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PREFACE
PREFACE
Probably the first criticism on this book will be that it is colloquial. The reason for this lies in the fact that though Mr. Hussey has for two generations been one of the most noted raconteurs in Ireland, he has never been addicted to writing, and for that reason has always declined to arrange his memoirs, though several times approached by publishers and strongly urged to do so by his friends, notably Mr. Froude and Mr. John Bright. If his reminiscences are to be at all characteristic they mu
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
'My father and mother were both Kerry men,' as the saying goes in my native land, and better never stepped. It was my misfortune, but not my fault, that I was born at Bath and not in Kerry. However, my earliest recollection is of Dingle, for I was only three months old when I was taken back to Ireland, and up to that time I did not study the English question very deeply, especially as I had an Irish nurse. There is a lot of Hussey history before I was born, and some is worth preserving here. It
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
My father, Peter Bodkin Hussey, was for a long time a barrister at the Irish Bar, practising in the Four Courts, where more untruths are spoken than anywhere else in the three kingdoms, except in the House of Commons during an Irish debate. All law in Ireland is a grave temptation to lying, and the greatest number of Courts produced a stupendous amount of mendacity—or it was so in earlier times, at all events. Did you ever hear the tale of the old woman who came to Daniel O'Connell, outside the
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Perhaps the biggest wrench in life is going to school. It may not seem so very much afterwards—as the boy said of the tooth when he looked at it in the dentist's forceps—but the wrench is really bad. I learned my letters from my mother, and picked up a few other smatterings before I had daily lessons from a tutor at Dingle. Strange to say, a very good classical education could have been obtained there in the thirties, better, so far as I can estimate, than could have been expected from a town do
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
My years of schooling having come to an end, I was back in Ireland in full enjoyment of youth, high spirits, and thoughtless carelessness. These holiday times were delightful. I could be in the saddle all day if I liked, was free to shoot or bathe as I pleased, had dogs at my disposal, could pass the time of day with all sorts and conditions of men—a thing which I have relished all my life—and in fact led the gay existence of the younger offshoot of an Irish squire. In those days things were not
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
Had I been able to obtain a reasonably large farm near Dingle, I should never have become a land agent, and I most certainly should never have given evidence before any Commission. In default of adequate land accommodation, I embarked on my profession by becoming assistant land agent to my brother-in-law, the Knight of Kerry, who was agent to Sir George Colthurst. I lived with the Knight at Inniscarra in County Cork, not far from Blarney. From that time onward I worked steadily, and as I take my
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
It is now necessary to revert to that terrible page of Irish history, the famine, which culminated in what is still known as 'the black forty-seven.' I have often been asked, 'How is it that Ireland could formerly support a population of eight millions as compared with only five now?' The answer is simple: Eight millions could still exist if the potato crop were a certainty, and if the people were now content to exist as they did then. But to the then existing population—living at best in a ligh
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
I am quite aware the opinion I am about to deliver will cause great surprise, but I give it after mature consideration, supported by all my knowledge of Ireland. It is this:— The old Fenianism was politically of little account, socially of no danger, except to a few individuals who could be easily protected, and has been grossly exaggerated, either wilfully or through ignorance. Matters were very different after Mr. Gladstone, by successive acts, of what I maintain were criminal legislation, del
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
In 1850 I became agent to the Colthurst property, which consisted of most of the parish of Ballyvourney, one estate alone containing about twenty-three thousand acres. The rental was then over £4600. There were only three slated houses on the property, hardly any out-buildings, only seven miles of road under contract, and about twenty acres planted. By 1880 the landlord had expended £30,000 on improvements, there were over one hundred slated houses, about sixty miles of roads, and over four hund
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
So large a part has the purchase of this estate made in my more public appearances, owing to the fact that I have been brought into general notice through offensive legal proceedings, that a brief account of the matter must form part of my reminiscences. Prior to 1878, a gentleman named Harenc, the owner of a large extent of landed property in the north of Kerry, died. Who the estate subsequently belonged to I am uncertain. Anyhow, according to the title-deeds, it was somehow divided among ten o
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
An election in most places is an occasion for breaking heads, abusing opponents, and other similar demonstrations of ardent local philanthropy. Such opportunities are never lost by Kerry men, whose heads are harder and whose wits are sharper than those of the average run of humanity. If you are a real Kerry man of respectable convictions, and self-respecting into the bargain, you will never let the man who is drinking with you entertain any opinions but your own at election times. If he contradi
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
Of course one of the great troubles in Ireland is drink. I am no advocate for teetotalism, for I think a man who can enjoy a moderate glass is a better one than his brother who has to drink water in order that he may not yield to the overpowering 'tempitation'—to quote Mr. Huntley Wright—to get drunk! But for my fellow-countrymen I can see that drink is a terrible curse, one which is the cause of half the crime, half the illness, and more than half the misery that exists there. Of all Irish bene
