"A "ai ~- U—u at. “La—am ‘ r‘il. n», .uh , “Huang.“ "1..." ”v an n it; )3 $31in me @afiifiaflmfim aiiwmgg W Ex mama %-’ ’ 23333333? a .« . jlii’liifi lay/‘1'! J. 3‘ . ~ g i. a". :u’ Qua“ »-- 2“ x‘t’fa f r 4: m , my. a / ' dummy}? ‘ E $ r Hg". «ow», {arm a? .a 5.. in .\ twang van ‘ W. M. V A -‘ ‘ ? :2 1 “H A: . n u: m. If}. PRICE 75 CENTS PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 450 GRANT AVENUE SAN FRANCISCO 3 2 9 1 f» D. o C Bv REDFERN MASON Foreword l I NTHINKING persons say the Irish - are not fit to govern themselves, and ' they point to the civil war as proof of their assertion. Others regard the war as evi- dence of the clear-eyed vision and courage of the Republicans, and look with admiration on the little army of idealists who dare to assert the rights of the Irish nation in opposition to ' the British Empire. Which of these views is the juSt one? To learn the truth, the writer, an American of English birth, journeyed through Ireland to see and hear for himself. He went there hoping to find in the Free State a means by which the. Irish could realize 5 their aspirations and be a self-g0verning " people. In these hopes he was disappointed. He f found the soul of Erin with De Valera and his ‘followers, and he returned to America a Re- . publi'can. ' Thisbook is the story of his experiences. San Francisco 1923 Rebel Ireland pra' I Be‘ 9 6‘". ‘I C I 0 iv) 0'09 o 3.0-wa t. ELL do I remember my first intima- tion of the Irish genius. We had a” servant named Mary, and all day long she would be singing about the house songs that were full of sadness. My boy’s heart went out _in pity and I asked Mary what it was the Irish wanted. I shall never forget the sweetness with which she answered me. “I don’t know all about it rightly, my dear; but they want to be free.” That girl set something at work within me that has made me a rebel against every form of oppression. I told my mother what Mary had said. “Why shouldn’t the Irish govern themselves?” she exclaimed. But father talked politics. For him freedom meant the English code. He was a good man; but the national complex would not let him look facts in the face. And now, after many years’ absence, I find myself, an American citizen, back in Ireland, eager to listen to the whisperings of the Time Spirit from the lips of her ancient people. ...‘ 65G REBEL'IRELAND 96; qut is a .changed Dublin I see. The soldier's in- the stre'e‘ts aéé the soldiers of Erin; the flag whizh: 'flies from 1:116 Castle is the Green and " ' ‘Goidf‘ But the great buildings on Sackville street are in ruins, torn by shot and shell. Here was the fighting during the Easter uprising; here, a few months ago, Irishman died at the hands of Irishman. I The newspapers are full of accounts of fighting with the “Rebels.” It is curious read- ing. Never a word is permitted to appear which would suggest‘that these men are fighting for an ideal dearer to them than life itself. “The Irregulars seem to be getting the worst of it,” I remark to a girl whose acquaintance I made in California. Her face darkens. “Don’t call them that. They are the Irish Republican army. The gov- ernment under which they enlisted is still in existence, though the. Free State/has usurped its authority.” “The newspapers never use the word Repub- lican,” I retort. “Our scribes are Pharisees,” snaps the girl. “Only so much of the truth gets out as is fa- vorable to the Free State.” [8] m IRELAND - AT - WAR I 96. . “All the writers can’t be Free Staters, :though.” ‘ i “Go and see them for yourself. You’ll soon find out how matters stand.” 3' And I do go. I find men on the “Freeman’s 3 ournal” writing Free State articles and think- Fug Republican thoughts. “Needs must when the devil drives,” one of them grumbles. “I’ve a family to support and ’d be out of a job if I wrote what I thought.” “Isn’t that intellectual prostitution?” f; “You wouldn’t be so damned logical if your . iving depended on it, maybe,” shouts the man. '~ ‘Wait till the time comes. We’ll change our (tune then.” Nearly all the men have Republican sympa— , thies. But the Free State has a strangle-hold on the paper and it only exists by subservience. ' But, though the government has garroted the press, in every hotel parlor, among groups gathered on street corners, on the street cars, I hear open condemnation of the. Free State jand the men who are at the head of it. I People look at me keenly before they speak ‘out. I tell them I am an American of English Ibirth, come to Ireland to find out the truth for myself. [9] 9a REBEL-IRELAND 96. “God send more like you,” says a benevo-l‘ lent cleric whom I meet at dinner. “If you have an open mind and study the matter dis-é passionately, you can only come to one con-f clusion.” ; “But where is all this fighting to end?” I cry. “Ireland is being ruined and hatreds sow that will last for generations.” The priest smiles sadly. “Things are bad, I admit; but they might be much worse. If th Free State had been accepted without protest Ireland would have declined to the estate of mere dominion, and England would be able t say that the Irish were satisfied. But they are. _ not satisfied and, if the civil war does no mor than put on record Ireland’s irreconcilable pro- test against England having any hand in her affairs, the blood of her children will not have been shed in vain.” “Dominion government satisfies. Canada.” “It doesn’t satisfy the French Canadians and, even if it did, you can’t draw a parallel between Canada and Ireland. Canada has; never been made war on by England; Ireland-3 has. Canada is far away and, if England did: not treat her fairly, she would declare her in- dependence. Do you think the United States [Io]_ IRELAND'AT'WAR 9°; ! would stand quietly by and see England make war on the Dominion P” ‘ “And you think the fighting in Ireland is worth while merely as a protest?” { “I do. The Irish are a strange people and, if they pledged their word to accept England’s cbnditions, they would feel themselves ever- lastingly bound to keep it. But they have never done so. There has always been a group of men who held sacred the doctrine of independ- ence. Today the leader of that group is Eamonn (if. Valera and, so long as he 15 true to his be- lief, he will be the dearest of her sons to Erin.” \ I look curiously at my companion. “You’d e getting into trouble, father, if the hierarchy ' new your views.’ The priest’s eyes flash. “The bishops are ood men and they mean well; but they are ' ithout vision. If the world were governed by 'deas like theirs, it would be good-bye to free.- om. Rome is wiser, thank God, and we look 0 her to ratify the right of just rebellion.” 3; Every night there is fighting in the streets. t begins about ten and continues till the small Fours of the morning. Bullets sing past me as I make my way back to the Grosvenor. A hole )in my bedroom window warns me that they 3 ‘ [II] I l ya REBEL-IRELAND p36. 3 are no respecters of hotels. Last night a ma3n was sniping from the roof. 3 But the people go their way with smiling good- humor. At least their eyes are no longl r offended by the sight of a foreign garrison, aIIid they know in the heart of them the English will never come back. S Just how the difficulties which confront them will be overcome they would be puzzléd to say. But the bonds that have bound the13k for so long have been loosened, and they loo to the future with confidence. 3 Yet the treaty only gives them a relative measure of freedom. England has still tl‘le whip-hand; her appointive power makes it im possible for the Free State government to b . really Irish. What" I want to learn is who the people. ar that voted for the Treaty. Does their accept ance represent the will of the people? Do the speak for Ireland’s soul? It IS from a young man in Armagh I get the best answer to this question. I visited the ani- cient city to look at the fort of Emain Macha}. the training ground of Cuchullin. <3 “The election was fought on a register fiv years old,” he explains. “That disfranchised23 [12] 65G IRELAND'AT'WAR 96; considerable proportion of the young men. Those young men are the backbone of the Re- publican army. Add their number to those who voted for rejection and you would have a large majority against the treaty.” “Then the claim of the hierarchy that Eng- land’s offer has been accepted by the great body of the Irish people is not true?” The young man nods assent. “I’m ashamed to admit it,” he says; “but the great bulwark of English authority in Ireland today is the official element in the Catholic Church.” “And the actual majority, who are the peo- ple that form it?” “It is this way,” says my informant. “When the election was held Ireland was just emerg- ing from the long terror of the Black and Tans. Many voted for the treaty because they were sick of the fighting. Others did so because they thought the treaty might be regarded as an instalment and used as a lever to extort fur- ther concessions. And there were selfish folk who cared only for their pockets, Judases who sold Ireland for money. But the idealists were against the treaty, the young men and the women especially.” At the Dublin Horse Show, it isn’t the [13] N REBEL'IRELAND Vi horses that interest me, wonderful