Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Letters from Ireland (Author: Friedrich von Raumer)

letter 64


Limerick,

Friday, August 22nd, 1835.

You are, doubtless, tired of these reflections, and ask for my own travelling observations. Very well. Yet they will sound almost the same strings. In Belfast, some figures passed me in the evening, attired as I had never seen any. In England I had looked almost in vain for poverty; and in Scotland I found only, according to the custom of the country, some women and children barefooted. There was, therefore, in Belfast, a carnival joke, or some had plundered a paper-mill, and, in their wantonness, displayed all the rags in tokens of victory. Lisburn and Newry, two thriving towns, seemed to confirm my hypothesis; and the distressed appearance of Drogheda I connected with the ancient misdeeds of that hypocrite of liberty — Cromwell.

On the river Boyne a new feeling came over me. Germany justly considers the victory of William III. as a happy event, as a deliverance from a foreign yoke. But can the Irish participate in this opinion, so long as the yoke of the laws connected with it is not removed? They fought, under Charles I., for that which is now considered as legitimate and conservative; and yet Charles II. confirmed the confiscations of the republic, which were not confined to the leading chiefs, but extended to the wholly innocent tenants. By this title-deed, the Conservatives of our day prove that no Irishman has a right to the soil of his country; but that the absentee possesses it exclusively, and without modification, to all eternity. Under James II., the Irish again

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fought for what was legitimate and conservative; and, for that reason, the Conservative Tories, at present, will have nothing to do with them. The Whigs, on the other hand, say — very late, indeed, yet they do say — Pater, peccavi.

Dublin. — A large city: the streets like those in the west end of London; the public buildings in a good style, apparently all agreeing, and of one piece. I say apparently, for the English, Scotch, and Irish, the Catholic and Protestant, come here in too hostile collision to grow up, and blend, and flourish together; and to this painful feeling were added scenes such as I never beheld. On Sunday, while crowds of well-dressed people gaily paraded the streets, they were thronged by equally numerous crowds of beggars — and what beggars were these! Such spectres remain elsewhere in their dens, till the light of day has vanished, and the darkness of night has set in. Here the sun must testify that Europe too, has its parias. No, not Europe, but Ireland alone! — for, compared with these miserable phantoms, all the beggary that I saw in Switzerland, the Papal dominions, and even in southern Italy, was a mere trifle.

On Monday the 17th, the son of our consul, Mr. W—— , very politely took me about the city; and invited me to dine with him in a very agreeable party, where many Irish matters were considered and discussed, in the point of view which prevails here. How different is this point of view from that in Germany!

On my way to Mr. W——, I saw, at a distance,

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a crowd of people: I thought I should see another street-preacher; it was, however, no Scotch edification, but, as somebody told me, an Irish amusement. Two fellows, stripped to the waist, were engaged in a combat, not like the noble Greeks in Olympia, or even like well-trained boxers, but a desperate buffeting. After they had beaten each other black and blue, were covered with blood and half flayed, one of them fell almost senseless into the kennel. To take him by the arms and legs, lay him on a dry spot, pull his mouth open, pour in half a quart of whiskey, and throw a pail of water over his body was the work of a minute. Then the furious adversaries were again set upon each other like mad dogs; at the same time, the seconds, or maîtres dex plaisirs, displayed incessant and astonishing activity. In order to clear the ground, they struck the spectators with large whips, so that nobody in the three first rows escaped without the severest cuts, one of which I should not have got over in four weeks. Here it seemed to make no more impression than when, among us, somebody says, ‘Be so good as stand a little on one side.’

On Tuesday the 18th, in hopes of fine weather, I mounted the roof of the coach, and not to have the wind and sun in my face, chose the backward seat at the back of the coach. On my right hand was an old woman; opposite to her, her grand-daughter; and next to the latter, another woman, about thirty years of age, and her son. Only the place on my left hand was still vacant;

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and now a man mounted the ladder, so dressed, that the expression ‘dropped from the gallows’ might have been very well applied to him; and he certainly would have been refused admittance on any German stage. On the supposition that the man was well skilled in entomology, I drew as closely as possible to the old lady, my neighbour. Mutantur tempora, et non mutamur in illis. The sky became clouded, it began to rain faster and faster, and my large umbrella was the only one in the company; so the two younger persons crouched at our feet, and the other four put their faces so close to the stick of the umbrella, that their noses almost met; in particular, the head of the old woman rested on my right, and that of the gentleman on my left, shoulder. Through this water ordeal we became in a very short time friends and acquaintances, and I reaped much praise for my civility and humanity.

