The Rebels of Ireland

  “Not at all,” the kindly earl had assured him when he had proffered his thanks. “They were only too glad to get you, Stephen. Your reputation precedes you, and I reminded them that you were one of the true Catholic Whigs, which I’d say you are. The new government liked that, very much. A sound man, I told them, who dislikes the dangerous tendencies of some of these Young Ireland boys. And an excellent organiser. I’ve no doubt you’ll do very well.”

  At least it would be a change. For, by the end of that summer, Stephen Smith had had enough. He wanted no more of the world of politics. Not for a while, anyway. Even the return of the Whigs to power had failed to reignite his interest. Had he done anything useful in all these years? he’d asked himself. He hoped so. Was he doing anything useful now? No, he was not. His old master O’Connell was unwell. There was nothing he could really do for him. He disliked the Young Ireland men—William Mountwalsh was perfectly right about that. They meant well, some of them, but they lacked discipline. Some of them even wanted to start an insurrection like Emmet. Futile. And dangerous. They’d go down and take others with them, just as Emmet had done before.

  But it had been another letter from Mr. Knox of the Clare Journal that had given him the idea. He had been shocked by its contents, and when Knox had described the organisation that was being put in place down there, it had suddenly occurred to him that this might be a chance for him to do something really useful.

  So now here he was, as an overseer of the new program of public works that was to save Ennis from starvation. He would be working for Mr. Hennessy, the head overseer for the region, and both would report to a brisk naval officer, known as the Captain, who had charge of the county. He had not wanted to impose upon Charles O’Connell, who had kindly offered him a room in his own house; but Charles had found him lodgings close by.

  Hennessy, who saw him his first morning, proved to be a tall, mild, and pleasant man, who quickly outlined the scale of operations. “My own guess,” he said, “is that by the end of the year we shall employ fifty thousand men in this county.” The new government wanted to control matters strictly. There was a new committee to take over the running of the entire county. It was appointed by the Lord Lieutenant, and although some Catholics served on it, the chairman and most of the members were Protestant gentlemen. Hennessy told Stephen he would be given several projects to manage in Ennis, and also made clear what the rules of operation were to be. “There must be no deviation,” he warned. “The new government means to be thorough but firm.” Were there any particular problems he should know about? he asked. “Well,” Hennessy hesitated, “I think it’s fair to say that there’s still a bit of catching up to do. Until we got started, there was . . .” he searched for a good word, “a hiatus.”

  It was that afternoon, when he called upon Mr. Knox at the Journal, that Stephen discovered what this meant. Knox, following his usual practice, called for his pony and trap and gave him a quick tour. The difference from his previous visit was astonishing. Where, before, he had seen ragged children and worried faces, he now saw little creatures like skeletons and women with staring eyes.

  “These people aren’t poor; they’re starving.”

  “Some are, some not. Some died already.”

  “But how?”

  “Very simple. This July and August, the potato harvest failed. When I say failed, I mean that every potato in the market was rotten. I mean that not a single field, not a single garden patch in all of Ennis, produced a single potato that could be eaten. The stink of the rotted fields wafted over the town as if it were an open plague pit. I mean, Smith, that after months of hardship, the people of Ennis failed to produce any food whatsoever of their own. Unfortunately, it was also the time of a change of government. And you know how it is when a government changes. Nothing that was done before can be right.”

  “And so?”

  “Why, they closed down the relief committees, of course. Nothing was done. It remained that way until October. People helped each other not to starve, but especially in the remoter places the old and the sick died off. We reported what we could, but you don’t always know at the time. There were many deaths, certainly.”

  “It will be changed now.”

  “Will it? How? You will provide public works?”

  “On a great scale.”

  “And will you subsidise food?”

  “I understand not.”

  “Indeed, you will not. For that would distort the market, which, in the eyes of a Whig, is a heinous crime.”

  Stephen thought of Dudley Doyle.

