Halpins of Wicklow, etc. - Part 4

[Shanachai]

Part 6.

It was at that period I first visited Ireland, and spent some weeks in traversing in cars the Midland, West, and Southern counties.  No drunkenness whatever was to be seen, though whisky was ridiculously cheap.  If you offered your driver something to drink, he chose ginger beer.  All outrages had entirely ceased, the people were courteous and obliging, but evidently watching and waiting for some great event.  Often in the south and west I was accompanied in my rambles over the mountains by a dozen or so persona.  Only one or two asked questions, for often few among them could speak or understand English, but what I said was interpreted to the rest.  ‘’If O’Connell helped to get the Repeal of the Corn-Laws in England, would the English Repeal the Union?’’ was one of the questions constantly asked.  ‘’Had the French gone to war with England, and did I think they would land in Ireland?’’ was another.  We had a great deal of talk about the new workhouses, which at that time hardly anyone would enter.  But we were always very good friends, and I felt perfectly safe (as all strangers are in Ireland), though I passed by the scenes of many terrible deeds of murder and destruction.

The monster meeting of Tara, where O’Connell went nearer to treason than ever before, is as vividly before my mind as if it were yesterday.  The Hill of Tara is where the ancient kings of Ireland were crowned, and as the half-million of people covered every yard of ground round the elevated position from which O’Connell spoke, attentive to every motion of his arm and every inflection of his voice, in figure and attitude he might have passed for a sovereign himself.  But there was nothing of nobility in his face.  It was terribly wrinkled, and he had an expression half sly, half humorous, reminding one rather of a merry old woman, as he wore an unmistakable wig, and had no hair on his face.  Many of his hearers had come scores of miles to hear him, and looked fagged and hungry, so much so, indeed, that though no one begged, I bought rough griddle cakes, which was the principal food to be procured in the tents scattered about, and gave them to some of those who seemed most weary.  I saw some well-dressed persons doing the same, but there was so little to eat that I am sure many must have suffered greatly.  Indeed, as we went home that night, the poor wretches were lying about the roads thoroughly exhausted, and it was all our driver could do to avoid injuring them.

O’Connell made two speeches that day: one to the people on the hill, the other at the banquet which took place afterwards.  Though very young, still – as my family had always taken an active part in politics, and O’Connell had been recently staying with some of them – I was placed very near him on both occasions, and heard every word he said.  I did not think much of his speech on the hill, but it seemed to have an immense effect on his listeners.  He made a great point of the pecuniary loss Ireland had sustained by the Union, which he said his son John could prove in defiance of any Saxon financier.  He had two or three pet expressions, which, when used, created tremendous cheering that re-echoed for miles.  The cold dinner, which was only five shillings, was not so well attended as might have been expected considering the lowness of the charge and the difficulty of getting refreshments elsewhere – a convincing proof to me that those who had joined the movement were more numerous than influential.

[Shanachai]

Part 7.

There were some French and American sympathizers – Ledru Rollin*, I think, among the former.  Some of the guests had little tufts of grass of a peculiar colour, which by a stretch of imagination might be likened to blood, and it was said this was in consequence of the slaughter of rebels in this place in ’98.

O’Connell spoke here more quietly than in the morning, but he treated the dissolution of the Union as a foregone conclusion.  ‘’The difference,’’ he said, ‘’between himself and the Ministry was that the Duke of Wellington mumbled it, while he shouted it out loud.’’  In describing the good conduct of the people, he said, ‘’The immense multitude had dispersed quietly to their homes.  But where would they be if the Saxon was at the door?’’  This expression, and the constant tirade against both Tories and Whigs, in which other speakers joined, were all that in my inexperience I thought dangerous.  But I believe Government took a dim view of O’Connell’s decision to appoint arbitrators to settle Irish disputes, instead of obeying the existing laws and referring them to the regular legal authorities.  The Ministry were aware too that the ‘’Young Ireland’’ party was suggesting more violent measures than O’Connell approved, so that he must either press on with his campaign for Repeal or resign his power to more reckless and inexperienced hands.  Accordingly, a vice-regal proclamation prevented the monster rally at Clontarf in October, and O’Connell was tried with his principal coadjutors in January following.