though they are. It is the dancing of the peasants, their carding and weaving, and, above all, the art exhibit. There are three paintings by an artist named Keating and always a crowd in front of them. They are scenes in the South and West during the regime of the Black and Tans. A govern- ment which censors the press ought to destroy these pictures. Those lads with the glory in their faces are not the stuff of which to make Free Staters. If George Washington had been driven to guerrilla warfare in the mountains of Virginia, as at one time he feared he might be, he and his followers would have looked like these heroes of Erin. ‘ Art in Ireland is necessarily Republican. Genius cannot immortalize souls that shrink from consequences. But it glories in these lads who have in their hearts “the firm resolve not to submit or yield.” I see Maude Gonne, superb and sad, as if Ireland’s sorrows were eating her heart out; AE passes by; he has the head of an Irish Vulcan. James Stephens is there, a leprehaun looking for another “Crock of Gold”; Sara All- good, too, own daughter to Kathaleen ny Hou- [I4] é"! IRELAND'AT’WAR 9'5. lahan, and Mia Cranwill, who makes brooches in the image of that of Tara. They are the prophets of renascent Erin, the avatars of a civilization which aims to make life beautiful. A familiar voice greets my ear. It is Mon- signor Rodgers of San Francisco, come to Holy Ireland to get marble and stained glass and vestments for his Church of St. Patrick in the city by the Golden Gate. One of the windows is to picture the flight" of the black vultures from Erin. Patrick had a vision. He saw hovering over Erin great evil birds, and under the shadow of their wings was desolation. They were the Saxon invaders, who were to come across the Eastern sea and for centuries to darken the face of Ireland by their presence. Moved to pity for his people, the saint prayed that the strangers might depart, andGod granted him his wish. That flight of the birds of evil omen is the desire of the Irish people. The Free Staters want it as well as the Republicans; but they compromise with their ideal. The dismantled constabulary barracks which greet my gaze wherever I go tell a different story. On the wall of a barn in County Wicklow I read the [Is] .64 REBEL'IRELAND 96. words, “Vote for Duffy and the dead of Ireland will rise up and curse you.” The man who wrote that was wise in the ways of English . statecraft. Everywhere the stranger is suspect. I am driving through County Limerick in a jaunting car, when a man dashes out of a cottage, gun in hand, and stops our conveyance. He looks me over, exchanges a few words with the jar- vey. “Drive on,” he says abruptly; “he is an American.” “A dog couldn’t get by and he not see it,” says the driver. “You must be in with both sides,” I remark. “Yes, and know how to keep my mouth shut,” the man answers. “I don’t want to be found dead on the road, with a piece of paper pinned to my coat.” At Newcastle West the waitress is surly. She cannot make out What I am here for. But, when I ask her to direct me to the house of the parish priest, she changes her manner. Acquaintance with the priesthood, however, is not always an “Open Sesame.” On the door of a little chapel I find posted a letter. It be- gins, “Reverend and up till now respected father,” and warns the padre that, if he con- [15] 65G IRELAND'AT'WAR 9% tinues to preach against the Republic, he and his parishioners will quarrel. Both Free Staters and Republicans advise me to carry military passes. “Suppose the Republicans find me in pos- session of a Free State pass,” I object. “It may go hard with you,” they admit. So I am armed with no other papers than my American passport. Both sides respect that; so do the English Tommies who search me on the train in Fermanagh. Beyond Newcastle I can only make my way West by car or on foot, for the bridges are down and no trains are running. I tramp a good fifty miles, fording streams, scrambling over ruined bridges, chatting with any friendly soul whom chance may send my way. Crossing the shattered arch of a bridge in Kerry, I am stopped by a man with a gun, his head tied up with a bloody kerchief. “What are you doing in Ireland?” he de- mands sternly. ‘ “Trying to find out what you fellows are fighting for,” I reply. “What do you want to know for?” “To tell the truth to the people of America.” He lowers his. weapon and motions me to a [I7] Pd REBEL'IRELAND peg seat beside him on the greensward. A group of ragged men, all armed, lie scattered about us. They listen to our talk in silence. . “Why aren’t you in uniform?” I inquire. “We’ve got no uniforms, except a few taken from the Free Staters.” “What are you fighting for?” “To make Ireland free, that’s what we are fighting for. Every man of us has taken an oath to go on fighting till Ireland has won her independence.” “Do you get paid?” “Not a penny. Where’s the money to come from?”—and the man laughs. “We need it all for ammunition.” “And how do you live?” “The people feed us. If they won’t, we- take what we need, and give them a note on the Irish Republic.” “Rather hard on the people, don’t you think?” “It’s. hard on us, too, away in the. hills, half the time wet to the skin, hunted like dogs.” He brings himself up short and looks me in the eyes. ; “Are you for us?” “Yes, I am for you.” [18] a“! IRELAND’AT'WAR We And our hands grip. “Then tell the people of America we are fighting for liberty, like they did. They’ll un- derstand that, I’m thinking.” Everyone is not so kindly disposed towards Americans, however. In the hotel parlor at Athenry a young priest breaks out with ironic vehemence: I “We are infinitely obliged to you Americans for the money you send us and your kind words of encouragement, and we are full of ad- miration for the discretion which makes you stay at home to save you-r precious skins.” I bridle up. “If it wern’t for the poor Irish girls of New York, you’d lack powder and shot to fight with.” “That’s true,” and the tone is kindlier; “but where are the fellows who shout for Erin on the Seventeenth of March? Why aren’t they over here helping us?” In the hearts of the mothers there is trouble. The boys go away and God knows whether they will ever come back. I stayed for a couple of days with an old lady at Onascaul, between Tralee and Dingle. “It’s terrible,”‘ she moans, “to see them seated here at night, brothers and cousins to- [19] f 65" REBEL 'IRELAN'D 96:. gether, and know they are hating one another in their hearts. The young lads steal glances towards the door. I know what is in their minds. They want to be off in the mountains with the fighting men. Oh, my dear,” and she bursts into tears, “won’t it ever end?” Yet the dear soul loves the Rebels. All the women do. The Free State arouses little enthusiasm. The chambermaid at Tralee, a black-eyed Nora, all ablaze with passion, rages against the soldiers of the government. “I don’t know where they get them,” she cries. “It must be from the slums of Dublin they come. We liked the Tommies better. They were nice clean lads and, after all, they were only doing their duty. Besides, every one of them had an Irish sweetheart and, if the Tans were up to any new devilment, he’d be sure to tell her.” Nora has a full capacity for vindictiveness. A girl betrayed the whereabouts of three Re- publicans, and the Free Staters arrested them. “We know who she is,” says the girl viciously, “and we’ve got it in for her.” Such bitterness is rare, however; the soldiers on both sides try to avoid killing one another. They look forward to the time when they may [20] N IRELAND'AT'WAR 9‘53 be fighting shoulder to shoulder. In Listowell I hear of a Free State soldier who caught a neighbor sniping from the housetop. “I know you, John Buckley,” he called out. “I don’t want to shoot you; but I’ll have to, if you don’t come down.” And John came down. In Dublin they told me of two partners. Dur- ing the day the Free Stater drilled with the volunteers; in the evening the Republican went sniping. Business was carried on as usual. A nun in Tralee related a remarkable case of mutual forbearance. There were two broth- ers in command of opposing units. They met in action. For a few moments the pair stood looking at each other. Then one spoke up. “Michael, by all that is right I ought to shoot you. But I can’t do it. Take off your coat, man, and we’ll fight it out with our fists.” Never have soldiers been more loath to kill one another. The Free State soldiers shoot over the heads of their opponents. The slaying of Michael Collins was lamented by the Re- publicans themselves. It was the breach of an unwritten understanding. All the killing that has taken place in Ire- land since the beginning of hostilities would [21] 5’“ REBEL'IRELAND 9'53 not equal the casualties of a single engagement in the. great war. It could hardly be otherwise, for the ma- jority of the Free Staters love the ideal which led the Republicans to take up arms. They, too, have dreamed of an Ireland which should be free. They try to crush the Rebels, not because they think they are wrong, but because they think they are fighting for an unrealizable ideal. If England had interfered and inaugurated another reign