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The Letters Of "Norah" On Her Tour Through Ireland By Margaret Dixon Mcdougall - Page 106 of 106 - First - Home

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Only Notice, From Mr. Smith's Evidence At The Land Court Recently, Concerning The Enniskillen Estate, For Which He Is Agent, It Is Proven That Even In Protestant Ulster A Landlord Can Abolish The Ulster Custom - The Root Of Ulster's Exceptional Prosperity - At The Motion Of His Own Will.

In the trials for turbary in the Kiltyclogher cases a rule made by a landlord in his office overrides even a lease, and is accepted as _de facto_ law in the court.

These things have convinced me that the exterminating landlords are the parties who are guilty of high treason against the commonwealth of England. The loyalty of Irish Catholics to a country that had scant justice to give them has been proven on every battle field from far India to the Crimea. No history of England's wars in these later times can be written truly without acknowledging the Irish blood given like water for England's honor.

Scotland has been more favored of late years, although the time is not so far distant when her language, her dress and ancient customs were also proscribed. Watching this, I have found myself wishing that some Irish Walter Scott would arise whose pen would make Ireland's lakes and glens, mountain passes and battlemented rocks, ruined castles and mouldering abbeys, famous and fashionable as Scotland's brown heath and shaggy wood, till the Queen would love to have a home there, and the nobles of the land would follow in her shadow.

I have changed my opinion on this also. The nobles come to covet the homes of the people. The Highlands of Scotland seem destined to become a hunting ground. The hardy mountaineers, guilty of no crime, must give up their hamlets and shielings, the inheritance of their fathers, at the order of any trader who has coined the sweat of his fellow men successfully into guineas, or any idle lord who has money. If "a death grapple of the nations" should ever come to England will she miss the Connaught Rangers, the glorious 88th who won from stern Picton the cheer, "Well done 88th," or the Enniskillen dragoons so famed in song and story, or the North Cork that moved to battle as to a festival? Will she miss "the torrent of tartan and steel" that charged at the Alma, or the cry that "the hills of grey Caledon know the shout of McDonald, McLean and McKay, when they dash at the breast of the foe?" Will she miss the clansmen of Athol, Breadalbane and Mar? Will the exterminating lords who must have hunting grounds at all hazards come to the front with squadrons of deer or battalions of rabbits? Surely it is an aweful thing to sweep the inhabitants of a country for gain. If Britain ever has to call on these Varuses for her legions, or to repeat George II.'s cry at Fontenoy, will the enemy be able to countervail the Queen's damage?

I would earnestly plead with the authorities, even yet, to try a little conciliation instead of such strong doses of coercion. History tells how cheaply the disturbed Highlands were pacified compared with the expense of coercing them, which was a failure. The tithe of the expense for bayonets would, I am convinced, make the West of Ireland contented and make future prosperity possible.

THE END.

End of The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland, by Margaret Dixon McDougall

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