable if it 

 would be otherwise beneficial to the country. The 

 landlords would receive the sole advantage of it ; for 

 it is evident, that the rental of land would rise in 

 proportion to the removal of the burden, and the 



only change would be, that the tithe, instead of 

 going into the pockets of a resident clergyman of 

 character and education, disposed to look after the 

 interests of the people, would go into the pockets of 

 absentee landowners, the great body of whom have 

 ever shown the utmost indifference regarding the 

 welfare or comforts of their tenantry. Where, then, 

 are we to look for the causes of that extent of crime 

 and misery which unhappily characterizes the condi- 

 tion of Ireland, and where for the remedies ? One 

 of the great causes of the disturbances which take 

 place in Ireland is the animosity which exists between 

 Protestants and Catholics, or Orangemen and Ribbon- 

 men. In England and Scotland, fortunately, no such 

 animosity exists, or is limited to very small sections 

 of zealots ; but in Ireland, the feeling is universal, 

 and often breaks out in acts of open hostility. 

 Whatever might tend to soothe this feeling to 

 eradicate the unchristian spirit with which Catholics 

 and Protestants there view each other would be 

 conducive to the peace and consequent prosperity of 

 Ireland ; but so far from any means being adopted 

 to this end, it seems to be the object of the leading 

 men of both parties to aggravate the feeling, and 

 even to extend its baleful influence into England 

 and Scotland, by the establishment of hostile as- 

 sociations. 



The numerous factions into which the peasantry 

 of Ireland is divided factions independent of reli- 

 gious or political feeling prove, also, prolific sources 

 of outrage and disturbance. As in Scotland, in 

 former times, these factions are generally only dis- 

 tinguished from each other by family surnames : the 

 O'Sullivans, the. O'Neils, the O'Gradys, the Mac- 

 shanes, and the like, consider themselves as distinct 

 people, and would hold it very unbecoming to meet 

 at a fair or a funeral without a fight. More blood- 

 shed, according to Mr Inglis, and more savage 

 brutalities arise from them than from either political 

 or religious causes. With an extended education of 

 the people, and an increase of their comforts, there 

 is every reason to hope that these foolish factions 

 would speedily become extinct. One hundred years 

 have not passed since similar factions, distinguished 

 either by names or by parishes, were prevalent in 

 Scotland, and nothing was more common, at fairs or 

 markets, than to see parties belonging to different 

 villages or districts pitted against each other, and 

 fighting with a ferocity not to be exceeded by the 

 Irish. Such scenes are not now to be met with ; and 

 may we not hope that, with an improved condition of 

 the people, both physically and morally, they would 

 become as rare in Ireland as they are in Scotland. 



But one of the greatest evils of Ireland the source 

 of more outrage than either religious animosity or 

 factious feuds is the view which the peasantry enter- 

 tain regarding the possession of land. " The peasan- 

 try," says Mr Barrington, a crown solicitor, in his 

 examination before a committee of the house of 

 commons, " have always had objects connected with 

 the land. I have traced the origin of almost every 

 case I prosecuted, and I find that they generally arise 

 from the attachment to, the dispossession of, or the 

 change in, the possession of land." The outrages of 

 1775 arose from associations of peasants formed 

 to regulate the prices of land. Many of the com- 

 binations, both of the last and present century, had 

 for their object the reduction of rent. How many 

 instances are there of the people preventing the 

 ejection of an old tenant, or of murdering a new 

 comer ! In 1820, the middlemen pressed on the 

 tenantry, and they, to the number of 1500, rose in 

 Galway, and ravaged the country. In 1821, severe 

 exaction of rent on the Courtenay estate roused a 

 tenant of the name of Dillane. This man was the 



