The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent Part 15

To this were appended fifty signatures, and the best part of all is that the whole of the manifesto was absolutely unsolicited by me, proving an unexpected source of pleasure.

CHAPTER X

KERRY ELECTIONS

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 contradicts you, it's up with your stick and a crack on his skull, and as that only tickles him up--having much the effect of a nettle under a donkey's tail--you then go outside and mutually destroy as much of each other as can be effected in a fight. Some weeks later, when the vanquished is able to crawl away from the dispensary doctor, and so save his own life amid the dire forebodings of that physician, who refuses to answer for the consequences, you begin to drink with him again just to show there is no ill-feeling; which of course there is not, if you and he are both real Kerry men. Naturally, if you get a sullen, revengeful, calculating Protestant from the North, it's another matter, for he'll be far too friendly with the constabulary and won't hold with the good old local ways approved by every Kerry Papist and tolerated by most of the priests.

In 1851 there was a Kerry election. A Protestant candidate stood, and so did one who in those days was a Whig. I went stoutly for the Protectionist, but the priests plumped for the Free Trader, and their congregations have been regretting it ever since.

One tenant was driving in a gig with me to the poll when a priest pa.s.sed me on the road and said to my tenant:--

'May the blast of the Almighty be upon you, for I know you are being taken to vote the wrong way.'

The tenant got very nervous, for in those times it was generally believed that the priests had power to change men into frogs and toads, a superst.i.tion by no means obsolete even now in lone districts. However, I took him along very easily, giving him the benefit of the roll of my tongue as to what he should do, and before he reached the polling-booth he recovered and voted for the Tory.

A Mr. Scully from Tipperary was the Whig candidate, and the family was not popular in its own county.

A Cork man, making inquiries of a Tipperary man about him, was answered:--

'I don't know this gentleman personally, but I believe we have already shot the best of the family.'

Mr. Scully was a very amusing man, and in the House of Commons he used to go by the nickname of 'old Skull.'

Lord Monk accosted him by this name one night, and Mr. Scully replied:--

'If you have taken the "e y" off your own name, my lord, it is no reason you should do it off mine.'

Here is another story of him.

Mr. Dillwyn said to him, a Roman Catholic:--'I have lived sixty years in this world, and I don't yet know the difference between the two religions.'

'Bydad,' retorted Scully, 'you will not have been five minutes in the other without finding it out.'

Shortly after the franchise was enlarged--which threw Imperial Parliament at the mercy of the ignorant--old Lord Kenmare died and the present peer was called up to the House of Lords.

Lord Kenmare was the most popular landlord in Kerry, and he selected a Roman Catholic cousin of his, Mr. Dease, to stand for the county, Mr.

Roland Blennerha.s.set, a young Protestant landlord, being started against him in support of Home Rule principles.

The Roman Catholic bishop and most of the priests backed Mr. Dease, but the Home Rule candidate beat him by three to one. Some of the priests, who were very obnoxious to the people, supported Mr. Blennerha.s.set, and were then idolised, whilst a very popular parish priest, who canva.s.sed for Mr. Dease, had to run for his life.

From thenceforth no one but a Home Rule candidate had any chance in Munster, and Mr. Roland Blennerha.s.set, having seen the error of his ways, afterwards became a Unionist candidate in England. He is a very clever man, who was quite young then, but has now blossomed into a K.C.

in London, and is mighty shrewd about speculations.

The election was great fun except for the stones and bricks, of which enough were thrown about to build a city without foundations. Mr. Dease got a blow on his ribs at Castle Island, which told on his health, and he died soon afterwards. He was a brother of Sir Gerald Dease, and a man very much liked.

It was during this election that I was fired at one night at Aghadoe, returning from Puck Fair at Killorghin. A rumour was started that it was the work of one of the tenants on Sir George Colthurst's Cork estates, and the Tralee correspondent of the _Examiner_ telegraphed his belief in this, adding 'so repugnant are Kerry men to these dastardly outrages.'