The cultivation of the land, as I have already observed, was of a mixed character — here admirable, and there neglected. The Wicklow and Wexford mountains adorn the county on the side. At Kilkenny there is an old castle, and innumerable beggars. My second hypothesis, that only the capital could produce such beggars, was likewise refuted by the crowds in the small towns. The coach is besieged by them, and their cries resound from all sides, and in all gradations of old and young voices. In order to gain air and room, I threw from my elevated seat some pence among the crowd. Two girls, about eighteen years of age, had picked up the best

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share, and thanked me, like the female dancers at Berlin, when they are applauded by the public, kicking up their legs behind — what is to be seen on such occasions you know: there is a difference here, the costume of the fair of Kilkenny being in a more airy style. I was in a mood to be diverted at all this, when I saw a mother pick up the gooseberry skins which one of the travellers had spit out, and put them into the mouth of her child. I never saw any thing like this even at Fondi, in the kingdom of Naples.

‘Is there room on the top?’ asked a man. Though we were crowded, the coachman called out, ‘An excellent place — the finest fresh air!’ The man ascended the ladder, seated himself on the pyramid of trunks, with both his legs hanging in the fresh air; but this position appearing to him too dangerous, he turned one leg inwards, and planted it between my shoulders. This was lucky for me, for he covered the iron edge of a trunk; and instead of a hole in my coat, I got only a spot of dirt.

Callen. — A wretched hole, which its owner (Lord C ——, as I hear), probably for that reason, never visits; but all round are the most fertile fields, and the richest produce. By famine is everywhere understood, want of a sufficiency of corn. In Ireland the people are starving in the midst of abundance. It is exported to Liverpool, where compassionate Englishmen purchase it, send it back to Ireland for the indigent, and procure them in insufficient quantities, what perverse and hard-hearted legislators refuse them on a large scale.

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The evening and night of the 18th I passed at Clonmel. For the first time, I saw in the inn no carpets, and a ragged towel, but a larger and better bed than anywhere in Germany. It is only in our country that the erroneous notion prevails, that a man has no more need to turn in bed than in his coffin: hence the wretched, narrow cribs into which all classes suffer themselves to be squeezed.

On Wednesday, the 19th, Hermann's birthday, when I went down stairs in the morning, profound peace reigned among the persons assembled in the room on the ground-floor. God knows what spark fell into this powder-barrel; for at once there was such a storm of punches in the ribs, blows, and boxes on the ear, which succeeded each other so rapidly, and in such numbers, that it was impossible to see and count them. Two minutes afterwards, perfect tranquillity again prevailed. This amusement of the Catholics in Clonmel, and the Protestants in Dublin, show at least that there are some similar points of contact between the two parties.

The coach stopped, early in the morning, before a hut, which, if you please, you may call a house. A. sow — the Irish sphinx — lay with her hind quarters buried in black mud, while she rested on her fore feet, and addressed me in a very remarkable speech. The house-cock flew from within to the hole in the mud wall, the only window in the house, and attempted to clap his wings. The hole being too small, he was obliged

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to drop them, stretched his neck, and said something, which I did not understand so well as the speech of the sow: at the same time the door opened, and, like Alceste from the gloom of Erebus, the very strikingly draped, or undraped, mistress advanced into the foreground with her two children, on which two sucking pigs immediately ran to salute their playfellows. This scene of the golden age drew my attention so much, that I had nearly overlooked the master of the house, who was sitting on one side upon some fragments of turf. In attempting to put on his breeches, he had unhappily missed the legitimate way, and had passed his leg through a large, revolutionary, radical hole, so that he found it very difficult to remedy the mistake, still keeping the rags together.

I hope that some of our painters in this line will make use of these hints in the next exhibition, and know how to give dignity to the subject; and send me at least a copy of their works, in return for my picturesque description.

But what said the sow? Things bitter, unexpected, remarkable. She began — ‘Wretched mortal, who hang suspended between Heaven and earth, as on the gallows, if you came down I would let you know what punishment you deserve, for disturbing the last prophetic sphinx of Ireland in her repose. You ramble about the world to no purpose, rummage among old papers treating of old women, and pride yourself in your stupid impartiality. Why do you direct your eyes to the wretched creatures who here call

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themselves men, and have no notion what a greater people deserve your attention in Ireland — the people, the swine?’