of terror, Free Staters and Re- publicans would have joined forces and turned upon the common enemy. Upon a united Ireland England would be powerless to impose her will. You cannot sub- due people who will die rather than surrender. .That is the temper of the Irish people. They are deathlessly enamored of freedom. This love they are expressing, not on the field of battle only, but in art, in their folk-lore, and in industry. THE - REBEL - TRADITION The Rebel Tradition HROUGH seven centuries of alien rule the thought of the Irish has expressed the spirit of rebellion. Their literature is a literature. of revolt; their music throbs with indignation; the tales and legends of the peasantry are the tradition of a people robbed of their birthright. When their feelings craved a voice, the Irish instinctively turned to the folk-song. A son of the soil, made a poet by his country’s suffer- ings, would pour forth his heart in song and, wedded to some ancestral melody, the words gave utterance to what was felt by all. Men sang the song as they followed the plow,,the girls at the spinning-wheel, mothers to their little ones. Unrecorded in writing it lived On by a tenure purely spiritual, gripping the fancy of the people with deathless endearment. In the twelfth century, when, the English denied to Irish youth the use of the coulin, their ancestral headdress, popular resentment came to flower in one of the most beautiful folk-tunes in the world. The words are lost; but the melody lives on, token of a spirit stronger than the will of kings. [23] PG REBEL'IRELAND 96; The thing forbidden became a symbol. It was so with the shamrock. The little plant which St. Patrick used to explain the doctrine of the Trinity symbolizes in its tiny loveliness all that Irishmen hold dear. When the English forbade its being worn some unknown poet pilloried their stupidity in a line of immortal irony: “The shamrock is forbid by law to grow in Irish ground.” _ As well seek to stifle the passion which gives it birth as try to silence a song. Forbidden to sing of Ireland, the people expressed them- selves in allegory. Erin became the Little Black Rose and the Silk of the Kine; men sang their devotion to Kathaleen ny Houlahan and Grania Wael. The old songs enshrined the past; they dreamed of the glory to come. They were his- tory; they were sentiment; they were proph- ecy. England sent the singers to jail; she exiled them, hanged them from the gallows. In vain! The more they were persecuted, the more the people cherished their songs. When a man suffered by the Saxon law, as did Shane O’Dwyer of the Glen, or flouted it successfully, like Ned of the Hill or Rory [24] THE ' REBEL ° TRADITION O’More, his exploits were chanted in every Irish home. These songs are a poetic chronicle of the people. Would we know the condition of the people after the Williamite wars, we shall find it in the verse of Shane Clarach MacDonnell and David O’Brudar. “One single foot of land there is not left to us,” says the latter, “even as alms from the state. No, not what One may make his bed upon; but the state will accord us the grace— strange l—of letting us go safe to Spain to seek adventures.” , And, with Durer-like strength of line, Mac- Donnell etches us the portrait of an English squire who had thrust himself into the estate of an Irishman: . “Beautiful is his castle, living in the high- gabled, lighted-up mansion of Brian; but tight- closed is his door, and his churlishness shut up inside of him, in Aherlow of the fauns, in an opening between two mountains, until famine cleaves to the people, putting them under its sway. “His gate he never opens to the moan of the unhappy wretches; he never answers their groans, nor provides food for their bodies; if - [25] bé’ REBEL'IRELAND 9'6; they were to take so much as a little faggot or a scollop or a crooked rod, he would beat streams of blood out of their shoulders.” The people turned with yearning to the fight- ing men who had fled to the continent—the “Wild Geese,” as they called them in pathetic hope of their return. A girl who grieved to see her lover go, but was too good an Irishwoman to bid him stay, sang: I’ll sell my rock, I’ll sell my reel, I’ll sell my only spinning-wheel, To buy for my love a coat of steel, Is go d-teidh tu, a mhuimin slan. When the people starved, and there was none to feed them, it was in the folk-song that pOured forth their sorrow. Three verses, so poignant that they seem the cry of [God’s little ones, tell of theGreat Hunger of 1849: Oh, the praties they are small, Over here! over here! Oh, the praties they are small Over here! Oh, the praties they are small And we dig them in the fall, And we eat them, skins and all, Full of fear, full of fear. [25] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION Oh, I‘ wish we all were geese, Night and morn, night and mom! Oh, I wish that we were geese, Night and mom. Oh, I wish that we were geese, For they live and die in peace, Till the day of their decease, Atin corn, atin corn. Oh, we’re down into- the dust, Over here! Over here! Oh, we’re down into the dust, Over here! Oh, we’re down into the dust, But the God in Whom we trust Will yet give us crumb for crust, Over here! Over here! Today the making of folk-songs is ended. But the spirit which begat them is still alive. I talked of this matter with AE, the great Irishman who puts poetry into economics. “The Irish have a genius for mythology,” said he. “When a man’s personality impresses their imagination, they weave a legend round him. They have done so with Griffiths and De Valera. Why, I believe there 'is a myth about me. These legends they tell in poetry. This courteous and relatively bloodless war is giv- ing occasion to a veritable flowering of poetry.” AE tells truth. The leaders of the Easter Uprising were not only fighters; they were [27] 9a REBEL 'IIRELAND be. poets. Padraic Pierse, the martyred first presi- dent of the Republic, proclaimed himself a rebel in verse which proves him one of the great succession of Irish singers: I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow, That have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory Of an ancient glory. My mother bore me in bondage, in bondage my mother was born; ' I am of the blood of serfs. The children with whom I play-ed, the men and women with whom I have eaten, Have had masters over them, have been under the lash of masters, And, though gentle, have served churls. The hands that have touched mine, the dear hands whOSe touch is familiar to me, > Have worn shameful manacles, have been bitten at the wrist by manacles, Have grown hard with the manacles and the task- work of the strangers. I am flesh of the flesh of these lowly; I .am bone of their bone, I that have never submitted, I that have a soul greater than the soul of my peo- ple’ s masters, I that have vision and prophecy and the gift of fiery speech. I that have spoken with God on the top of His holy hill. When Pierse wanted to know what Ireland [28] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION wanted, he did as Eamonn de Valera does; he looked into his own heart. There he found the truth, and for that truth he laid down his life. But it was more than political independence that he wished. People may have freedom, yet be sordid and material. He wanted what the bards and singers and story-tellers wanted— ' the love of beauty without which life is a sor- did boon. What this beauty is that the Irish crave no one has brought home to me more persuasively than has Arthur Darley. Darley is a musician and the genius of the race sings through his fiddle. No piano can express the subtleties of Gaelic melody. Nay, its nuances are too deli- cate to be crystallized in modern notation. But Darley’s violin voices all the lights and fine shades. It is lyrical; it is capable of passionate indignation; humor flashes through the mist of sorrow and, pervading all, is the mysticism of the Gael. - He plays me “The Song of Oonagh,” talking . the while of Fairy Mab and how she glides by in the moonlight, her hair like yellow corn; he recalls the “Lament of Deirdre” and, in my mind’s eye, I see the white-armed Helen of the Gael; his bow evokes the old tune of stricken Ireland, “Uileacan dubh O”: [29] N REBEL'IRELAND 9'3. Take my first blessing ever to dear Eire’s strand, Fair hills of Eire 0! To the remnant that love her—our forefathers’ land, Fair hills of Eire 0! How sweet sing the birds o’er mount there and vale, Like soft-sounding chords that lament for the Gael, And I o’er the surge, far, far away must wail The fair hills of Eire 0! Every year Darley and his family betake themselves to Glencolumcille in Donegal. There the Gaelic sap runs freely. The native lore springs spontaneously to the lips of the people. “On the vigil of Christmas,” he tells me, “they light a candle and place it in the window, so that the BlesSed Virgin may see, if she is going by with her child, and know there is a welcome for her. One year'it was bitterly cold and the snow lay thick on the ground. An old couple were seated in their cottage, when there came a knock at the door. The pair looked at each other in surprise, for they lived in an out- o’f-the-way place, and wayfarers were few. The man of the house opened the door, and‘there stood a young woman with a baby in her arms. “ ‘May I come in and sit by the fire and warm myself and the child?’ said the stranger. 4 “ ‘Come in and welcome,’ said the old man, [30] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION and the goodwife drew up a chair for the woman to be seated. “ ‘You saw the candle in the window, may- be?’ said the old dame. “ ‘I did,’ answered the young woman. .“She. sat by the fire, crooning her little one and, as they looked upon her, the old folks wondered at her beauty. The more they gazed, the lovelier she seemed to grow. Awe. came upon them. “ ‘Now I must be going on my way,’ said the stranger. ‘I thank you for your kindness and I pray God to bless all in this house.’ “ ‘It’s no time for a poor soul to be abroad,’ pleaded the old woman. ‘Won’t you be staying with us the night?’ “ ‘No, I have other homes to visit, and I must be on my way.’ V “So she was gone, and it came to the old people that their home had sheltered the Mother of God and the Child Jesus.” Darley plays me the old lullaby, which he noted .down out there in Glencolumcille, and his eyes are bright with the wonder of it. As we sit talking and playing, who should come in but Kathleen O’Brennan and, with her, Sara Allgood of the Abbey Theatre. Kath- [31] 9‘1 REBEL'IRELAND Vs leen is one of those who dream of the Ireland that is to be and she works to make it a reality; Sara sings old Gaelic songs, full of yearning and indignation. And it comes over me with the force of a revelation that it is the things of the spirit that have kept the Irish constant to their ideal through so many years of suffering. Material prosperity alone will never satisfy them. They seek that winged happiness of the mind which was their forefathers’, when they sat together in the long twilight and heard the shanachie tell stories of Diarmuid and Grainne and the Red Branch knights. In these tales the folk is artist. Read them in- the collections of Douglas Hyde and Lady Gregory. They are full of an ingenuous art and rich with the sap of the race. The first to teach me the spell these stories exercise over the Irish mind was Seumas Moriarity. Seumas tends the flowers in a city park in San Francisco. He comes from Smer- wick, in Kerry, where he followed the life of a fisherman. This is what he said to me—his very words: . “We’d all sit around the room and tell tales that lasted till it was well on into the night, . [32] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION wonderful tales and we believing every word of them. Talk about schools! Never were schools like those gatherings in the old home, with no light but the peat fire, and a song in the heart of every man, woman and child that was there. Do you think I’d be wanting to go back to Smerwick if they built a factory there? I wouldn’t set foot in the place. But to hear the croon of the Gaelic and the old songs I’d known from a child: that was happiness. Why, in Smerwick a girl wouldn’t look at a man that couldn’t sing. Every year, when the time came to dig the potatoes, my father would hire a man to help us, and he always chose the man who could tell the best tale and sing the- best song. You couldn’t shoo a dog from the door in Smerwick without a song. The happiest people in all the world they are, for all they are poor.” When I set out from Dingle to visit Seumas’ old mother and give her news of her lad, the driver asked me if I knew anyone in the place, for there was no inn to put up at. “There’s a man named Moriarity in America, and I promised to visit his people; he’s a gardener.” But the jarvey shakes his head. [33] 5’0 REBEL'IRELAND 9% “He writes about the old Irish poets and teaches Gaelic,” I add. The man gives a shout. “Why, that must be the Spalpin fanach. Now I know your man; all the country knows him. Only say you come from the Spalpin and every door in the village will open to you.” And it turns out just as he says. Never shall I forget that village, with its less than a score of cottages, nestling at the foot of the little hills they call the Three Sisters and below them the rock-fringed harbor that opens out on the stormy Atlantic. It is like a page from, one of Synge’s plays. The old mother in her unwonted shoes and stockings to greet the stranger, the little boy and girl crouched almost in the embers, the great iron pot swinging over the fire, Seumas’ cradle that looks like a boat—his latest niece in it, the fishnets drying beneath the rafters, the flagged floor, the simple chairs and table, not a thing about the room but what serves life’s bare necessities. It is a scene that might live in the canvas of a master. The men are away fishing or in the fields. But the children come racing in to see the man from America. Few strangers find their way . to Smerwick nowadays. [34] THE ° REBEL ' TRADITION “Didn’t you bring your fiddle?” demands the old lady. “We’d have got the boys and girls together and had a dance.” I look at her with admiration, inwardly curs- ing the fate that did not make me a fiddler. She has the face of one of God’s aristocrats, chiseled and firm as a cliff and, in her eyes, a look of deep understanding. I feel in the heart of me that of her type was the mother of the Maccabees. But her dear ones she has given ' to the devouring. sea and to far-away America. The children drag me off to see the rocks at Dunglore and the bed of Diarmuid and Grainne. As we go on our way, I see the women washing clothes .in the little stream and hear their voices raised in song. It is just as Seumas told me, and I wish the dear man were with‘ me. ‘A little gossoon, knee-high to a grasshopper, looks at me with challenge in his eyes. “Irish is better than English,” says he. “It is for you,” I reply. And one of the girls tells me about Grainne, how she was betrothed to Oscar, but eloped with Diarmuid. Oscar and his men followed hard after them and, all over Ireland, the , people show the places where they rested in their flight. [ 35 ] PG REBEL'IRELAND 9'33 “Did he catch them?” I ask. “He did and Diarmuid was killed by a boar.” “Rather a hard bed, don’t you think?” I ob- serve, contemplating the rocky shelf. “Maybe folks in love are not so particular,” and the little maid darts a look at me, not with- out a glint of feminine scorn. I stay at Ballyferriter, a mile’s walk from Smerwick, with William Long, who is a cousin of Seumas. William teaches Gaelic in a little school, and from him I learn what their native speech means to the people. A copy of the Tain Bo, lying on my table, makes cronies of us. I tell him of my visit to Smerwick and how the children took me to see the bed of Grainne. “Bless their hearts, of course, they did. But don’t say Smerwick; it means nothing. Call it Ardnaconnia, the Height of the Arbutus. There’s poetry in that.” My friend is silent for a while, lost in thought. Suddenly he breaks out: “It was bad enough for the English to take away our freedom. But they’ve done worse; they’ve tried to destroy our language. Yes, and there were Irishmen mean-spirited enough to help them. Here in Ballyferriter I saw a school- [36] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION inspector, a man named Daly, raise a warning finger and say to the children, ‘Let me not hear so much as one word of Irish.’ ” “The language has persisted in spite of him, though.” “Yes, thank God, and today Kerry is the , school of Irish for the whole country. Now let us be going out. We’ll stroll over to Killybeg. ’Tis there they say the fairies are.” “Did you ever see a fairy?” “I did not; but my old mother was in terror lest I should, and get the fairy stroke. On May Eve and Summer Ending she kept me indoors, for then, they say, the Little People are danc- ing on the hills and have great power over mortals.” It is the gloaming as we cross the field's, skirting the bog that separates us from Smer- wick. The scent of the hawthorn 1s in the air and the tinkling of cowbells. Climbing stiles and following many a little boreen, we make our way to the rath, with its mossy stones and the well that was once a font. “The name Killybeg tells us there was once a church here,” says Long. “Wherever you come across the prefix ‘kill,’ you may be sure you are on Christian ground.”