England was in a state of great agitation about the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the true policy would have been to have won O’Connell over by certain concessions, and to have used his influence against the Young Ireland party.  However, he was brought to trial and sentenced to imprisonment.  But the sentence was soon reversed by the House of Lords.

The last days of O’Connell were embittered by seeing that Mr. Smith O’Brien had obtained the virtual leadership of the party he himself had so long headed, and after his death the travesty of rebellion which terminated in the transportation of Mr O’Brien and his followers, showed how weak was the mind which attempted to carry out plans too difficult even for the powerful intellect which for twenty years had directed four-fifths of the Irish nation.

- (pp.124 - 132).

*Ledru Rollin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Auguste_Ledru-Rollin

[Shanachai]

Part 8.

Wakefield’s views on the Famine won’t satisfy everyone, but dissatisfying though they may be for some – diehard Irish nationalists in particular – they are in fact balanced and historically accurate.  If the actions of Wakefield and R W Halpin in the late 1860s and early 1870s are to be properly understood, one needs to be familiar with their view of Irish history.  Their appreciation of its injustices had a profound effect on their behaviour in public office, as well as influencing the evolution of Edwin Halpin’s politics and the extremism of William R Halpin’s attitude.  By way of a reminder – Edwin Halpin was R W Halpin’s youngest son, and William R Halpin was his grandson.  William joined Fianna na hEireann at its formation in 1909, was close to Countess Markiewicz, entered the Irish Citizen Army at its inception in 1913, acquired the rank of Captain, fought in City Hall in Easter 1916, where he was the last to be captured after hiding up a chimney for two days, served time in Frongoch, fought again in the War of Independence and the Civil War, and was associated with the republican movement’s Plan Kathleen* during WWII.  Throughout the Irish revolution (1913 – 1923), Edwin and William had furious arguments about the justifiability of physical force, and it’s fair to say that William would have been among those most dissatisfied with Wakefield’s views on the Famine.


Continued from Part 7: And now came the terrible disaster which, with its consequences, completely changed everything in Ireland.  Free admission of corn was not granted a minute too soon, for an extraordinary blight fell upon the potatoes in Ireland.  Many people say that if Lord George Bentinck’s** proposal of granting loans for the construction of railways had been carried out, both present and permanent advantages would have ensued.  But though that notion was, perhaps unfortunately, rejected, the English Government nobly did its duty.  Famine and fever had before fallen upon the Irish, but the scarcity and disease on former occasions were mild inflictions in comparison with the fearful sufferings of 1847.  Meal and money were sent over from England; roads and other public works were undertaken; many of the upper and middle classes did their duty, and spent money and time, and risked health and life, in giving assistance, though some selfishly ran away or shut themselves up in their estates.

In spite of all, the numbers of those who died of starvation in their cabins or in the fields far exceeded any slaughter in Cromwell’s time.  Dead bodies were carried to holes in the bogs in coffins with sliding bottoms, so that their contents could be left in the ground and the coffins used again. 
Unfortunately, excessive bureaucracy and the deficiency of administrative talent in English government officials were painfully apparent; some of the starving got no relief, while people comfortable off received liberal allowances.  Families lying ill of fever could not get to the places where food was given away, and there was often no one to find them out and bring succour. 
At length the famine and pestilence passed away.  Then came the troubles.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Kathleen

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_George_Bentinck

[Shanachai]

Part 9.

