Of the evicted
families 87 were Catholics and 36 Protestants. If they had been allowed
to sell their tenant right they might have got farms elsewhere. Of those
cleared off seventeen who were Protestants and six who were Catholics
got farms elsewhere from His Grace. Some sank into day laborers, some
vanished, no one knows where.
People here say that the reason why there are Fenians in America and
people inclined to Fenianism at home is owing to these large evictions -
clearances that make farmers into day laborers at the will of the lord
of the land. The people feel more bitterly about these things when they
consider injustice is perpetrated with a semblance of generosity.
Nothing - no lapse of time nor change of place or circumstances - ever
causes anyone to forget an eviction. Now they say that the Duke of
Abercorn holds this immense tract of country on the condition of rooting
the people in the soil by long leases, not on condition of evicting them
out; therefore, he has forfeited his claim to the lands over and over
again. This article, published in a Dublin paper, was taken no public
notice of for a time, but when sharply contested elections came round,
the Duke and four others, sons and relations, were rejected at the polls
because of the feeling stirred up by these revelations. Such is the
popular report of the popular Duke of Abercorn.
Omagh is a pretty, behind-the-age country town. The most splendid
buildings are the poor-house, the prison, and the new barracks. The
hotels are very dear everywhere; they seem to depend for existence on
commercial travellers and tourists. Tourists are expected to be prepared
to drop money as the child of the fairy tale dropped pearls and
diamonds, on every possible occasion, and unless one is able to assert
themselves they are liable to be let severely alone as far as comfort is
concerned, or attendance; but when the _douceur_ is expected plenty
are on hand and smile serenely.
Left Omagh behind and took passage for Fermanagh's capital, Enniskillen
of dragoon celebrity. The road from Omagh to Enniskillen showed some, I
would say a good deal, of waste, unproductive land. Land tufted with
rushes, and bare and barren looking - still the fields tilled were
scrupulously tilled. The houses were the worst I had yet seen on the
line of rail, as bad as in the mountains of Donegal, worse than any I
saw in Innishowen. I wonder why the fields are so trim and the homes in
many cases so horrible. Not many, I may say not any, fine houses on this
stretch of country.