_ [37] (PG REBEL'IRELAND 9% “There is a Kilgrimol in my native Lanca- shire,” I exclaim. “I wouldn’t doubt it. The Lancashire folk have Celtic blood in their veins.” And he lays his hand on my shoulder. “My lad, there is more in you than comes from sympathy for a people oppressed. It is the passion of the Celts, your forefathers, that stirs in you.” And we walk on, ruminating. “Tell me where you have been in Ireland,” says my companion, in the tone of one pursu- ing a train of thought. “At Armagh, up in the Northwest as far as Donegal, across the country and round about Dublin.” “That is enough to show you how much the genius of the race is knit up in the language. Armagh is the Hill of Macha; it takes us back to the times when Ireland was pagan; Donegal is the Fort of the Stranger; there the Danes got a hold. Ballyferriter here is the Town of the Ferriters. You tell me you are interested in music. Pierce Ferriter, who held the castle here in Elizabethan days, was a lover of the harp and he left us a poem in praise of it.” And, delving in his pocket, he produces a [38] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION notebook. “I had it in mind to read you this,” he says. “I think you will agree with me that never was musical instrument more poetically sung.” The key of music and its gate, The wealth, the abode of poetry, The skilful, neat Irishwoman, The richly festive moaner. Children in dire distress, men in deep wounds, Sleep at the sounds of its crimson board; The merry witch has chased all sorrow, The festive home of music and delight. We sit down by the old well, but first Wil- liam plucks some rushes and scatters them on the water. “That’s for the Poukha,” he says. “Now he won’t harm us.” ' “Queer he should haunt a Christian shrine, don’t you think?” “’Twas malice he had in his heart, to be dwelling in the house of the enemy. But the people never forget there was once a church here, and every year, at Easter, they make the rounds and say their prayers.” “What did the saints say about the fairies?” I inquire. “They regarded them as evil spirits. ’Tis a common notion that, when Lucifer made war [39] «.64 REBEL'IRELAND We on the Almighty, some of the angels were neither for God, nor against Him. So Michael shut up the devils in Hell, and the neutrals he dropped in Ireland.” “Dante was harder on them,” I observe. “The Irish deny them salvation though,” says my friend, “and that troubles the Little People. They’d like to be sure that, at the Last Day, they will be with the saved. But belief in V the fairies is dying out, except the banshee. There’s pride in that. To. have a banshee in the family is a patent of nobility, so to speak. And the people have a soft spot in their hearts for the Lenan Shee, the fairy mistress. She makes love to poets and musicians. Turlough O’Caro- lan had one, and, while he was asleep, she sang lovely melodies to him.” “It is as good a way of accounting for in- spiration as another,” I laugh. ‘ The next day my host puts his horse in the rig, and we set out for a drive along the coast. “That is Mount Brandon,” says he, pointing with his whip to the vast pile which looms Eastward. “On its top St. Brandon had his cell. He sailed away across the Atlantic and men say he reached America. They were great trav- elers, the ancient Irish. Their bells and crotals [40] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION have been found as far North as Iceland. They founded monasteries in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. They converted Northumbria before Augustine set foot in Kent. Those who stayed at home established great schools, and the kings of England sent their sons to Ireland to be educated.” The landscape unfolds before us in an ever- varying tapestry of loveliness. We catch sight of Dingle, quiet and peaceful to all appearance. But there 1s a British destroyer 1n the bay and William smiles grimly. “The Republicans pepper her every now and then,” he says. “They believe she is helping the Free Staters. Across the water there, but you can’t see it, is Cahirciveen. They are fighting there now. And you see- that headland? It was from the look-out tower on the top they sighted Sir Roger Casement’s ship.” “What a country of memories!” I exclaim. “Yonder are the mountains of Iveragh. It was from there Oisin set out for Tir-nan-Og and, when he came back, the Fianna were all dead and St. Patrick was making the country Christian. He and the saint wrangled. When St. Patrick spoke of the greatness of God, Oisin answered: ‘Were my son Oscar and God [4I] é"! REBEL'IRELAND 95. hand in hand on Knock-na-veen, if I saw my son down, it is then I would say that God was a strong man.’ ” . At Ventry Harbor William recalls the la- ment of Crede for her husband, Cael, who was slain in the battle there: “Sore suffering and O suffering sore is the hero’s death, who used to lie by me. Sore suffering to me is Cael, and O Cael is a suffering sore, that by my side he is in dead man’s form, and that the wave should have swept over his white body, that is what has distracted me, so great was his delightfulness.” We dismount at a point where the cliffs hang beetling over the sea. “Here is the summer residence of the kings of Cashel,” says William, and we enter low structures of limestone flag, held together by sheer weight. A little farther on we see the “Beehives,” so-called from their shape. The antiquarians think the place was a sort of Irish Thebaid. The country is one vast library in which he who has the wit may read wonderful matter. “And it’s not all ancient, either,” says my - guide. “Look at those great boulders by the side of the road. The people rolled them down [42] THE ' REBEL ' TRADITION from the heights to stop the Tans. But the Tans seized some of the men, put them in chains, and set them to work to clear the road. Ireland will not be forgetting that.” “She has a long memory,” I answer. “In Dub- lin I met an English officer who had been quar- tered in County Antrim. While he was there an old man died and the whole countryside turned out for the funeral. But, instead of going straight to the cemetery, the procession wound its way a couple of miles round. ‘Why didn’t you go over the bridge?’ asked the offi- cer. ‘And take the dead man over the bridge that Cromwell crossed!’ was the answer.” William smiles. “Maybe the _ bridge has been blown up and the next man to die will have a shorter ride.” Rounding Slea Head, we sight the Blaskets. William points them out to me, and the Skel- ligs, where the Danes got their first hold on Irish ground. After an hour’s ride, we come in sight of Sybil Head. “What would you say it looks like?” de- mands my companion. “It makes me think of a great bird,” I ven- ture. William nods, pleased. “They call it ‘Korin [43] é?“ REBEL'IRELAND We un Fiac,’ which means the ‘Jaw of the Raven.’ Where is the sense of calling it Sybil Head? The Irish name gives you a picture of the place.” There is a pause, and he breaks out: “They say the Gaelic is not good for business. Didn’t the Almighty know what He was about when He taught it us? As if fishing and tilling the ground were not good enough for a people that has always got its living by them! Fancy this lovely country spoiled by factory smoke. What good will commercial prosperity do us, if it robs us of spiritual vision? Your English Wordsworth knew what I mean. He knew ‘ what England has lost by her greed for gain. You remember? The world is too much with us; late or soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. The Irish don’t mean to do that. It may seem folly to your industrial captains and men of science; but the Irish like to think that, when the baby smiles in its sleep, the angels are talk- ing to it. They hear voices in the wind; they sense the fight that goes on between the powers of good and evil for the possession of the passing soul. They see Tir-nan-Og in the [44] THE ° REBEL ' TRADITION Western clouds. Call it superstition, if you like. We wouldn’t exchange it for the wisdom—if it is wisdom—which takes the wonder out of life.” We drive up the village street. Evening is come and lights shine from the windows. “Dia Maria,” say the passersby and William returns the salutation. All is quiet, and I wonder whether, in all the world, there is a more peaceful spot than Ballyferriter. Returned to Dublin, I spend my evenings at the Abbey Theatre. There I hear the drama plead the cause of Erin. Through all the plays runs the same spirit. In “Mixedv'Marriages” it denounces the sinister policy that has used religion to divide. the people; in “The Rising of the Moon” it is the poetry of rebellion; in “Kathaleen ny Houlahan” Ireland is calling her sons to battle. Sara Allgood is Kathaleen, and I feel the hearts of the audience beat faster as they look at her. , In the art of the theatre, as in the songs, the music, and the tales of the people the rebel tradition is still active. REBEL’IRELAND 96. “Better Living” HE songs and poems and old-time dances, T the comely homespun and the picture of the old mother at the spinning-wheel have made of the Irishman an artist, and now that he sees the dawn of a new era, he does not mean to degenerate into a factory operative. The social ideal of the Irish people is ex- pressed in the motto of Sir Horace Plunkett, “Better Living.” But they have it in mind to express that ideal in their own way, and it is a very differ- ent way from that which has made a “Black Country” of Staffordshire and an Inferno of the fairest part of Pennsylvania. Their aim is to harness science to the car of the general well-being, and to pursue business methods which will bring the. people close-r together, not split them up into classes with opposing interests. The system which con- ‘ verts invention into a tool for the enrichment of an industrial plutocracy they repudiate. They mean to place the fruits of man’s wit at the service of the poor. And, welcoming every new idea that seems [46] N “BETTER ' LIVING” 9'5. to have in it the element of real progress, they are averse to every innovation that will sacri- fice the charm of the old life. Industrialism is to be their servant, not a tyrant. In many parts of the country a beginning has been made in the movement which aims to produce a better social order. In the North- western corner of Donegal I have seen this movement exemplified in a way that should serve as a lesson to men and women all over the world. It was at Dungloe. My driver pointed with his whip to the co-operative store. “Ask for Paddy the Cope,” said he; “there’s not a woman in Dungloe who doesn’t thank God for the good he’s done.” I find my man in his little office. Middle- aged, with a round, clean-shaven face that dimples with good humor, Patrick Gallagher greets me affably. He is an unassuming man, yet he has worsted Ireland’s foes, both do- mestic and foreign. I spend the whole day with him and what I learn is a tale to- give new wings to hope. At eight years old Patrick stood in a row of boys and girls at a fair and was hired out to [47] .