Religious intolerance, true faith, railway maniam 1846 Famine.

Chapter XII

A proselytizing clergyman - Some examples of religious intolerance - An inverse repentance - The true faith - The railway mania - Famine of 1846

• Mrs. Norton solves a difficulty - The old Beefsteak Club - A pleasant dinner-party.

In the year 1844 the rector of a parish near us was, on his death, succeeded by the Rev. Air. A---, who shortly afterwards went in for proselytizing - a system which, as far as my experience goes, has never done the slightest good in Ireland, but often a great deal of harm by stirring up religious animosities, which have done endless mischief to our country, and which it ought to be the aim of every Irishman to allay. Since my early days I have seen a vast improvement in everything but intolerance in religion; that, I grieve to say, is as strong as ever. It is sad today to see our people still, as Lady Morgan says they were in her days -

a glorious nation,

A splendid peasantry on fruitful sod,

Fighting like divils for conciliation,

And hating one another for the love of God.”

Mr. A----, with other prosdytizing clergymen, of whom happily there were not many, did succeed in getting a few converts, such as they were; but in most cases, when they found that they did not obtain the temporal advantages which they supposed would follow their conversion, they soon returned to their former faith.

Many stories - how true I do not know - were told of Mr. A--- and his wonderful would-be converts. Here are two.

An old widow, Bryan, called on him, and on being shown into his library and asked by him what her business was, she said, “Well now, your raverence, it’s what - I’d like to turn Protestant.” *

Mr. A. *“Why do you wish to change your religion?”

Widow B. “Well now, I’m told your raverence gives a blanket and a leg of mutton to any one that turns.”

Mr. *A. *“Do you mean to say that you would sell your soul for a blanket?”

*Widow B. *“No, your raverence, not without the leg of mutton.”

Another day a countryman called on him and said, “I’m come to give myself up to your raverence because I’m unasy in my mind about my religion.” *

Mr. A. *“What particular points are you uneasy about?”

*Countryman. *“Well now, your raverence, it’s no particular points that is throublin’ me; it’s a sort of giniral unaysiness.”

On further questioning him it came out that what he really wanted was money or employment. *

Mr. A. *“I’ll promise you nothing whatever. Do you think I’m like Mahomet, to take converts on any terms?”

*Countryman. *“And won’t I get anything for turning?”

Mr. *A. *“Nothing. Go away; I’m ashamed of you.”

*Countryman. *“Well, God bless your raverence anyway; and maybe your raverence would tell me where that Mr. Mahomet stops.”

One of his converts, James Ryan, known as Jim Lar, I knew well. After trying Protestantism for a fortnight he had reverted to his ancient faith. “Jim Lar,” I said to him, “you seem to be very unstable in your religious views. I hear you were a Protestant a fortnight ago, and that you are now again a Roman Catholic.” “Well now, your honour,” said he, “sure you wouldn’t like me to be damning my soul and getting nothing for it.”

I shall attempt to give a few odd examples of the height to which religious party feeling runs amongst the lower classes. Not very long ago an old Orangeman, in the county of Down, was asked, “Are the times as good now, Tom, as when you were a boy?” “Faith, they are not,” answered Torn; “they’d take you up now and try you for shooting a Papist.”

A farmer in the same county was summoned before a bench of magistrates for not having his name printed on the shaft of his cart; he said he didn’t know it was the law, he was a loyal man, and wouldn’t break the law on any account. They read him the section of the Act, which requires the name and address of the owner to be printed on the shaft “in Roman letters one inch long.” “Roman letters!” said he. “Roman letters! To hell with the pope?”

A Roman Catholic clergyman told me of a woman in Cork who was complaining to her priest of the misconduct of her son; that he was always fighting, gambling, and drinking, and often beat her when he was drunk. “Ah,” said the priest “is he a Catholic at all?” “Begorra, your raverence,” said she, “it’s what he’s too good a Catholic. If that boy had his will, he’d stick every Protestant from here to Tralee.”

A Protestant clergyman, who had a living in the north of Ireland, on visiting one of his parishioners who was very ill, in fact on his death-bed, was told by the man that he was quite happy, and quite willing to die, but that there was one little thing annoying him for many years. The clergyman advised him not to worry himself about it, whatever it was; he was sure, if it was wrong, he had repented of it. “It’s not troubling me, your raverence, in that way,” said he; “it’s only annoying me a wee bit. I’ll tell your raverence what it is. In the big fight we had with the Papists thirty years ago, I had a priest covered with my gun, and something came over me that I didn’t pull the trigger; and that’s what’s annoying me ever since.”