The hitherto despised workhouses had been filled to overflowing, and buildings had to be hired as adjuncts.  The poor-rates rose to a ruinous extent, and landlords who could get no rent had nevertheless to pay mortgages and their proportion of the poor-rates.  Some landlords commenced clearing their lands: they got rid of the tenants, assisting them to emigrate when able and willing, but still getting rid of them.  In hundreds of cases landlords who had let large lots of land to middlemen, recovered possessions of what was let for long terms of years, and even for ever.

Then it became apparent how difficult it was to make a good legal title to many Irish estates.  The Encumbered Estates Act was passed, which enabled the Court in Dublin to give a new title to real property in a cheap and binding form.  [I believe Wakefield took advantage of the Act to secure his Irish holdings.]  Mortgagees by hundreds defaulted, and the estates of some of the oldest and most extensive landholders in Ireland were brought to the hammer.

The Act was an excellent rough-and-ready way of surmounting a difficulty, and has worked great benefit to the country.  But the ruin which befell many respectable and hitherto wealthy families was terrible.  Not merely the old proprietors were often reduced almost to poverty, but those who had second mortgages or charges on estates lost every sixpence.

There was great commercial distress in England.  The railway and revolutionary panic there had not been got over.  Few dared buy property in Ireland, and many sales took place before twenty years’ purchase on the fair letting value was attained.

Sir Bernard Burke* has chronicled the reverse that befell many of the Irish aristocracy, and it is not long since I saw the common necessaries of life refused to a gentleman who had been High Sheriff and Deputy-Lieutenant of three counties, in all of which he had large possessions.  Only the other day I saw the eldest son of another gentleman, formerly master of fox-hounds in his native county, carrying the luggage of steamboat passengers.

Still, as time wore on prices rose, for every farmer and professional man who had saved money invested in land.  English and Scotch buyers came in, and finally the operations of the Encumbered Estates Court were most beneficial to many proprietors whose estates were loaded with debt.

...In the meantime emigration continued unabated, for every purchaser strove to get estates free from squatters, or tenants holding small parcels of land; and if he did buy a property so circumstanced, he gave considerably less for it, and then spent no slight percentage of the purchase-money in paying the passage of any he could induce to go to America or elsewhere.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Burke

[Shanachai]

Part 10.

Whenever the history of Ireland is written, the Famine of 1847 and the operations of the Encumbered Estates Court will be mentioned as turning points from which to date great changes in the habits of the people, which led to a great  deal of prosperity and improvement in the middle and lower classes.  At the same time the Famine and its results were unjustly charged to the apathy of the English Government; and it has been so frequently asserted by the seditious press of Ireland that millions were starved to death and driven into exile by Saxon calculation, that many thousands in Ireland and America believe the assertion.

The cities in America were filled with emigrants who, after seeing relations and friends die around them, had their cabins unroofed and leveled and been forced to quit their country, or, if more fortunate and gratified with a few pounds, had yet the conviction that they must seek their livelihood in another land.  That these emigrants rapidly saved money in America, and sent for their relatives to join them, is a well-known fact; and that small farmers, domestic servants, and skilled labourers gave up comfortable situations and followed their friends, is also a matter of notoriety.  Nor can it be doubted that the enforced exodus which succeeded the Famine was composed of people who carried with them a bitter grudge against the English Government and the Irish aristocracy, which has since been turned to account on the other side of the Atlantic.

From 1850 till 1863 Ireland made rapid strides.  That surplus population living on potatoes and working for sixpence a day, which was the despair of political economists, had disappeared.  Much of the land had passed into the hands of energetic farmers or men of business, who drained bogs, leveled immense banks and ditches which took up so much valuable room, and increased the rate of wages.  Railways were made to most of the principal towns, steamers were put on to many Irish ports, and there was a constant rise in the prices of meat, butter, corn, &c., which encouraged the reclamation of much waste land.  The principal banks in Ireland were full of money, landed property continued to rise in value, and the constant erection of fine houses in the watering-places towards the Wicklow coast, and the transformation of many of the streets in Dublin, showed the general prosperity of the commercial classes.