éa f‘BETTER-LIVING” w. work on a farm for six months. He did every- thing on a farm that a boy can do, and for his six months’ services, he received £3—rather less than $2.50 a month. This continued, with a small increase of pay, till he was seventeen. Then he went to Scotland. What he earned was of little profit to him, however. All the money went into the pocket of the gombeen man, to keep up the little farm his parents worked at home. I “The gombeen man is the money-king of the Irish village,” he explains. “Or rather he was—at least locally, for, in Dungloe, the co-op has put him out of business. Only a few years ago hardly a farmer in the parish was out of his clutches. Seventy-five per cent of the farm- ers were born in debt and never got out of it. And the people were so spiritless they didn’t try to. They rarely dared to- ask how they stood. The gombeen men were all inter- married and formed a caste. They held the vil- lage in the hollow of their hand. They elected the district and county councillors; they were the local magistrates.” “But how could they?” I exclaim; “the people had the vote.” “Yes, and fifty per cent of the electors tied [48]. .éq “BETTER°LIVING” r26. to the gombeeners for debt. We paid them a tribute of from. fifty to a hundred per cent. The landlord never evicted anyone; but the gom- been men evicted many. When the co-op started, they boasted they would have every member out on the road.” “They didn’t succeed, though.” Gallagher smiles. “It wasn’t for lack of try- ing, though, They put up a stiff fight; but we won. Man, it’s like a fairy tale. We had no idea what a big thing we had put our hands to when we began, and many’s the setback we got. But we stuck together through thick and thin, and today the co- -op has a turnover of more than £100, 000 a year.” And he tells me how the movement origi- nated. “There were about a dozen of us, small farmers, and the fertilizer we got from the gombeen men didn’t satisfy us. It was super- phosphate of 22 per cent, and it cost us from £5 to£6 a ton. The trader told us we must take what he gave us and no other. So we wrote to the Department of Agriculture. They advised us to write to the Co-operative Whole- sale Society. But the organization would only supply societies; it would not sell to indi- [49] 654 REBEL'IRELAND 9% viduals. That put an idea into our heads. We formed ourselves into a society and, right away, the fight was on. If we wouldn’t take their fertilizer, the middlemen wouldn’t sell us anything else. There was nothing for it but for us to become a general trading society. We did it and that was the beginning of the Dungloe Co-operative Society.” “And the price of fertilizer?” “It came down and it remained down. Imme- diately the co-op started we were able to get thirty per cent superphosphate for £4 a ton and pay a dividend of two shillings in the pound to our members into the bargain. And that isn’t all. The gombeen men had forced us to become their competitors all along the line. We bought eggs from the people and sold them over the counter. In 1906 the gom- been man paid fivepence a dozen, and that paid in goods. We paid ninepence a dozen. Then the traders tried tocorner the supply; but we sent out a cart to collect them from the farmers. Today eggs are bought from the members of the society at two shillings a dozen. The gombeen man has given up selling them.” Patrick conducts me through the busy estab- [50], 65“ “BETTER' LIVING” 96:. lishment. It resembles the general store of a small American town. The shelves are stocked with everything the housewife can desire, or the goodman either. There are sides of bacon. A bakery is at work, the only one in Dungloe. “Come upstairs now,” says he; “I’ll show you the most revolutionary thing we’ve done.” In a large room, lighted by electricity, we find a hundred girls at work. They are knitting half-hose with machines. Gallagher turns to one of the girls. ’ “How much did you earn last week, Nora?” “Thirty shillings, sir.” “And you ?”—to another girl. “Twenty-seven shillings.” “They average about twenty-five shillings a week,” says Gallagher. “You’ll hardly credit it; but a few years ago, girls were eating their hearts out, working from morning till night, to earn a paltry five shillings a week. And three hundred women work for us in their homes.” ' And, seating himself on a barrel, while I bestow myself on the edge of a counter, he tells me the story. “The people were so poor, you can hardly imagine it. They lived from hand to mouth [51] P4 REBEL'IRELAND 9% and, oftener than not, the hand had nothing in it. Men tilled small patches of land—four or five acres. The sale of the produce was not enough to keep body and soul together. So they eked out their income by fishing. A family would earn about £15 a year by what they grew; the fishing brought them in about £8. It was not enough to live on, so the women knitted and their earnings came to about £4:10s.” ’ “No wonder, they are glad to save a few shillings by dealing at the co-op,” I exclaim. “Indeed it is no wonder. But let me tell you about the women and the knitting. To get the yarn they had to go to Glenties. It is fifteen miles away, and there is no railroad. The poor things could not have paid the fare, if there had been one. So they walked‘the whole way, there and back, and happy they were when they could get a lift from a cattle cart. When they reached home. with the yarn they set to work to make half-hose of it. And hard work it was. The woman who. knits two pair a day is good at the job.” “And the pay?” ‘ “A girl could earn about five shillings a week. But she was paid in goods—pinafores [52] ‘64 “BETTER ° L'IVING”' 9% and skirts for the children. What would you be saying of the two brothers who ran that business and died worth half a- million?” “It would take a lot of prayers to get them out of Purgatory, I fancy.” “Well, God be thanked, we’ve put an end to that,” says Patrick. “Today you’ll see three sisters of one family taking home as much as 564 at the. end of the week. Think what that means to homes like the ones I’ve told you of.” “I don’t marvel the gombeen trust fights you.” “And a pretty fight they made of it, too. The informers were on our heels all the time, and men who hadn’t got out of the gombeen man’s clutches had to come to the store by the back way. When they failed to prevent our . dealing in eggs, the traders withdrew their money from the Farmers’ Loan Bank. It helped the farmers, you see, and they didn’t want them to be helped. But we weathered the storm. Then the people put me up for the County Council. There was a fight for you. A man interrupted me when I was making a speech. I said I would deal with him later on. .They pretended it was a threat and five magis- trates—gombeen men every mother’s son of [53] 650 REBEL-IRELAND 96° them—wanted to put me under bonds to be of good behavior. I wouldn’t do it and they ‘ clapped me into jail. Not for long, though. The people appealed to the Lords’ Justices in Dub- lin and word came for ‘me to be set free at .once. It was a regular triumph. From the bon- fires you would have thought it was St. John’s Eve.” “You were elected, of course?” “Yes, and it was the death-knell of the gom- been men.” Patrick rises. “Come down to the harbor with me. I want to show you something.” We stroll to the waterfront. From the rocks juts a pier on which men are working. “We have to thank America for that,” says Gallagher. “During the trouble with the Tans the people were near to starvation and the White Cross made us a grant. I asked them if they would let me build a wharf with it and they told me to go ahead. The stone is all taken from the rocks about the bay. There is enough granite here to build every house in Ireland, and we’re quarrying it.” ’ “Why, you’re the providence of the town,” I cry. “It’s only common sense with good will be- [54] PG “BETTER' LIVING” 96o hind it,” says Gallagher almost apologetically. “But you’ll be interested to know how we came to see what a help a wharf would be to us.” » Patrick’s tone has meaning in it. “The Tans got it into their heads we were harboring men who were ‘on the run.’ Maybe they weren’t so far wrong. So they deter- mined to starve us out. You see, we used to get most of our foodstuffs from Derry. So the military commandant issued an order that no food was to be sent to Donegal, either by rail or sea.” _ ' “And what did you do?” “I went to Cardiff and bought a small vessel. I took it to Scotland and loaded it with provi- sions. The Scotch would raise a howl if their business were interfered With. We counted on that. We sailed from Glasgow with the ship loaded to the gunwale and ran the blockade of the warships that were patroling the coast and brought our cargo safe to port. We made several trips and always came through safe.” “It must have been a shock to the Derry folks.” Patrick nods. “I went down there to pay some outstanding bills. ‘How are you getting [55] N REBEL'IRELAND N. on in Dungloe?’ they asked, charitably hoping we were starving. ‘We’re getting on very nicely,’ says I; ‘we have good friends in America, you see. We’ll not need to be bother- ing you Derry men for food after this.’ They were thunderstruck and, that very night, the Derry Chamber of Commerce held a meeting. The result was that the embargo was raised in a hurry. But it was too late. We had found that, by importing direct, we could save a pound a ton in transport. Now you know why we’re building that wharf.” The beneficence- of the Dungloe co-op' does not end here. The streets are lighted by elec- tricity. The co-op supplies the power; the townspeople only pay for the upkeep of the lamps and poles and wiring. The time is not far off when electricity will light every house in the place. The power will be furnished by a watercourse. Gallagher bought the rights from Lord Conyngham. “Have you done anything to improve the social life of the people?” I inquire. “We’ve made a beginning; but there are difficulties in the way. You see, though, we are making the town more, attractive.” And there you have the story of Dungloe. [56] 9‘1 “BETTER' LIVING” 96; What has been done in Donegal can be done all over Ireland. But there must be the creative idea and a brain in which it takes definite form, and char- acter, too, to overcome obstacles. Fortunately for Ireland she has the dis- interested guidance of 'Sir Horace Plunkett, aristocrat by best of all titles—worth and the will to serve. We meet at Plunkett House and discuss the means by which the people are to be kept from leaving the land and drifting into- the cities. “It isn’t by imitating the city that the coun- try will be made more attractive,” says Sir Horace. “I grant you that the trolley and the auto, the telephone and, broadcasting do a great deal to break up the loneliness of the country. But how do they do it? By awakening a desire for the things of the city.pThat is not a remedy, for no matter how rapidly the coun- try may adopt city ways, the city advances more rapidly. , “The fault lies with our system of education. It is made for city people. There is no love of Mother Earth in it. If you are to make the » country grateful to the people who live in it, they must be~ taught .to read the soil as they [57] 650 REBEL'IRELAND 9% would a book. Agriculture is both science and poetry. Read the Georgics, if you doubt me; steep yourself in Richard Jefferies and Hud- son. To live happily in the country men must know how to make the earth bring forth its plenty; they must feel the wonder of it as Wordsworth did.” To Sir Horace Plunkett Ireland owes the great co-operative movement which we have seen so strikingly illustrated at Dungloe. Denmark was competing with Ireland in the English market. She even sent her produce into Ireland. That was thirty years ago. Sir Horace found that the Danes had harnessed science to dairy- ing and organized the people on the business side. He concluded that, if Ireland was to hold her own, she must follow Denmark’s example. He worked out a plan so to organize the farmers that the small producer would have the advantage of large-scale business. This could only be done if the people would pull together. Individually they could not afford the machinery needed for modern dairying; ' collectively, however, they could buy it. The baronet went up and down the country, preaching the doctrine of co-operation. He ad- [58] .60 “BETTER'LIVING” I». dressed fifty meetings before the first society was started. Up to that time dairying had been carried on by the women as a home industry. Under the inspiration of Sir Horace the Irish co- operators bought separators, steam-churns and butter-makers. , The idea succeeded in spite of the opposition of the upholders of “the sacred right of middle profits.” It was sought to make the movement profit- able to all concerned. Profit in excess of five per cent was divided—not among the share- holders, but among the suppliers of milk or among the workers in the institution. It be- came everybody’s interest to work for success. Organized at first exclusively for dairying, ‘the societies soon perceived that they could advantageously extend the field- of operations. The outcome of this development was the gen- eral purposes store, which supplied domestic commodities, did banking and insurance. All that science could contribute to the bettering of farming was made use of. Event- ually the government stepped in. A Depart- ment of Agricultural and Technical Instruc- tion was formed. The societies furthered the [59] 5’0 REBEL°IRELAND 96: same ideal by the establishment of the Irish Agricultural Organization Society, which un- dertook, as part of its usefulness, the training of experts in dairying, the treatment of flax and general business. By 1920, the twenty-ninth year of the move- ment, the number of societies had grown to 1114, with a membership of 157,766, and an annual turnover of $514,500,000. Today the attempt is being made to- give co-operation a social direction. If people can combine for business, why not for recreation? Village halls are being built on the model of the American Grange. Here the people can listen to music, dance, attend lectures and classes. The movement is being linked up with the activities of the Gaelic League. In the words of 'AE: “If this tendency goes on, as I have no doubt it will, because it is economically beneficial, we shall find rural Ireland in the next generation with endless rural communities, each governing an area of about four or five miles round the center of business, all buying together, manufacturing together, marketing together, using their or- ganization for educational as well as for busi- ness purposes. This again will be linked up [50] pa “BETTER-LIVING” 96. with a national federation, or groups of them may combine for enterprises too great for parish organizations to undertake singly. I hope in Ireland for some thousands of healthy, governing economic communities—minute na- tions in fact, leaving but little for central gov- ernment to do for them.” In some ways the outlook is more hopeful in the country than it is in the towns. The slums of Dublin are some of the worst in the world. There are twenty thousand families with only one room apiece to live in. Their plight was described to me by Mr. J. P. O’Shea, president of the Irish Industrial Development Association. After quOting Alderman To-m Kelly’s dictum that, if it were not for the slums of Dublin, the British army could not exist, he said: “The great deterrent from useful industrial life is the atmosphere in which the young people grow up. A lad goes home to a tene- ment; he sleeps in an attic with his mother and sisters. They are all herded together in one room. Going at seven o’cloCk in the morn- ing, I found one of my boys sleeping in a room so foul that I had to light my pipe and smoke hard to endure the almost intolerable atmos- , [51] 66"! REBEL'IRELAND 9% phere. How can you get good work out of lads who live in the midst of pollution like that? And it exists in Ireland on a very large scale.” But we need not be weighed down by pes- simism. The spirit which has changed the status of the small farmer'from virtual serfdom to economic independence can operate a trans- formation equally beneficial in the city. The all important thing is to set the rising generation on the right track. With an educa- tional ideal, like that which Padraic Pierse put into practice at St. Enda’s College, the youth of the cities will grow up to lives of practical usefulness, humane in sympathy and constructively Gaelic. Not to cram, not to in- doctrinate, but “to help the child to realize himself at his best and worthiest”; that was Pierse’s aim. He wanted men to think for themselves, hew out their own way, evolve an ideal and cleave to it. , THE ‘ SPIRIT ° OF ' THE ' GAEL The Spirit of the Gael EAVIN G Ireland, the feeling that remains with me is not one of distress at the blood- shed that is going on, but of hope born of the consciousness that the Irish soul has not lost its orientation. The war has cleared the mist from the peo- ple’s eyes. They see plainly today that the Free State is not a free state, but a subject state and, until Ireland is free in very truth, her people will never be content. ‘ De Valera and his followers have stamped in indelible characters on the consciousness of the Irish people the fact that they have never consented to be subjects of a foreign power and the resolution that, come what may, they never will. _ The have vindicated the right of small na- tions to realize their destiny in their own way, and not to have imposed on them an alien civilization. jFEHad they done otherwise they would have been unfaithful to the race spirit. To that spirit the Anglo-Saxon View of life is antipathetic. English policy sets the ambition of the rich ['63] l N REBEL'IRELAND 9% above the needs of the poor; it worships the god of capitalism and compromises with the ideal. ‘ To preserve the Irish people from this mate- rialistic blight Nature has conspired with the genius of the race. Dwelling apart, in an island lashed by the ocean surge, the Irish have never lost their wonder at the miracle of existence. The mys- tery is always with them. Voices of hill and stream, the ever-changing wraiths of the mist, the green mantle of earth are forever speak- ing to them of the riddle which the soul would fain solve, but all our learning leaves still unanswered. A bare sufficiency—a pittance it would seem to the average American—will content them, so long as they can gratify those idiosyn- crasies which have made them the despair of English statesmen. So congenial do they find the view of life which they have inherited from their ancestors that, for centuries, they have chosen to be outlaws rather than conform to an alien regime. 