In a well-known parish, in the province of Leinster, a handsome new church was built some 30 years ago. In the stained-glass window at the east end were the 12 apostles. Some of the Orangemen and extreme Low Churchmen in the parish, being scandalized at these (as they called them) “emblems of popery,” smashed the windows. Many years after, an old parishioner, on his deathbed, said to the rector, who was visiting him, “Well, now, your raverence, hadn’t we the real fun the day we broke the windows in the church?” “That was before my time,” said the rector.” “So it was, so it was,” said the old man; “and more is the pity.” Then he began to laugh, and added, “I stuck my stick right through St. Peter’s eye.”

The Rev. Doctor McGettigan, the late worthy Roman Catholic Bishop of Raphoe, often told of an incident which occurred when he was parish priest, I think, of Killybegs. “I was suddenly called,” he said, “from my home to see an unfortunate sailor who had been cast ashore from a wreck, and was lying speechless on the ground, but not quite dead. The people standing by said, ‘The life’s in him still, your raverence; he stirred a little.’ So I stooped down and said to him, ‘My poor man, you’re nearly gone; but just try to say one little word, or make one little sign to show that you are dying in the true faith.’ So he opened one of his eyes just a wee bit, and he said, ‘To hell with the pope!’ and he died.”

Another story of the bishop’s, of quite a different kind, was this. He had slept one night at a farmhouse in a remote part of his diocese, and was awakened very early in the morning by some one calling out several times, “Who are you?” To which he answered, “I am the most Reverend Doctor McGettigan, Bishop of Raphoe, the oldest bishop in Ireland; indeed, I believe I may say the oldest bishop in Her Majesty’s dominions.” To which the same voice replied, “How is your mother?” “My poor dear mother, God rest her soul!” said the bishop, “died 20 years ago last Candlemas.” The voice repeated twice in rapid succession, “How is your mother?” He sat up in bed to see who the inquirer was, and beheld a grey parrot in a large cage by the window.

In the old days of the Orange Corporation in Dublin, the pedestal of the equestrian statue of William III in College Green, was painted orange and blue. On the anniversary of the battle of the Boyne the statue was decked with orange lilies and orange ribbons, and on the pedestal, below the uplifted foot of the horse, was placed a bow of green ribbon. “Ah,” said a man passing by, “see what respect the baste shows to the green! See how he keeps his foot up in that unasy posture, for fear he might thrample on it!”

Some pikes which had been found concealed were exhibited at a Conservative meeting in Dublin. Some one cried out, “A groan for the pikes.” A voice from tile crowd replied, “A bloody end to them!”

Anything suggests politics. My father told me that at a theatre in Dublin, shortly after the Union, when a well-known actress was singing a favourite song, the refrain of which was “My heart goes pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat,” a man from the gallery cried, “A groan for Pitt, and a cheer for Pat!”

In the year 1845 came the railway mania. Prospectuses in hundreds appeared, holding out the most enticing inducements to the public to take shares. One line was to develop the resources of Ballyhooly, a miserable village in the county of Cork; another to promote and encourage the cockle trade at Sandy-mount, where there is a strand on which, at low water, may be seen a dozen old women gathering cockles. All over the country, engineers and surveyors were levelling and surveying. One of these, an assistant of Sir John MacNeill, was so engaged near Thurles, when a farmer on whose land he was working, said to him, “May I make so bould, sir, as to ax what brings you here, and what you are doing?” “I’m laying out a railway,” said he. “Begorra,” said the farmer, “you are the fifth of them that has been here this week, and it’s what it’s my belief there isn’t an idle blackguard in Dublin that has nothing to do that isn’t sent down here to lay out railroads.”

One of the surveyors was taking levels in a village where the road was so steep that the levelling staff had to be held within a few yards of him. As he looked at the staff, which was held by one McEvoy, through the telescope of his level, he heard a woman at her cottage door calling to her husband, “Ah, then, Jim, come here and look at this. You never seen the like before. Here’s a gintleman making a map of Mickey McEvoy.”

Shortly before the years of famine, which began in 1846, our home at Abington was broken up by the death of my father. He died in 1845. Great as was his loss to us, I have often since felt glad that he was spared the grief and pain of those terrible years; when he would have had famine and fever on every side, and would have seen the poor people, to whom lie had endeared himself by a thousand acts of kindness, and who were very dear to him, dying by hundreds around him, and enduring sufferings which, had he spent his all, as he would have gladly done, he would have been powerless to relieve.

