Sea-weed gathering in Ireland during the Famine - The Last Conquest of Ireland (Perhaps)
« previous page | book contents | start of this chapter | next page »
consumed in England; but Ireland received in exchange stamped rent receipts. Of course there were no improvements,—because they would have only raised the rent; and in ordinary years many thousands of those poor people lived mainly on sea-weed some months of every year. But this was trespass and robbery; for the sea-weed belonged to the lord of the manor, who frequently made examples of the depredators.*
Can the American mind picture a race of white men reduced to this condition? White men! Yes, of the highest and purest blood and breed of men. The very region I have described was once—before British civilization overtook us—the abode of the strongest and the richest clans in Ireland; the Scotic MacCauras; the French Clan-Gerralt, (or Geraldin, or Fitzgerald)—the Norman MacWilliams (or De Burgo, or Burke)—the princely and munificent O'Briens and O'Donnells, founders of many monasteries, chiefs of glittering hosts, generous patrons of Ollamh, Bard, and Brehon; sea-roving Macnamaras and O'Malleys, whose ships brought from Spain wine and horses,—from England fair-haired, white-armed Saxon slaves, "tall, handsome women," as the chroniclers call them, fit to weave wool or embroider mantles in the house of a king.† After a struggle of six or seven centuries, after many bloody wars and sweeping confiscations, English "civilization" prevailed,—and had brought the clans to the condition I have related. The ultimate idea of English civilization being that "the sole nexus between man and man is cash payment,"—and the "Union" having finally determined the course and current of that payment, out of Ireland into England,—it had come to pass that the chiefs were exchanged for landlords, and the clansmen had sunk into able-bodied paupers.
The details of this frightful famine, as it ravaged those Western districts, I need not narrate;—they are sufficiently known. It is enough to say that in this year, 1846, not less than 300,000 perished, either of mere hunger, or of typhus fever caused by hunger. But as it has ever since been a main object of the British Government to conceal the amount of the carnage (which, indeed, they ought to do if they can), I find ...continue reading »
* I have defended poor devils on charges of trespass by gathering sea-weed below high-water mark, and remember one case in which a number of farmers near the sea were indicted for robbery, on the charge of taking limestone from a rock uncovered at low-water only—to burn it, for spreading on their fields.
† The monasteries still stand: the golden collars of chiefs are still turned up by the plough; the records may still be read,—the most authentic historic monuments in Western Europe. Yet it is customary with the English to deny, or laugh at the ancient civilization of Ireland! They are bound in policy, perhaps, to do so: but any literary man on the Continent of Europe would be ashamed to call it in question.
« previous page | book contents | start of this chapter | next page »
Page 117