  “I don’t deny it,” he confessed.

  “Then, since the price of food, being so scarce, has now risen to new heights, the wages you pay to these thousands of men will not be sufficient for them to buy food for their families. They will not be idle and starve, Mr. Smith; they will work and starve.” He looked at Stephen severely. “I am only a Tory, Sir. You are a Whig, the Irish Catholic’s friend. This is your government. Why is your government so foolish?”

  “I cannot answer.”

  “But I can. The Whigs, Sir, have married their devotion to doctrine, to their total ignorance of local conditions. The resulting child will be famine, on a scale we have not yet seen.”

  “That is not their object. The Whigs are entirely well-meaning.”

  “Of course they are well-meaning,” the newspaper owner cried. “That is the trouble. The present Whig leaders are reformers, they have extended the franchise, they have sought to help the Catholics. They are more than well-meaning: they believe they are righteous. And therefore they will not listen. Therein lies the tragedy.” He paused only to draw breath. “What is the greatest crime against humanity, Smith?”

  “Deliberate cruelty, I should think.”

  “And you would be wrong. It is not cruelty, nor evil intent. It is stupidity.”

  “And why do you tell me this?” asked Stephen.

  “In order that you may learn,” said Knox. Then he drove him back.

  In the days that followed, Stephen was immersed in his work. There seemed to be a new scheme to employ people every few days. Some, like giving Ennis a decent sewer system, were worthwhile. But most were just unnecessary roadwork, whose main effect was to block the road leading into the town. On one occasion, he suggested to Hennessy that a patch of waste ground could be cleared and dug. It belonged to an elderly farmer who had lacked the energy to do it himself. “At least he could grow grain there and increase the food stock,” Stephen suggested. But Hennessy had shaken his head and reminded him: “You should know better, Stephen. That’s private land. Improving it would be reproductive work, since the grain grown there belongs to the farmer and goes to market. We’d be creating personal profit and interfering with trade. Can’t do it. Only public works, my boy, however useless.” So the land remained waste.

  He’d been there ten days when he witnessed a small incident. He was observing a gang of about fifty men who were cleaning the verges along the road that led down to the docks. The work was proceeding at a snail’s pace, but some of the men looked so weak from lack of nourishment that it would have been cruel to push them harder; and since the work was quite pointless, there was no reason to do so anyway.

  A cart laden with grain came lumbering down the road in the direction of the docks. The men watched it dully. But then three of them, without a word, detached themselves and went across to it. One of the three was the big fellow Stephen had seen with the plain girl and her sisters the December before. The man, he had since learned, was called Madden. When they reached the cart, Madden spoke to the driver. Stephen couldn’t hear what was said, but the big fellow seemed to be quietly reasoning rather than threatening. After a few moments, the driver nodded, the men led the horses round, and the cart began to return from where it had come. The three men, meanwhile, went silently back to their work.

  Stephen hesitated. It was obvious that what he had just witnessed was illegal. Should he intervene? He decided to wait and ask
Hennessy about it later.

  “It happens quite a bit,” Hennessy told him. “They won’t let grain leave the area. There hasn’t been any violence to speak of, but one or two horses have been maimed as a warning. And you can’t find anyone in the county that dares to give the farmers a valuation for the horses, so they can’t collect any insurance. Technically, it’s intimidation, of course. But usually, we just ignore it. You can hardly blame them. That grain leaving for the port might be the last bit of nourishment their children ever see.”

  Certainly, the men gave him no other trouble. Madden was a dignified figure: a splendid physique, greying now and made gaunt by lack of sustenance. But though it was clear that, amongst the men who worked with him, he had a certain moral ascendancy, he always moved with gentleness. But it seemed that fate had decided that they should come into conflict.

  Another week passed before Stephen came face-to-face with the Captain.

  The short, peppery naval man whose duty it was to organise some fifty thousand men into work parties across the county was not likely to be popular.