They took to them as greedily as a duck to water in later times, as all the world knows; and in the light of subsequent events it is delightful to remember that the _Freeman_ stated, 'All condemn this dastardly act, for Mr. Hussey is universally respected.'

It atoned for this lapse into truth by subsequently taking my name in vain hundreds of times in the bad periods that were ahead.

There had been a libel case between the Rev. Denis O'Donoghue, parish priest of Ardfert, and myself. The address of this cleric in proposing Mr. Blennerha.s.set at the nomination had annoyed those he a.s.sailed intensely. Up to that point I had been utterly indifferent, but after that I strained every nerve to defeat Father O'Donoghue's nominee.

This is an extract from his speech at Ardfert:--

'Sam Hussey is a vulture with a broken beak, and he laid his voracious talons on the consciences of the voters. (Boos.) The ugly scowl of Sam Hussey came down upon them. He wanted to try the influence of his dark nature on the poor people. (Groans). Where was the legitimate influence of such a man? Was it in the white terror he diffused? Was it not the espionage, the network of spies with which he surrounded his lands? He denied that a man who managed property had for that reason a shadow of a shade of influence to justify him in asking a tenant for his vote. What had they to thank him for?'

A voice: 'Rack rents.'

'They knew the man from his boyhood, from his _gossoonhood_. He knew him when he began with a _collop_ of sheep as his property in the world.

(Laughter.) Long before he got G.o.d's mark on him. It was not the man's fault but his misfortune that he got no education. (Laughter.) He had in that parish schoolmasters who could teach him grammar for the next ten years. The man was in fact a Uriah Heep among Kerry landlords.

(Cheers.)'

The result of this and other incentives to irritability was that the voters for Mr. Dease had to be escorted by troops and constabulary.

The sporting proclivities had already been shown over a race. In the County Club at Tralee there was an altercation between Mr. Sandes and a leading 'Deasite' as to the rival merits of a bay mare belonging to one and a chestnut horse owned by the other.

Quoth Mr. Sandes:--

'I'll run you a two mile steeplechase for a hundred guineas if you like, and I'll call my horse Home Rule--do you call yours Deasite; each to ride his own horse.'

No Kerry man could refuse such a challenge, and the race excited more interest than the election.

Mr. Sandes won, leaving 'Deasite' nowhere, and this helped Mr.

Blennerha.s.set to head the poll.

More than one man is a.s.serted to have voted for:--'Him you know that me landlord wants me to vote for.'

But I should say several dozen voted for:--

'Him you know that the priest, G.o.d bless him, tells me to vote for.'

The libel over which the action arose was alleged to have been published in the _Cork Examiner_, and the words complained of were pretty st.u.r.dy.

The jury returned a verdict of one farthing for the plaintiff priest, and I do not think he derived as much advertis.e.m.e.nt out of it as Miss Marie Corelli obtained from a similar coin of the realm.

Of course all this should have shown me that I had in my own interests better keep clear of Kerry politics, but after I had bought the Harenc estate, I stood for Tralee as a Tory against The O'Donoghue, who was a Nationalist. I never supposed I was going to get in, but I really had a capital run for the Parliamentary Handicap, though I was weighted by political convictions and penalised by my creed. The priests made a most active set against me. There were only fifty Protestants on the register, and yet I managed to get one hundred and thirty votes, for which suffrages some eighty honest men must have been well worrited in the confessional.

The O'Donoghue polled one hundred and eighty votes, and I believe a good many of his supporters had strong views on the currency question, and he was backed by a wealthy merchant. The const.i.tuency is now merged into the county, and the remotest chance of returning a rational member is now at an end.

The O'Donoghue did not stand after the merging of the const.i.tuency, though he was well used to electioneering work and had fought me very pleasantly, with as much devil about him as would make an angel palatable.

I did not much care for the whole thing. Still I was always a bit of a stormy petrel rejoicing in a gale, and my capacity has not waned even in my eightieth year.