The Rebels of Ireland

  Could he have done better? The cause of Repeal—the breaking away from Union with England—had been indefinitely postponed. It couldn’t be denied. And some of his younger followers felt that the great Liberator had degenerated into a political deal-maker. “But since the government wasn’t going to give us Repeal anyway,” he’d remarked to Stephen, “I think I did the right thing.”

  “I am that noblest of beasts, Sir,” Stephen replied to Dudley Doyle with a wry smile. “I am a Catholic Whig.”

  “For reform, but through Parliament? You are prepared to be patient?”

  “I am a political animal. I abhor violence, just as O’Connell does. That is why,” he said with a sigh, “I have been his man for twenty years.”

  “Then what, might I ask, do you intend to do now?” asked Doyle. “After Clontarf?”

  Stephen shook his head.

  “My life,” he answered sadly, “has reached a point of crisis.”

  It was three years ago that the strategy had started to break down. First Drummond had died, and the Irish had buried him with sorrow. Then the Whig government had fallen and the Tories had come in. What should O’Connell do now? Some of his young followers were certain—Young Ireland, they called themselves, and even had their own journal, The Nation . “It’s time to fight for Repeal,” they declared, “by any and all means, if necessary.” The great Liberator wasn’t ready to lose the movement he’d built up. He placed himself at their head, and this very year he had launched a campaign of huge rallies across Ireland. O’Connell’s monster meetings were beyond anything seen before. Tens of thousands would come to hear the great Liberator speak. All over Leinster, Munster, and Connacht he went: Dublin and Wicklow, Waterford and Wexford, Cork, Sligo, and Mayo; to Ennis, where he had triumphed; even to the ancient royal site of Tara. “We will force the British government,” he cried, “to give us justice or our freedom.” But Britain’s Tory government would not be moved. The monster meetings were to climax with the biggest rally of them all. It was to be held just outside Dublin, on the northern bank of the Liffey estuary, at Clontarf, where, eight centuries before, Ireland’s heroic king, Brian Boru, had fought his final battle. The massed ranks of priests, the Repeal men with their banners were all prepared—most of the population of the capital would probably turn up. But the Tory government had had enough.

  “Call off your meeting or face jail,” it told O’Connell.

  It had been the terrible decision. Stephen had been at a meeting with O’Connell and a number of others when the matter was discussed. “We must operate within the law,” the Liberator had declared, “or we give up everything we stand for.” Stephen himself had agreed. “In politics,” he’d reminded everyone, “you can live to fight another day.” But not all the great man’s followers had agreed, especially the Young Ireland men.

  Two weeks ago, O’Connell had called the meeting off. Nobody knew what to do next. Some of the younger men spoke of revolution, which Stephen knew to be useless and mistaken. The movement was in shock. He himself had experienced a huge sense of frustration. And he had been grateful indeed when, shortly afterwards, he had received an invitation from Mountwalsh to come and spend a few days down in Wexford. “It might,” his lordship had kindly suggested, “cheer you up.”

  “A crossroads rather than a crisis, perhaps,” Dudley Doyle offered, not unkindly.

  “The crossroads, I believe,” Stephen said, “is for Ireland rather than myself. For whatever good we have been able to do in these last dozen years is still so little, when you consider the problems that beset our country. The poverty is terrible.”

  “Take some comfort, Stephen,” said William Mountwalsh. “Things here in Leinster are not so bad. And remember,” he added, “the war with Napoleon was very good for Ireland, because we sold the English so many provisions. When it ended, we were worried. The beef industry took a terrible knock. Yet look what happened,” he went on cheerfully. “Thanks to the new railways in England, we can send live cattle to every part of the market there, which we never could before. There are more people, so the price of grain has held. Our farmers do well. Speaking for myself, I’ve never done better.”

  “I accept what you say for Wexford,” replied Stephen. “Though I can tell you that up in the mountains of Wicklow, my family and their neighbours live near subsistence. Last time I was up at Rathconan, I found twice the number of folk that I remember as a child, with miserable little potato patches dug right up onto the bare hillside, where nothing but sheep have ever been raised before. Some of the people are quite wretchedly poor.”

  “That may be,” Dudley Doyle countered, “but consider the case of Ulster. The people there have small farms, but they are prosperous. They have the linen industry, and much else besides.”

  “Ulster I scarcely know,” Stephen confessed. “O’Connell never goes there. The Presbyterians have become so strident of late that he’d hardly be welcome.” He paused. “But I was thinking of the west above all. Of Clare, Galway, Mayo. The situation there is terrible and getting worse.”

  “Ah, the west. That is another matter,” Mountwalsh acknowledged.

  “Isn’t it a case of bad landlords?” asked Henrietta. “I mean, if the landlords were like William . . .”

  “It would be better,” Stephen said politely, “but the problems are too big even for the best landlords to solve. I really don’t know what’s to be done.”

  William glanced around the table. There was a fifth person there, who had not yet spoken during the present conversation. He turned to her now.

  “And what does Miss Doyle think?”

  It was strange that Dudley Doyle’s eldest daughter was not married. Both her younger sisters were. She was handsome, and it was known that her father had settled three thousand pounds on her. She was twenty-five, with a calm and pleasant manner; her colouring was good, her brown eyes fine and intelligent. She smiled now.

  “I leave those things to the men,” she said.

  “Oh, so do I,” said Henrietta.

  Doyle looked at his daughter curiously. Now why, he wondered, would she say that? Stephen also gave her a glance—polite, but just a little weary.

  “I fear I disappoint you, Mr. Smith,” she said.

  “Oh no, not at all,” he answered, though of course it was not true.

  “The problem really,” said William Mountwalsh, “is that there are too many people for this island to support. The government estimates that we are well past eight million now. Farming methods, especially in the west, need much improvement. But it seems that Ireland is living proof of the theories of Malthus: that humans will always breed faster than the food supply increases. That is why we have always had wars down the ages.” Having brought the conversation back to life, as a good host should, he turned to Doyle. “You make a study of these things, Dudley. Tell us what is the answer.”

  Doyle surveyed them all. He did not mind having an audience. He paused for a moment.

  “The answer,” he said, with a faint smile of satisfaction, “is there is nothing wrong with Ireland at all.”

  “Nothing wrong?’ Stephen looked at him incredulously.

  “Nothing,” said the economist. “And I am surprised, Mr. Smith, that you, as a Whig—which you say that you are—should think that there is.”

  “Explain, Dudley,” said William with a broad smile, as he settled back in his chair.

  “As a Whig,” Dudley Doyle addressed Stephen, rather as a lawyer in court addresses a witness before a jury, “you believe in free trade, do you not?”

  “I do.”

  “You do not think that governments should intervene, as the British government was once so fond of doing, to protect inefficient farmers and manufacturers with tariffs or restrictions on trade? You believe in the operation of the free market—that, over time, it is always best?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then that is what we have. There is now an excess of people in Ireland. Very well. The result is that their
labour is cheap. There is therefore an incentive for enterprising manufacturers to employ them.”

  “That may happen in Ulster, but it does not happen in Clare. And the people go hungry.”

  “I believe that eventually it will, but no matter. The hunger of the people is not a bad thing. It will drive them to seek work further afield. Do we not see that occurring?”

  “Labourers from Clare take their spades and migrate for seasonal work as far as Leinster, or often England,” Stephen agreed.

  “Excellent. Britain benefits thereby, for the cost of its labour is reduced and the Irishman is fed.”

  “Many have to leave entirely, though,” Stephen said sadly, “forced to emigrate, to England or America.”

  “Do you know,” interposed Mountwalsh, “that over a million people have left this island during my own lifetime? About four hundred thousand in the last decade.”

  “Splendid,” said Doyle, smiling at them both. “The whole world benefits thereby. There are too many people in Ireland? Well and good. America has need of them. A vast, rich continent in need of willing hands. They can do very well there. Indeed, without Ireland, what would America be? We must take a larger view, gentlemen. The temporary misery of the Irish peasant is a blessing in disguise. Do not interfere with the market, therefore. Thanks to the market, the whole world turns.”

  “But the process is so cruel,” Stephen said.

  “So is nature.”

  There was a thoughtful pause.

  “Isn’t it fascinating to listen to them?” said Henrietta to Caroline Doyle. “I think it’s time for the dessert.”

  William was delighted when Caroline Doyle asked him to show her the library after dinner. It was he, after all, who’d suggested to Doyle that he should bring her. She admired the collection and found a few of her favourite books. Then she turned to him and smiled.

  “Well, Lord Mountwalsh, I know you’ve asked me here to meet him. So what sort of man is Stephen Smith?”

  “I suppose,” he answered truthfully, “that I wouldn’t have asked you if it were easy to say.”

  Her father had only agreed to the business because, as he freely confessed to the earl, he didn’t know what to do with her. He might have an incisive mind himself, but though he admired his daughter’s intelligence, he couldn’t really see the point of it in a woman. It was certainly no help in getting married. “I must warn you,” he counselled her, “that men don’t like too much intelligence in a woman. A man likes a woman with just enough intelligence to appreciate his own. If you wish to be more than that, you would be wise to hide it.” But though she agreed to do this—usually—she made a further demand that was just as awkward. “She wants to find a man,” he told William, “who she thinks interesting. I told her, ‘Interesting men usually give their wives a lot of trouble.’ But I’m not sure she believes me.”

  “Stephen Smith is certainly interesting,” the earl continued now.

  It was also time he married. He was already thirty-five. A few years more, William considered, and the fellow would become so set in his ways that he’d never tolerate anybody. And it was time that Stephen had a home. He’d been living in lodgings for years.

  William Mountwalsh had known other men like Stephen Smith. Men who were so fascinated by the daily business of politics, with its excitement, uncertainties, and nighttime confabulations, not to mention the thrill of feeling you were close to influence and power, that they could spend decades in busy backrooms and corridors, and never realize that life had passed them by. Politics, he knew, was a drug, and Stephen was an addict. He needed to be saved.

  William had also observed that these cynical political men were often secret idealists. Stephen Smith did not worship O’Connell; he was too intelligent. But he truly believed that O’Connell was guiding the Irish to a better destiny. Like a prophet of old, the Liberator might not lead his people out of the desert, but he had already taken them part of the way. Sometimes men like Stephen also dreamed of becoming leaders themselves. That was hard for a poor man, though not impossible. Did Stephen have such dreams? Perhaps. William had heard him give a speech once or twice, and he was talented. There was an aura about him. But if the young man had dreams of standing for Parliament, those dreams were probably idealistic. He’d like to be a great figure in a great cause, the earl shrewdly guessed, rather than win just for the sake of winning, as a true politician would. The fellow had one other weakness also, the usual weakness of the poor man: he was proud. “Stephen Smith would rather do anything than have it seem he had been bought or sold,” he remarked to the young woman, wondering if she’d understand.

  “Does he like women?”

  “Yes. When he has time.” He paused. “Women like him.”

  “I expect they do. He has wonderful green eyes.”

  “Does he? Yes, I suppose he does.”

  A number of women had been very taken with Stephen. To William’s knowledge, he had had affairs with at least two married society ladies, one of which had lasted some years. Whether Stephen’s heart had really been engaged, William doubted. Perhaps Smith was a little selfish. Yet if a man with no money likes to move in those circles, what else can he do but have affairs with other men’s wives?

  Was it his eyes that attracted them? Partly, no doubt. But there was something magical surrounding those dark good looks of his; a fascinating intensity in his manner when he became enthusiastic, and eloquent upon a subject. That, and his occasional depressions, and their knowledge of his vulnerability, were surely the things that had made those aristocratic ladies want to possess him, and to be possessed.

  “I feel sure you’ll reach your own conclusions,” he said. “You should talk to him.”

  “Have no fear.” She smiled. “I shall.”

  Maureen was in a sunny mood when Mr. Callan came by. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he probably liked her. Certainly, in the last two years, he’d always been civil to her and asked after the children. Once, riding by, he had noticed two of the children eyeing a large, shiny apple he was about to eat and had handed it to her, with a half-smile, to give to them.

  Today, he had just asked if her father was about, and when she said he was out, Callan had just said, “No matter,” and told her he’d pass by later.

  The sky was clear that day, and the autumn sun was bright. After so much damp weather all through the summer, the sunny sky made her feel cheerful.

  When she considered her life, Maureen felt rather pleased with herself. She knew how much her family needed her. It was two years since her mother had died after giving birth to little Daniel. “Look after him for me,” her mother had said to her. As the eldest daughter, she would have expected to help her mother with the children anyway; and, thank God, she had not been married.

  Since then, she had taken over the role of mother. There were four children to take care of. The two eldest had left soon after their mother’s death. Norah had married and moved with her husband to England. Then William had taken the chance to go with his uncle when Eamonn’s remaining brother had left for America. But that had still left the younger ones: Nuala, who was fifteen now; Mary and Caitlin, eight and ten; and little Daniel, who, because of the circumstances of his birth, she thought of almost as her own. And she supposed that, if her father did not marry again, she’d be looking after him for another dozen years or more, until he was old enough to fend for himself in the world. Unless, of course, she married herself, but that was unlikely. She was twenty-four now. And as her mother had warned her years ago: “I’m afraid, Maureen, you’re very plain. Though perhaps,” she had added, “someone will marry you for your goodness.”

  She didn’t think she was good, but she did try to keep cheerful. No matter how she felt, she tried to be calm at all times and show the little ones a smiling face. It seemed the right thing to do.

  And thank God her father was always so strong. She knew it could not have been easy for him without a wife. But he was always even-tempered, and affectiona
te with the children, and it was clear even to the younger ones that he lived his life according to strong beliefs and principles. He always took the family to Mass. He drank a little ale, but seldom any liquour, and never poteen. She could not imagine him drunk. Both old Father Casey and his successor always told her: “Your father is everything a good Catholic should be.”

  After his brother and William went, he was the only one of the Maddens left on his father’s land. Callan had not taken any action against the tenants who had voted for O’Connell back in ’28, and his relationship with her father had been one of guarded politeness ever since. Was Callan even a little afraid of them? There had been some trouble below Ennis last year, some small rioting and looting after a local food shortage, though it hadn’t come up here. The Protestant gentry and their agents had all been a bit jumpy, though, while O’Connell’s campaign of monster meetings was going on. But he must surely know, she thought, that whatever he might have done in his youth, her father was the most peaceable man in the area. Callan had not been entirely inactive, anyway. As the opportunity arose, he had quietly rationalized the tenancies. A few years ago, the rest of the former Madden holdings had been united again, converted back to cereal crops, and leased to a farmer in the next parish.

  But Eamonn Madden always remembered who he was. He’d managed to find money for Norah when she married, so that her husband should be satisfied. He’d had to borrow from a draper in Ennis to pay for William’s passage to America, but he’d paid more than half of that back already. As soon as that debt was taken care of, he’d be saving for Nuala’s wedding; you could be sure of that. He wouldn’t have the family disgraced.

  He continued to reverence Daniel O’Connell—little Daniel was named after the great man. He also became an admirer of the Under Secretary Drummond. “That’s a good man,” he would declare. And he would often quote that statesman’s dictum: “Property has rights, but also responsibilities.” If he ever heard of a bad action by a landlord, he would sigh and repeat it.