Two or three things, however, were noticed by observant men.  Firstly, absenteeism did not cease with the greater prosperity of Ireland, and the Queen and Royal Family took no means to make that island fashionable as a place of resort.  Secondly, though the Roman Catholic members of the bar certainly got their full share of good things, in the way of judgeships, &c., the Lord-Lieutenants of the counties were Tories of the old class, who kept men of their own way of thinking in great preponderance on the bench, and in various ways countenanced the idea that country gentlemen must be Protestants and Conservatives.  Thirdly, that the Land Question and the Church Question were as far from being settled as ever, and that the little insignificant concessions which were talked of in the House were utterly unsuited to the requirements of the priesthood and the tenantry of Ireland.

At length came the American Civil War.  The necessity the North had of obtaining the unqualified support of Irish emigrants [which it achieved largely thanks to the efforts of Charles Greham Halpin*, a cousin of the Wicklow Halpins], the indignation felt against us for permitting the escape of the Alabama**, and for manifesting a good deal of interest in the Confederate cause, were all elements in producing certain aspirations amongst sanguine Irish refugees and unscrupulous agitators.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_G._Halpine

**The Alabama affair refers to an incident in the American Civil War where a ship fitted out in British dockyards was later used by the South as a military vessel in their war with the North. The North protested that the British government did not exercise due diligence in determining how the vessel would be used.

[Shanachai]

Part 11.

The result was the Fenian conspiracy, which, as far as open insurrection has gone, is almost contemptible, but which has had a blighting effect on the dawning prosperity of Ireland, has rendered the state of affairs there a matter of anxiety to every inhabitant of these islands, and necessitates bold and decided, but liberal and comprehensive, measures on the part of our Legislature.

I have no finished my sketch of the History of Ireland, and I beg you to note, my good friends, that a great many Irishmen believe they were wealthy and prosperous, and held countless acres of land to ‘’their own cheek,’’ till Cromwell and William III despoiled them and bestowed their possessions on certain Saxons who still wrongfully hold the same; the destruction of many abbeys and religious houses, and the conversion of Catholic cathedrals into Protestant churches took place at the same time.  Both Protestants and Catholics are well aware that during the eighteenth century your ancestors stamped out with their broad Saxon feet all Irish attempts at manufacturing.  Many Protestants and Catholics consider also that by bribery your fathers bought up their Lords and Commons in the beginning of this century, saddled the country with an undue portion of debt, and drew money out of it by taking the landlords to the London Parliament House to spend rents acquired in Ireland [an echo of anti-EU views today in the wake of the crash?].  Finally, that you yourselves, perhaps by cold-blooded calculation, certainly by Saxon apathy, starved hundreds of thousands in ’47, and drove a yet greater number into exile.  You have allowed unprincipled people to say and write these things for years, and are only just now awaking to the fact that the Irish may be at once more suspicious and more credulous than yourselves; suspicious of their rulers, and credulous in believing lies about them.  All these things you must consider when the Irish question comes to be dealt with.

-   (pp.137 – 143.)

If some readers regret Wakefield’s reluctance to dwell on the scale and horrors of the Famine, they might keep in mind his purpose, which is not to alienate fair-minded English readers but to convince them to take a more active role in securing meaningful legislative change in Ireland, the kind of change that will satisfy the demands of ‘the Catholic party’ for equality, without alienating a nervous – and often bigoted – Protestant party.  Throughout the rest of A Saxon’s Remedy for Irish Discontent Wakefield goes into greater detail about what he thinks needs to be done in Ireland, and presciently identifies the northern Protestant community as being the least likely to accept any form of Home Rule.  Indeed, in a letter dated February 1886 his prescience proves revelatory:

Sir - As I lived for twenty years in Ireland, and held a large farm in my own hands until a year since, and received my own rents for most of that period, I suppose I can give as good an opinion about all things Irish as most people.  I think all parties in the State are to blame for the disgraceful condition in which Ireland now is.  The Conservatives and Landlords so altered the different Bills brought in for the benefit of tenants, that even now when a lease for lives or years falls in, it is doubtful if all the tenants cannot be cleared out, without any compensation for their improvements, or for disturbance.  The Radicals and dissenters are those who threw out the Bill of Lord Nass (afterwards Lord Mayo)*, which would have entitled the priests to State pay, as the Church of Ireland and Presbyterian clergy were paid, and thus made the Catholic priests dependent upon their flocks for their daily bread; and therefore obliged to go with popular prejudices, or lose their influence.  While what is called the Liberal or Gladstone party, has so mismanaged everything, was so lax with regard to outrages and the doings of the League in the first instance, that it is now extremely difficult for any Conservative, Liberal, or Radical to...take the necessary steps to maintain order and restore prosperity to Ireland.  It must be remembered that less than twenty years ago, Ireland was generally very prosperous; farming was very profitable, land sold high, and rents were well paid.  All this time the better classes could buy meat, fowls, etc., at 40% less than at present, and the ports did far more business, and the hotels at the seaside were full during the bathing season.  Now all this is reversed.  I drove for miles last year in the best parts of Counties Dublin and Wicklow without meeting the carriage of a gentleman, or the car of a tourist.  Wages for labour are fully 30% higher than they used to be, but the farmers tell me that less work is done and the whiskey shops much more frequented.

[Continued next page...]

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Mayo

[Shanachai]

Part 12.

Now two remedies are proposed for all this: either to give Home Rule, or for English money to buy up all the land and give it to the present tenants who are to pay for it by installments.  Both these propositions show how intensely ignorant people generally are of Irish matters.  Home Rule could only be implemented if Ireland was divided North and South, and only then if there was an English army to keep the peace.  Without one, civil war would break out within six months.  The party of Mr. Parnell are chiefly men of English descent, clever speakers and writers, who would be no more able to control the American Fenians who would flock to Ireland, and the truculent mobs of Dublin, Cork, and other cities, than Lamartine* and his friends did the Parisian ones.  Nor would the Northern Protestants and Irish landholders stand quietly by while they were robbed.  [In the event of civil war,]I should expect to see them victors in the long-run, and to rule Ireland as Cromwell did.  For England to find money, and the State to be landlord, is nonsense.  It is most unjust to the English tax-payer in the first place.  Lord Ashbourne's Bill** does everything possible for tenants wishing to be landlords, and it is not taken advantage of, simply because there is a reign of terror in Ireland, and everybody fears the Land League and his neighbour.  A lady wrote the other day asking me what she should do.  She hated the League, but was told no one would sell her anything, or even shoe her horses, if she did not subscribe, and I believe she has had to do so.  The very people who threatened her I know were compelled to give in themselves. 

I believe, from experience, that the most popular course in Ireland, as well as the best for everybody, would be to enable every man to buy his land at a reasonable price, and if he remained tenant under lease of any kind, always to have the option of buying.  Let property be represented.  Do not let a town mob - priest-led or Parnell-led - outweigh law and order, and above all, let everybody know and feel that crime will be swiftly punished by whatever party is in power.

I am, Sir, yours etc., Francis Wakefield.

- The Wicklow Newsletter, Saturday, February 6th, 1886.

Wakefield sincerely believed that maintaining the Union was in the best interests of Irish Protestants, Irish Catholics and the English people.  Home Rule would lead to Civil War, and he abhorred bloodshed and ‘outrage’.  Like O’Connell, he was not a romantic when it came to Liberty.  If it was to cost human life, it was too costly.  Other ways were preferable, and good men had a moral obligation to pursue them.  Unrest in Ireland was due to a series of horrific historical crimes and the ongoing prevalence of bad government.  By addressing those historic crimes with meaningful legislative reform, a good government could go a long way toward minimising the causes of discontent in Ireland. 