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
I have been asked, since my friends became aware that I am perpetrating my reminiscences, whether I was going to write anything supplemental to Mr. MacCarthy's Priests and People , and Five Tears in Ireland . My reply was:— 'Certainly not.' To begin with, I have many friends among Roman Catholics, and plenty of cheery acquaintances among the priests. Secondly, the state of feud and hostility on which Mr. MacCarthy dilates is more likely to be found in Ulster and Leinster than in Kerry, where the
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
An Englishman once asked me, if I could suggest any way by which all Ireland could be made loyal. I inquired if he thought the Irish constabulary a loyal body. 'Most decidedly,' said he, without hesitation. 'Then,' I replied, 'if you will pay every Irishman seventy pounds a year for doing nothing, but look after other people's affairs—a thing by nature congenial to him as it is—you'll have the most loyal race on earth.' That Englishman went away thoughtful, but I had shown him the solution of on
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
It's the proudest boast of my life that I am an Irishman, and the compliment which I have most appreciated in my time was being called 'the poor man's friend,' for I love Paddy dearly though I see his faults. Yes, perhaps one of the reasons why I love him is because I do see the faults, for the errors of an Irishman are often almost as good as the virtues of an Englishman, and are far more diverting into the bargain. You must not judge Paddy by the same standard as you apply to John. To begin wi
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Any Irishman who has reached the shady side of threescore years and ten must remember many Lord-Lieutenants—the pompously visible symbols of much vacillating misdirection. To analyse them would be the work of an historian, to criticise would be superfluous. They have been so many Malvolios, all alike anxious to win the favour of that capricious Lady Olivia Erin, and not one of them has succeeded, though several have merited better fortune than they met with on Irish soil. The first Lord-Lieutena
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Although the exact measure of my appreciation of the Irish policy of the most dangerous Englishman of the nineteenth century has already been clearly indicated by casual remarks in previous chapters, that will not absolve me from duly setting forth some sketch of the inestimable amount of evil which resulted from the interest he unfortunately took in my unhappy land. If Napoleon was the scourge of Europe, Mr. Gladstone was the most malevolent imp of mischief that ever ruined any one country, and
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
It has been stated that it is only within the last forty years that the bulk of the people of Ireland, long outside the pale of the ballot-box, have actively entered political life. This is quite true. The whole of the Home Rule troubles followed the presentation of practically universal suffrage to the half-educated and over-enthusiastic Irish, who are easily led away, apt to believe mob-orators, and, by inherited instinct, to go against the Government. What the effect of universal suffrage in
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Davitt called the generation after O'Connell's 'a soulless age of pitiable cowardice.' I should call the generation that was active in the early eighties 'a cowardly age of pitiless brutality.' Times had begun to mend in Ireland from 1850, and had continued to do so until the ballot made the country a prey to self-seeking political agitators. Mr. Gladstone considered that if you gave a scoundrel a vote it made him into a philanthropist, whereas events proved it made him an eager accessory of mur
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Once launched upon memories of those horrible perpetrations by so-called Christians, which disgraced alike my native country and all Christendom (because the criminals nominally worshipped the same God, and professed reverence to Him), I could enumerate instances until I had filled a volume. You know how the Ghost told Hamlet that he could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would harrow up his soul. Why, I could tell five score, and still not have exhausted the roll of crime. As my experience is
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
In the early part of the winter of 1884, so bad did the state of Kerry become, and so menacing was the attitude of the Land Leaguers towards myself, that I felt I had no right to endanger the lives of my wife and daughters by any longer permitting them to reside at Edenburn. In all those years, from 1878 to 1884, be it noted that I gave more employment in Kerry than any one man, a fact which has been testified to by different parish priests, but at the same time I was agent for a great many land
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
I brought my family back to Kerry in the following summer, and after I had rebuilt Edenburn I lived there until I gave it to my elder son, who has it to this day and resides there in peace. Matters were very different to that state of idyllic simplicity in the critical times on which I am still dwelling. One night, while in London, I was at the House of Commons, and the London correspondent of the Freeman , being presumably extremely short of what he would term 'copy,' he proceeded to make obser
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
I have probably given evidence to as many Commissions as any living man, for I have been before seven, and never once was asked a question that posed me. I enjoyed the experience of being asked about what I knew by those who knew nothing on the subject, and if the legal mind was a little more obtuse than the civil, well, it was only the choice between a grey donkey and a black. The earliest Commission I gave evidence before was one on Agriculture. Professor Bohnamy Price was one of the Commissio
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
With advancing years comes a change in the point of view, for anticipation contracts even more than retrospect expands. Associates of early days have passed away, and where I was once one of a battalion, to-day I am only a survivor of the old guard. This is not a cause for sadness, but an incentive to take the best of what remains of life, though at times chills and other ills, including doctors, drugs, and income-tax, do their best to depress the survivor. It has been said to be a characteristi
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