I know not how the sphinx might have continued, had not the cock, the woman, and the sucking pigs interrupted her. She only added a few words to inform me (as a reward for my good-will, of which she was well aware) of the existence of the most remarkable fragment of the history of ancient times, and where I might find it.

This fragment contains (after the manner of Persia) the annals of the state of the swine, and is divided into two principal heads, the times of the Boaries and the Pigs. In the sequel, vain men (like the Roman consuls and emperors) applied these names to themselves; but being ignorant of their origin, have corrupted them, by means of absurd etymologies, into Tories and Whigs. In ancient times, those, the boars or boaries were the sole lords and masters of the country; it was the time of noble freedom and independence, till weak and degenerate descendants stigmatized it as an age of club or snout law, and gave this first heroic age the name of Wild Swinery. I cannot give to-day the eventful history of this feudal aristocracy, but pass at once to the time when the Pigs appeared as a second party, and Piggism, or Tame Swinery, found greater and more numerous advocates.

This happened in the following manner: when the race of men, who call themselves, by way of distinction, the Old Irish, came to the island, a dreadful struggle began between them and the

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boars, the ancient rulers of the land. The increasing distress and danger suggested the idea of entering into an agreement, and of concluding a perpetual peace. Deputies of both parties met, and drew up a convention, of which I select the following articles as the most important: —

1. The boars, who have hitherto lived in the woods, shall be received with their families into the houses of the Irish, and be treated like children of the house.

2. From the moment that the peace is concluded, no boar shall be bound to do any work, or take the least care to provide for his own subsistence. All are, on the contrary, resolved to devote themselves henceforward to a contemplative mode of life.

3. If there should not be provisions enough, the swine are to be first taken care of, and then the children.

4. For all these great advantages, and others, which are passed over for the sake of brevity, the Irish obtain the right of slaughtering their new inmates.

When these conditions came to be discussed in the house of the boars, the majority (composed of the old wild forest boars) opposed the last objectionable article in particular with so much warmth and eloquence, that the treaty was rejected by a large majority, and it was resolved to make no change in the state of things handed down from their ancestors. Meantime, the war with the Irish took a very unfavourable turn; and the pigs, the advocates of reform, adduced more powerful arguments

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in support of their opinion. They detailed the advantages of improved civilization; of constant peace; of exemption from the cares of life; of agreeable society; and of a philosophic mode of existence, with so much ingenuity and eloquence, that in the new diet which was convoked, the boaries themselves could not deny the weight of the argument. The fourth article alone was still violently opposed: then one of the most eloquent of the pigs rose, and incontrovertibly proved that all swine, whether wild or tame, must die; that the time of death was uncertain, and lasted but a moment; that, on the other hand, the whole life would derive new and increased value by the proposed change from boarism to piggism. Lastly, that there was no ground for the apprehension that the tame swine were threatened with an earlier death, for even the wild sucking-pigs were not spared; and to die in youth, before the sufferings of age and disease, was a great happiness, as the poets had proved, and sung in the cases of Achilles, Balder, and Siegfried, which are also applicable to tame swine.

When the boaries saw that the pigs triumphed, those who were called ultra-bories withdrew to the country and the forests; and the convention, which founded and confirmed the new tame swinery, was carried by a great majority. Only two additional articles were proposed by the pigs, and acceded to by the Irish: first, the slaughtering shall be only at that time of the year when life is a burden, namely, winter: secondly, the pigs are free to squeak when they are slaughtered, and

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this shall not be considered as a want of the old heroic courage, but rather as the dying song of the swine.

This treaty was observed for centuries to the satisfaction of both parties, till in later times a change took place, which materially affected the Irish. The English, a new victorious race of men (passionately fond of the literal interpretation, and the maintenance of rights and laws) discovered that it was stated in the original convention, that the Irish had a right to kill the swine, but it was not added that they had a right to eat pork. Thus it has been brought about by various means that the Irish dare not eat meat, but must send it to Liverpool, where all the Irish boaries and pigs, without respect to person, are consumed by the English Tories and Whigs in honour of right and justice; and that even the swine in Ireland think this unjust, and give a different interpretation of their original contract with the Irish, has hitherto not been of any avail to the latter.