  “My job, Mr. Smith,” he said, “is to see that those most in need are given work. I won’t tolerate troublemakers, and I won’t tolerate abuses. Yesterday, I discovered that two of the men on a work detail were farmers with land of their own. One man had fifty acres. But he was a friend of a gentleman on the local committee who thought he’d like to pick up some extra cash in his spare time. Monstrous. I threw him out, and I told the committee man what I thought of him, too. There’ll be no fear or favour while I’m over here, is that clear?”

  “Yes,” said Stephen.

  “Good.” The Captain was riffling through a sheaf of papers. “You have a man named Madden in one of your details?”

  “I do.”

  “Another fraud. He has a small landholding. Enough to support him. I want him off.”

  “I believe he lost his holding some time ago.”

  “Could be. The fools who compiled these sheets aren’t much use. Some of the information’s out of date. There’s a recent report on him anyway from a man named Callan. An agent. Says he’s a troublemaker. Possibly violent. Have you seen anything like that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Hmm. You hesitated. Throw him out. There are plenty of others who need the work. Now then.” He passed to other matters. But when he had finished and Stephen was leaving, he called him back. “Don’t forget about Madden, because I shan’t.” He eyed Stephen sharply. “In that connection, before you go, there’s one other thing I’d better explain.”

  He dismissed Madden the following morning. “You’ll be paid for this day, and I’ll add two more days’ pay,” he informed him, “but you’re to leave now. I’m sorry.”

  “I have my family to feed,” the big man said. “I ask you to reconsider.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t.”

  “You are sentencing my children to death.”

  This was, it seemed to Stephen, a slight exaggeration, but he said nothing. The truth was that he disliked the business very much. Madden turned slowly to leave. It had to be said, he was dignified in his grief.

  As Stephen had guessed he would, the Captain himself passed by, in the early afternoon. “Madden gone?” he enquired. Stephen nodded. “Good,” the Captain said with a brief nod, and went on his way.

  At the end of the day, Stephen took his time going back into Ennis. He walked slowly and thoughtfully. The sequence of events, though inevitable, had disturbed him. The dusk had fallen as he passed some miserable little cabins, then a short stretch of empty roadway, before coming to a wall. As he reached the wall, a figure stepped out.

  He started. It was certainly a remarkable apparition. The figure was large, far bigger than he. It was wearing a white dress. Its face was blackened. It stood before him, barring his path.

  “You know what this means?” asked the figure.

  Of course he knew. Every Irishman knew the traditional warning of the Whiteboys: a man in woman’s clothing, with a blackened face, appeared before you; if you ignored the warning, you must expect the consequences.

  “Take heed,” said the figure. Then it turned away and strode up the road, turning off beside a cottage and vanishing into the dusk.

  Stephen continued on his way home.

  The next day passed without incident. He briefly considered reporting the matter, but after what the Captain had told him, he decided against it. If the men on the work detail knew he’d been threatened, they gave no sign. The next day was equally uneventful. The day after that, he was not working. And by now, he had decided what to do. It seemed to him that he had two important tasks.

  First thing in the morning, he set out on foot, walking briskly northwards to the outskirts of the town. He discovered without difficulty where the cottage he sought was. On reaching it, he found the door and looked in.

  “God save all here.” He gave the traditional greeting as he entered.

  Eamonn Madden looked greatly surprised to see him. He was sitting on a stool, his head bowed, before the small glow of the turf fire. Standing beside him was the plain young woman, his daughter.

  “May I sit down?” There was a bench by the fire also. He rested himself upon it.

  “We have nothing to offer you, Sir,” said the woman.

  “I know.”

