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II.

1727

pay; as the hard riders, gamblers, drunkards, duellists; the rakes of Mallow, the half savage, half humorous Irish blackguards that figure in the legends of the first years of the present century, as the professional political agitators, as the place-hunters under the disguise of patriots, the heroes of the tragicomedy of the cabbage-garden, or the Fenians of the raid of the 'Red River.'

Of such men as these, all of them essential children of anarchy, recruited by idle younger brothers, disreputable members of otherwise honourable families, landless heads of attainted houses, who lived in dreams of a free Irish Parliament, and of reinstatement in their old domains, there were always many thousands in Ireland, who formed an element perpetually active for evil. Had industry been allowed to grow, and to bring with it, as it must have brought, order and law, and steady occupation, they would have disappeared before civilization like the Red Indians, or like the wild animals of the forest. In the wretchedness to which Ireland was degraded, they throve as in their natural element.

Arthur Young has drawn their portraits as he saw them in 1770 :—

'I must now come,' he says, 'to a class of persons to whose conduct it is almost entirely owing, that the character of that nation has not that lustre abroad which it will soon merit. This is the class of little country gentlemen, tenants who drink their claret by means of profit rents, jobbers in farms, bucks, your fellows with round hats edged with gold, who hunt in the day, get drunk in the evening, and fight the next morning. These are the men among whom

drinking, wrangling, quarrelling, fighting, ravishing, CHAP. &c., are found as in their native soil."1

Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona.

These gentlemen were flourishing in full vigour under Queen Anne and the first George. Pictures of them, more or less accurate, can be put together out of the records in Dublin Castle, and they and their doings will form the subject of the following book.

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III.

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BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

IRISH IDEAS.

SECTION I.

WHEN the Pretender attempted a descent on Scotland in 1708 and the French fleet was to have come to Galway to make a diversion in Ireland in his favour, preparations had been made for an extensive Catholic rising throughout Connaught. The Scotch expedition failed. The French did not show themselves on the Irish coast. The exclusion of the Presbyterians from the militia, had given the intending insurgents a tempting opportunity; but the Catholics knew that, unless supported by corresponding movements elsewhere, even if successful at the beginning, they would have to deal once more with the whole strength of England; and they were too prudent to risk another desperate struggle single-handed. But though their hopes were quenched for the moment, the purpose was not abandoned. In 1711, when the Tory ministers came into power, the Pretender's chances seemed again favourable. Rumours of a restoration were flying fast and thick in the Irish air. Large companies of friars were reported as riding through the Western counties from village to village, telling the people that the ould abbeys were

about to be set up again.' There were 'more of them than had been seen for many years.' They were well-dressed and well mounted, mysterious apparitions, risking the dangers of the law for some unascertained purpose, yet creating, wherever they went, the vague ferment of excitement and expectation of change. They had found the benefit in the last war of having Connaught entirely to themselves. Estates there had been bought in the interval by English speculators, who had intruded themselves into Roscommon, Mayo, and even Connemara itself. couraged by these neighbours, more than one of the old Galway families had deserted the national cause, turned Protestant, and gone over to the enemy. If there was to be another rebellion, a first step towards success would be to purge the country both of the home renegades and these dangerous aliens. Political speculations were reinforced by agrarian grudges, which created instruments ready made to the hand.

En

Between the scanty half-savage inhabitants of wild districts, who claim a right to land which they will not cultivate, and civilized men who desire to make a rational use of it, there is always an irreconcilable feud. The improver buys an estate, with a population who have lived upon it from immemorial time in their own barbarous way. He perceives that, with more intelligent treatment, he can treble the value of his purchase, and raise the condition of his tenants by compelling them to work. They have no desire to be raised. They deny his right to meddle with them. He clears them off, and introduces others who will do as he tells them; and there is at once war

1 'Miscellaneous Depositions, 1711. Co. Roscommon.' MSS. Dublin Castle.

CHAP.

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1711

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1711

war in which each side believes that justice is on its side, war which can end only in the extermination of one or the other party. The English settlers had taken possession of vast tracts of mountains, built enclosures, raised vast stocks of sheep and black cattle and established Scotch herdsmen, necessarily in exposed situations, to take charge of them. Gentlemen of the old blood-Sir Walter Blake especially— were following the example, adopting English habits, and, still worse, the English creed. Before the example spread, or the new system took deeper root, the Irish determined to make an end of it.

The campaign opened in Eyre Connaught, a part of Connemara. In the early winter of 1711, large armed parties in white shirts traversed the country in the long nights, 'houghing and destroying the cattle belonging to persons who were unacceptable to the Irish as having taken lands to farm." From Eyre Connaught the movement spread with the mysterious rapidity of a plan carefully concerted. It swept along Lough Corrib and Lough Mask, through Mayo, past Castlebar to Sligo; then down through Roscommon and Galway, and south into Clare. Notices were dropped at the shepherds' cottages, or were nailed against the doors, informing them that war was declared against the stockmaster, that it would be continued till the stock was destroyed, and bidding them stir at their peril. All night long would be heard the roaring of the wretched cattle, as they fell under the knife; wild cries, and 'volleys of shots from bogs and mountains, and the huzzas of the Houghers.'

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