During those years, though my residence was in Dublin, I travelled a great deal through the country, and witnessed many a heart-rending scene, never to be forgotten; but as they would pain the feelings of my readers, I shall only relate the incidents of two consecutive days. As I, with my assistant engineer, was walking along the railway works which had just been commenced near Mallow, and which during the remainder of the famine gave much employment and relief, we passed near the old churchyard at Burnfort. Several dogs were fighting and howling there; my assistant ran down to see what they were about. He found them fighting over the bodies of some poor creatures who had died of famine, and had that morning been buried - if buried it can be called - without coffins, and so close to the surface, that they were barely covered with earth. We had coffins made for them, and had them buried at a proper depth. Next day, as I rode again from Cork to Mallow, I went into the Half-way House for a few minutes; a poor woman, barefooted and miserably clad, with three children, came in. So stricken with famine was she, that she could scarcely speak. I ordered coffee and bread for them. No sooner had she taken a little than she fainted. At first we thought she was dead, but after a little time we brought her round. The same night I* *had to start for London; and next evening saw a carpet spread across the footway to the carriage way, lest the damp should chill the feet or soil the shoes of some fashionable lady. The contrast was a painful one. Are there no such contrasts to-day within the great city itself?

It was on one of my visits to London later on in the year 1861, I think - that I met my old friend, Mr. Fred. Ponsonby (now Lord Bessborough) in the lobby of the House of Commons. He asked me, if I had no other engagement, to dine with him at the Beefsteak Club on the following Saturday. “We dine,” he said, “at the primitive hour of six; but you will get away at ten.” I accepted his invitation with pleasure, and thought no more about it till the Saturday forenoon, when I turned to the directory to find the address of the club; but there was no mention of it there. I then made inquiries of some friends; some of them had never heard of it; others had but did not know where it was. I was in a strait what to do. I did not know where Ponsonby was staying, so could not ask him. In my difficulty I bethought me of Mrs. Norton. “She will know, or will find out for me,” I thought. So off to her house in Chesterfield Street, I went. Fortunately I found her at home. I asked her if she knew anything about the club.

“I ought to know about it,” she said, “for my father and my grandfather” (R. B. Sheridan) “were members of it. One of their rules is that they must meet under the roof of a theatre. They were burnt out of old Drury Lane, and out of other theatres, and where they now meet I do not know; but Cole will tell us.” So she rang for Cole, her maid. When she appeared, Mrs. Norton said, “Cole, where does the Beefsteak Club dine at present?”

“At the Lyceum, ma’am,” replied Cole. “You go in by a green door at the back of the theatre.”

“That will do, Cole.”

As soon as she had left the room I said, “In the name of all that’s wonderful, how does Cole know all this? Is she a witch? ”

“Cole has changed her name since you saw her last,” she said. “She is now Mrs. Smithson, though I still call her Cole. Her husband is a waiter, who attends dinner parties, and I thought he might have told her something about this club.”

At six o’clock I was at the green door, and on entering found my host and other members of the club, and two guests.

As the original club ceased to exist some five and twenty years ago, some account of my recollection of it may not be uninteresting to my readers. It consisted, I think, of twenty or four and twenty members, and my friend told me that latterly they seldom dined more than twelve or fourteen. The day I was there we were twelve, three of whom were guests - the late Lord Strathmore, who was, I think, made a member of the club that evening; Fechter, the famous actor; and myself. In the middle of the ceiling, over the dinner-table, was the original gridiron, which had been rescued from the ruins of the theatres out of which the club had been burnt. In large gold letters round the gridiron were the words, “BEEF AND LIBERTY.” The same words were woven in the centre of the tablecloth, and engraved on all the plates and dishes, and they appeared again in gold on the wall at the end of the room, through a sort of portcullis in which you saw the beefsteaks being cooked. Over this portcullis were the words, “IF IT WERE DONE, WHEN ‘TIS DONE, THEN ‘TWERE WELL IT WERE DONE QUICKLY.” With the exception of a welch-rarebit as second course, the dinner consisted of beefsteaks, and beefsteaks only. These came in in quick succession, two by two, one well done, the other rather under-done, so as to suit all palates. The drink was porter and port wine, which went round in flagons. The conversation was general, and full of fun.

After dinner the chairman brewed a huge bowl of punch - whether of brandy or of whisky, I forget; the vice-chairman a smaller one of rum. From the bowls jugs were filled, one of which was placed before each of those at table. There were about the room many old theatrical properties of various sorts; amongst them dresses which had been worn by actors famous in days of yore.

The chairman wore a cloak and hat which Garrick had worn in *Hamlet. *There were only two or three toasts proposed, one of which was the health of the guests. After this had been drunk with enthusiasm, the chairman said, “It is the custom here that the guests shall rise and return thanks simultaneously.” We three rose and declared simultaneously, but each in his own words, how deeply we felt the kind manner in which our health had been drunk. The chairman then rose again and said, “I now propose that the excellent speeches, which have just been delivered by our eloquent guests, be printed and circulated at the expense of the club. As many as are of that opinion will say, ‘Aye.’” There was a chorus of “Ayes.” “As many as are of the contrary opinion will say ‘No.’” Not a single “No,” or dissentient voice. Whereupon the chairman solemnly said, “The ‘Noes’ have it.” After that, till ten o’clock, “the night drave on wi’ sangs and clatter,” when we separated, after as pleasant an evening as I ever spent.

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