Francis Wakefield was a genuinely good man with a sure grasp of the complexities of Ireland in the latter half of the 19th century, but even among his Irish friends he was something of an outsider.  As I will demonstrate in future posts, Wakefield’s supporters in Wicklow had their own seditious views about what qualified as ‘meaningful’ reform in Ireland, and my own great great grandfather, Robert Wellington Halpin, was among them.

(See below, Lamartine in front of the Hôtel de Ville of Paris, on February 25, 1848, by Félix Philippoteaux.)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_de_Lamartine

** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_of_Land_(Ireland)_Act_1885

[Shanachai]

At noon, Monday 27 December 1869, Wakefield delivered a speech from the balcony of the Wicklow County Courthouse to an assembly of thousands.  Addressing an ''aggregate meeting'' of the County of Wicklow on the Land Question, convened by the High Sheriff at the request of 2,000 rate-payers, Mr Wakefield had this to say:

"We know that the land belongs to the landlord, and that the rent belongs to the landlord, but we say that the money of the tenant and the produce of his labour shall not be confiscated, and he himself made the victim of arbitrary eviction.  (Hear, hear.)  We are sometimes told that the landlords do not arbitrarily raise the rents.  Many of them may not - but many others I fear do, and if you travel through Ireland as much as I do, I think you will find that in the vast number of cases the improvements made solely by the tenant are charged to him by an increased rent as if they were the improvements of the landlord.  (Hear, hear.)  You will see the rents increased five or six times in the course of twenty or thirty years - (Hear, hear) - and why?  Because the tenant has built a good house, or made land originally worth only ten shillings an acre by his labour worth twenty shillings.  (Hear, hear.)  This injustice we seek to redress.  Irish men, descendants of the native race, descendants too of the Dane, the Saxon and the Norman, Catholic, Protestant and Presbyterian, are all combined in this great movement to obtain justice for the tenant farmers by legal and constitutional means (loud cheers).  We are determined to succeed in this great cause, and we certainly will support no man as our representative in Parliament who does not give full effect to the wishes of the people.  (Cheers)..." 

- The Wicklow Newsletter, Saturday,  Jananuary 1st, 1870.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Fs

[Shanachai]

In A Saxon's Remedy, Wakefield reveals his hopes for Wicklow and Ireland:

My plan is twofold - I wish to protect you [the tenant] against your landlords and I wish to protect the landlords against you.  The landlord cannot turn you out, and you shall have no power to lessen the value of his property....My plan is to make both parties act fairly and honourably.  If all landlords were just and considerate, and all tenants improving and industrious, this book need not have been written: but it is from the lords of the soil, not its cultivators, that my plan will meet most opposition.

Of course, the first objection will be that it interferes with the rights of property.  Now, I deny that altogether.  Nearly all the land in Ireland was given to the ancestors of those who at present hold it on the implied conditions of their keeping the island tranquil and making it Protestant.  They have certainly not done the latter, and even, at the present moment, that act which is the safeguard of liberty (the Act of Habeas Corpus) is suspended.  But I will go much further than that, and say that, with few exceptions, the Irish landlords, as a class, have laid out less money in useful improvements, have been less patriotic in giving their time and risking their money in increasing the prosperity of communities with which they are intimately connected, than any public-spirited Englishman can conceive.

My lips are sealed in matters in which I have acted in a public capacity...but in Ireland I have been perfectly aghast at the short-sighted illiberality displayed by wealthy landowners in dealing with works of public utility.  I wish some of those members of the House of Lords who speak about the agricultural machinery and improved breeds of cattle and sheep they have introduced among their tenantry, would tell us what harbours they have rendered more secure, what watering-places they have had established, what towns they have benefited by introducing gas-works or water-works, by building convenient cottages for the labouring classes, or by fostering manufactures.  I wish they would tell us where the towns are in which they have built market-houses, or schools, or done anything calling for the expenditure of time and money. 

- (pp. 352 - 354)