7 Ireland has ever been Rebel Ireland. Her people have never bowed the neck to the for- eign yoke. Through ages of tyranny the torch [64] THE ' SPIRIT ' OF ° THE ° GAEL of freedom has been kept alight. It flamed in the hands of Red Hugh O’Donnell; Patrick Sarsfield brandished it in the face of the foe; Robert Emmet held it in his dying grasp; today it shines gloriously from the hiding- place of Eamonn de Valera and, if he should die, another will take it up. These men lived for an idea; for an idea they were, willing to die and, because the prin- ciple for which they stood is deep-rooted in the hearts of honest folk, the people have held their teaching sacred and taught it to their children. Spoiled of their lands, they cultivated fen and wilderness; deprived of the advantages of education, they learned to read from grave- stones by the light of the moon; persecuted for conscience’s sake, they remained steadfast in their belief. Theirs was an elder civilization, begotten of the wisdom of the folk, uncontaminated by foreign ideas. The beauty and vitality of the ancient culture of Ireland are the expression of the genius of the Celt and, for that reason, the Irish have clung to it with a grip which war and oppression have been powerless to loosen. A patriarchal people with a strong com- [65] REBEL'IRELAND 9% munal instinct, rulers and folk held a relation- ship one to the other that had much in it of the kindliness of the family tie. The people had the use of the land for grazing and raising crops. The clan yielded the chief fealty; they fought under his leadership; he was their chief because they felt him to be the best man; he ruled them with a paternal sway that took cog- nizance alike of the welfare of the soul and the welfare of the body. The memory of these things has never been eradicated. It is the memory of a primitive stock which, for ages, dwelt in the selfsame spot. They read the riddle of life in an environ; ment from which Druid sage, Christian ascetic, and poet of the folk have alike drawn inspira- tion. Pagan cairn, the “beehives” of dimly remembered communities of scholars, Chris- tian towers and abbeys all left their imprint on the mind of the race and, wedded with the lore that is born of the dreaming of simple folk, endowed it with a childlike grace. Nature- worship and Christianity blended into a pic- turesque mythology, and the doings of poets, saints and heroes added their glamor. The Irish would none of English culture: it. was not their own. But Mother 'Erin, “the [55] THE ' SPIRIT? OF - THE . GAEL Poor old Woman,” they loved. She was flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone. In a thousand tales and poems she reminded them that Ireland was a land of scholars when Eng- land was the cockpit of warring barbarians. The law of her Brehons was hoar with an- tiquity when St. Patrick came to preach the gospel of Christ. Why should her people have recourse to the harsh code of the stranger, when they had a tribal law which for untold generations had satisfied all their needs? Within the Pale the English king might en- force his will; but, beyond its confines the royal writ was disregarded. Rack-rented of the last penny his poor hold- ing would yield, the Irish laborer knew in the heart of him that he was the victim of an odious tyranny. It needed no schooling to teach him that the law which made a criminal of him for going to Mass was an unjust law. So he thought of the past, when the people of his clan tilled the soil and grazed their flocks unmolested, when they traded with peoples beyond sea without let or hindrance, and wor- shiped God as conscience bade them. These things he could not forget and, thinking of them, he hated the foreigner. [67] .60 REBEL - IRELAND be If England could have rooted out of their minds the tradition of the Gaelic past, she ' might have made them over in the Britannic image. But to do that was beyond her strength. Chieftains might be quelled by fear or seduced by bribery; but the common people were in- corruptible. They were incorruptible from common sense and from idealism. From common sense be- cause they knew that English rule meant the domination of a grasping aristocracy. From . idealism because their conception of well-being was aesthetic as well as utilitarian. The picture of Irish life in “The Deserted Village” has been assailed as unhistorical; but no one steeped in Irish thought will deny that it is a faithful representation of the village dear to the imagination of the Gael. Life is a beautiful thing, and the rebellious- ness of the Irish has ever been directed against those who-would steal that beauty away. .To this instinct for life’s finer aspects they have been immemorially faithful, and it is fidelity to what is best in the soul of the race that makes the Irishman one of the world’s best fighters, not 3for Erin only, but for humanity. To live: invfassured' content a man must own [58] THE ' SPIRIT ' OF ' THE ' GAEL his home and be lord of his little patch of ground. This the Irishman knows. It is part of the wisdom of the race. Attachment to the sanctities of the hearth, the love of beauty, and the determination to have and to hold these things at any cost constitute the value of the Irishman in the building up of a civilization that will wear well, not for himself only, but for all peoples. Nothing will satisfy the Irish but the oppor- tunity to work out their destiny in the way which God has put it into their hearts to de- sire. Their longing is for something better than the life of the industrial serf. They want song and music and the contentment of men 'who draw their sustenance from the lap of Nature. Gleaning from their dream of things past and to come the untaxed rapture of fancy, they strive indomitably towards the realization of an existence more generous than anything the world now affords. Ireland protests against all manner of un- fairness that tends to confine man’s life in beauty-destroying channels. And she will not accept a view of life imposed by strangers. With Abraham Lincoln she believes that no people is good enough to govern another [69] «9‘1 REBEL'IRELAND Des people, and far more persistently than Ameri- cans have done, she asserts the inalienable right of man to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” To the understanding that their country shall not be used as a base of operations against England the Irish may agree; but take an oath of allegiance to England’s king they never will. To do that would be to give the lie to the whole course, of their history and admit that the blood of the heroes has been shed in vain. . Ireland is immortally rebel against every- thing that hinders her in the fulfillment of her destiny as a “sovereign people. She will not entrust the steering of her bark to any hands but Irish hands. Weaklings may compromise; but no compromise will be binding on the con- science of the Irish people. The will of the race is against it. Left to her own counsels, Erin will tread the path of national development, eager to make life more beautiful, receptive of all that may profit her in the example of others, but ever clinging with a tenacious grip to the ideal of well-being which has come down to her from ancient days. [70] THE "SPIRIT ' OF ' THE ' GAEL The Gael is fighting for a fuller, a better life. 7 The cause of Ireland is therefore the cause of humanity. _v . no??? ramp’fii‘et’“ W BIDder GaleId Bros. S Makers YTaCuse, N. Y mm 21,1908 ' BABY - U11. BERKELEY GENERAL LlB \\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ BUUDSBBBBE UN IVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY ‘ “x '» ‘HA%,;I; 4% by. « 4 ‘ \u‘“ ’ '13:" "V‘IB‘; : H ‘ ' I i , ‘ ‘ ‘ A l C 40 ‘ H . .- , ‘ , ../ . , a u ‘ I H F M .' ‘ x r h. ‘ ‘ . , ‘ ‘ ‘ i' . 1 h- ‘ x v. , h . a a I \ u ‘ .7! , ~ '4 ‘ ‘ 41' V‘r,( W ; ’ y. “um“.w , ‘ ' . ‘!'4.*’F~'.‘ ”L. : - . H .‘ 5' 1 ‘ ‘ ‘ \ . , , , I » w > ‘ / , ‘. ‘ .4. . "Ft. 51:" ~43 «« “rd: