The morning star and Catholic messenger., 1878-04-21
ENGLISH VS. IRISH LANDLORDS IN
IRELAND,

and his TWO attendants las, tno LONDON
Times states, created as much wonder and
sensation in England as would sudden
declaration of war. Among the Irish race
here it has stirred no such feeling. How
ever much they may sorrow for what is q
religious wrong, it's human right half
redeems it; and Edmund Burke's splendid
description, in his Warren Hastings
speech, of the bursting of the cloud
which hung above the Himalayas, aud
swept across the plains OF India, carrying
devastation in its path, ia not more true
than would, if rightly told, be the picture
of Donegal by this Lord Leitrim over his
lands,-lands which he had never earned
by industry, mental or physical which he
had never inherited from ancient sires
but which were wrested from their lawful
possessors by brute force, and SO held,
instead, as they might have been, by
tenure of gentleness. Some of his heart
less ravages in G weedore,-for they deserve
that name rather than the miider one of
evictions,-are too terrible for recital.
Lord Leitrim was Of Crom wellian cast,
tall in statue, of great strength, dauntless
courage and defiant mien. He sGaked
himself against most generous and gentle
race, rode wiifuiiy up to the very gates Of
death and found it. The Leitrim family,
in every sense, carried on o war against the
Irish people and the men who slew him
accepted it, and considered it as war. Even
Elizabeth Ciements-for he was unmarried
-endeavored, as many of these parched
English maidens do in Ireland, to compen
safe for their sensuous solitude by Efforts
to propagate what they style "the Gospel"
when they can propagate nothing else, and
Irish peoples faith,-that pure diamond
which has never been broken, and which,
turn and torture it as you will, will ever
send forth the same clear and quenchless
light.
OF course this Leitrim case will call up
the whole question of eviction from Irish
land. Now with respect to these usages it
is a curious circumstance that on those
estates in the West aad South of Ireland
where Crom wells hand had never reached,
on the estates of the O'Conoors, the
| O'Brieps. the O'Flahertys, the O'Gormans,
| O'Connelis, of the South and on those of
| the Dufferins aud the Sharman Crawfords
in the North the records OF the Irish
Courts cannot show solitary eviction to
| have taken place. Some of these ancient
| lords of the soil have shed tears at parting
| from people coming to this country, bones
of their loins, which necessity tore from
them. Ga the whole vast estates of Mary
| Martin, styled the "Princess of Come
mara" numbering greater number of
acres than any other proprietor under the
British Crown, an eviction never took
place. When, in 1s47, the angel of death
| descended on her people and lett the lintels
| of no door post unstained, she preferred to
come out here and die unaung and uutold
of, in want and detection, at the Union
Square Hotel rather than witness their
sorrows or wound them in their affections.
Aud if ever what are termed "Britieh
| interests" strove to wresGle with her tender
| affections, the battle was weak one. 1t
was Jacob wrestling with the angel. She
| sleeps in Greenwood, with cross above
h<,
tains and the evening sun, on its way to
rest, touches her grave and carries her
good night to the land she was 80 fond Of
| Now, if no evictions are necessary on tn ese
estates of old historic proprietors, on whose
estates feudsl love exists which makes
their wishes and their wants and those of
the tenantry almost common, why shonld
it be permitted to o crew of English
carpet bagSers to desolate ruthlessly q
beautiful nations homes They may be
humble, etill they are the homes of the
people. We have listened to them here
speak and sing of their BONES ; and never
did the softest airs that foated round the
revels of the East thrill the heart with
snch mingled agony and rapture as did
those simple tOnes,-mementoes, perhaps,
of poverty and want and toll, but still
mementoes of their native land. Taking
the worst view of it, do these evictions
increase wealth We believe not. We
need not quote Goldsmith's warning of
the danger to country of the decay of
men and the accumulation of wealth and
the loss of noble peasantry. But, to any
one acquainted with Irish habits, it is
known chat tenantry treated with ten
derness are always ready and even rejoiced
to give of every thing beyond their simple,
frugal wants, which are less than those,
perhaps, of any other people Whereas,
when some solitary settler takes the place
of an ancient village, with more profuse
habits and often reckless ways, his defec-
tion,-which constantly sccurs,-creates a
greater loss than any deficiency of the
l. native peasant tenantry would produce.
! These evictions are the self-inflicted
scourges of avarice, they without increasing
wealth, increase tremendously poverty
not that willing poverty which weans the
, soul from earth and fixes the desires on
high,-not that poverty which was here.
: tofore to be found in mountain villages, in
solitary dwellings midway up the bleak
fell side, where one green speck, one garden
~lOL r II