  The doorway was open. Further light, of a sort, came from the single window. It had no glass, but across it, in the traditional manner, was stretched a thin sheepskin, which let in some light and kept out the wind. By this dim light, however, he could see that the room, with its earthen floor, was spotlessly clean. On one wall was a cheap print of the Blessed Virgin; on another, a print of Daniel O’Connell. He gazed at the woman. How old was she? In her midtwenties, he supposed, but stress and hunger had made her face haggard. Like her father, however, she had a quiet dignity. “You know who I am?” he asked, and she nodded. “Might I ask your name?”

  “I am Maureen Madden,” she replied.

  “May I know how many others there are in the family? You had a little brother, I remember, when I met you once in the marketplace.”

  “That is little Daniel, Sir. Then there are my sisters Mary and Caitlin. My other sister, Nuala, works for a family in the town.”

  “May I see the other children?”

  She looked at her father, who said nothing.

  “They are resting, Sir, in the other room. They sleep all together, to keep warm.”

  “They are asleep at this time of the day?”

  “It is cold outside. And they have not so much energy.” She went into the next room. Madden glanced at him but said nothing, nor did Stephen say anything to the big man.

  When Maureen returned, it was with the three children. They were pale and thin, but what struck him at once was that they moved with a strange slowness. Their eyes seemed slightly unfocussed. Perhaps it was that they had been asleep, but he did not think so. The girls looked at him dully, the little boy with eyes that were large and reproachful.

  “How many meals a day have they received?”

  “One, Sir. Up until now, while father was working.”

  “What do you feed them?”

  “Whatever I can find. There are no more potatoes. Sometimes there is Indian meal or other grain. Sometimes there are turnips and a little watercress.

  “And how do you pass the time with them?”

  “I read to them. I teach them also.”

  “You read and write, then.”

  “I do, Sir. Little Daniel has all his letters now, do you not, Daniel?” The boy nodded. “He makes them upon the table with his finger. I watch, and I can see if the letters are correct.”

  “Thank you. If the children wish to rest, I would speak with your father now.”

  When they were alone, he addressed Eamonn.

  “That is all the food you could get with the wages you were paid?”

  “It was.”

  “I see. Your children are wasting.” r />
  “A gentleman such as yourself would have no knowledge of people in our condition, I suppose.”

  “Not so. My family is more like yours than you imagine.” And Stephen told him briefly about his family and relations up in Rathconan.

  “An labhraionn tu gaeilge?” Madden asked. Do you speak Irish?

  “I did as a child. A little. But I have forgotten it now. We speak it less in Leinster.”

  “And your family. Do they starve also?”

  “No.” There was considerable hardship up in the Wicklow Mountains, but it was more localised. Little as he liked the Budge family, they had seen to it that the people at Rathconan kept body and soul together. Down in Wexford, where agriculture was mixed, there was little hardship. By the huge Mount Walsh estate, you could be sure, none of the earl’s tenants would need to worry. Other parts of the country varied, with the worst conditions in the west. “Now I must ask you a question. Does anyone know that you put on a dress the other night?” Eamonn looked at him evenly from under his heavy eyebrows but said nothing. “I knew it was you,” Stephen went on. “Does Maureen know?” Eamonn indicated that she did not. “The other men?”

  “They do not.”

  “I didn’t report you. Not out of fear. But I will tell you something you should know. I was half expecting something of the kind. My orders are that if any threat is received, I’m to tell the Captain, and he will close down the entire work detail from which the threat comes. That would have been fifty men out of work. And I’ve no doubt that he’ll do it.”

  “The man is a devil.”

  “No, you are wrong. He is quite determined to be fair. He’ll fight the local gentry just as fiercely.”

  “He threw another man out of work because he possessed a cow. Said if he had a cow, he had means of feeding his family. Were the man’s seven children to choose between milk and starvation?”

  “That is my point. He means well, in fact. But he has not the least understanding of the conditions under which Irish people live. By the way, he says that Callan the agent believes you to be dangerous.”

  “It’s Callan that threw me off my land. I’ve done nothing to him, but he probably fears that I will. There were threats made against others up there, though not by me.”