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Show Roscommon Jaunting. .Car Hide An American's Graphic Description of Fertile Lands Laid Waste by Landlordism. Hugh Sutherland, an American traveling trav-eling in Ireland, gives his experience of a "jaunting car ride" through Roscommon, Ros-common, in the following article to the Philadelphia North American: From the top of a fairy mound, where the elves dance of a summer night, I have seen the problem of the land as in a picture ten miles wide. And from a seat on Pat Tuohy's jaunting jaunt-ing car, from hazy noon to frosted silver sil-ver evening, I have. seen the panorama of the tragic earth unroll for thirty Irish miles. That's a day's work. What a picture it was. I thought of the vales of Chester and the velvet fields of Lancaster. Here they were over again, mile upon mile of the fairest fair-est land the mind can conceive, rich with promise of fertility, green still to the very verge of winter, smiling, beautiful and empty. That is the tragedy of it. I had spent weary days and nights in places where humanity in wretchedness incarnate, in-carnate, and men and women huddle, crowd amid grim barrenness. There are ranges , here where the wind may sweep for leagues over living fields and never know the taint of the turf smoke. The crows that wheel back against the sky must mount far to spy out a chimney chim-ney or a haystack. The hares that run wild know no strangers but the rough-coated rough-coated cattle that graze in scattered herds. It is fertility and loneliness; the land that mourns for the people, as they mourn Tor the land. "Come," said John Fitzgibbon, "come and I'll show you what we fight for and why." It was Sunday in Castlerea, and the shuttered street lay silent and empty, the folk having gone from mass to dinner. din-ner. The sun at its highest point hung as though setting, and the street was in wintry shadow. We climbed on the jaunting car, wrapping the rugs I well, for the wind was keen and piercing, pierc-ing, and clattered out on the road to the eastward. At the first corner stood a stalwart member of the royal Irish constabulary, in his boots and cloak and peaked cap. He glanced at us sharply, then disappeared with ostentatious osten-tatious indifference. I shall have a good deal to say of John Fitzgibbon, for he is a man to write about. But for the present we shall just glance at him as he balances himself on the swaying car. A stout man, with a rugged, burly figure,-a round, healthy, keen, kindly red face, a close-trimmed beard of gray-streaked copper, and the blue eyes that twinkle or grow hard as he talks. For the rest, he is a man of the people, chairman of the Roscommon county council, an enthusiastic en-thusiastic official of the United Irish League, a speaker of . natural force, a devout Christian, a total abstainer, and a zealot for temperance. Add to this that he is a prosperous and respected re-spected merchant, and has served four ! terms in prison for his politacl views, I and you have a rough sketch of one of the finest Irishmen I have ever met between Cork and Derry. For half a mile or so we skirted the Sanford demesne, where great trees stand thick behind the time-blackened wall, then swung into the country road, with its border of leafless hawthorn haw-thorn hedge. When we were quite clear of the village I turned and looked behind, for I knew what to expect. Two hundred yards back was a man on a bicycle; a grim built man in a uniform of black, with peaked cap. The present government does not approve ap-prove of explorations by American newspaper men, particularly under the guidance of such dangerous criminals as John Fitzgibbon. Hence the presence pres-ence of the R. I. C. man, Retailed to follow us, though we traveled till another dawn. "There lie is," I said. John Fitzgibbon Fitzgib-bon glanced back. "Oho." he said, "Tis" Reilly, the brave lad. Well, he has a ride before him." "Bab luck to him," said Pat Tuohy, to his pipe. "I am quite interested in Reilly," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "He tried his level worst to send me to jail- for six months awhile back hard labor, too, on the stone pile. He's one of the most promising members of the force hereabouts, and some day he'll be an inspector, I doubt not. He's devoted to his duty, you see, and I don't know his equal for giving the testimony that's wanted. It was my privilege to prove him a liar in open court on the occasion I'm speaking of, whereby I'm taking this ride with you instead of swinging a sledge in Castlebar jail." All this was said quite pleasantly. There was no visible rancor about it, but I began to approach to the cold enmity en-mity that exists between the people and the government police who harass them. A few miles out the car stopped at the foot of a lane and we walked 400 yards to the top of the hill, then climbed a low stone wall. Before us was a circular mound of green, 100 feet in diameter at the ba,sp, perhaps forty or fifty feet high. We climbed up. The top was perfectly round, twenty feet across, with a depression which made the outer edge a ridge. The thing was puzzling. ,:i "This is a fairy mound," laughed Mr. Fitzgibbon. I suggested an ancient burial place, with ' unimagined treasures treas-ures of the bronze age concealed in it. "Tut, man," he said, "there isn't a native in the country would drive a pick into the turf of Mullaghaduhy hill, so whatever is inside will stay there. It was built by the fairies, you know. Well, personally, I think it was a sort of watch tower in the old days; or perhaps a cannon was mounted here. Look what a range it had." . . Around and below us, on every side, Jay the country, flooded with the pale yellow light of the winter sun. The view embraced eight or ten miles in all directions, a rolling green plain, fading away into grassy hills. Here and there were small clumps or rows of trees. Low stone waMs followed the contour of the land, making big and little fields of irregular shape. The dark streaks were ditches, the winding thread of silver a little stream. I counted ten houses within vision on that great stretch. Each had two or three acres of tilled ground. The rest was grass. The only living thing In sight were tiny- scattered flocks of I sheep.. Mr. Fitzgibbon, ?-vislated. "We are overlooking several estates," he said, "Balff, Irwin, Sandford, Murphy Mur-phy corners of all of them are in sight. Oh, yes, there were farms here once. Hundreds of them. .But all the people were evicted. They emigrated to America or moved or died. The dozen or so farms you see are held by men having long leases. They're ail happy knd prosperous, though the rents are very high. The others th're was no help for them." "Why were they evicted? Wouldn't they pay their rents?" "Most of them couldn't. The great clearing out started at the time of the famine, fifty years ago. The people couldn't' get food, let alone money for landlords. Then the world demanded cattle, and the landlords decided to turn these fertile lands into grazing ranches. That doomed those who had fought their way through the famine. So they all went. But come; we've just started." On the way down we chatted a moment mo-ment with a wrinkled old herder, whose hut was on the slope of the hill. Mr. Fitzgibbon asked about his health, and ventured remarks on the weather, present and future. As we passed on down, the policeman, who had followed fol-lowed us up, held a stern official inquiry, in-quiry, with the old herder as witness. I hope the evidence he gathered was duly forwarded to Dublin castle, and that it did not make the authorities very nervous. At the foot of the hill, from the car, I took a snapshot of the vigilant official on his wheel. He .did not like it. Thereafter, whenever he appeared within fifty yards, I leveled the camera at him busily, and this annoyed an-noyed him so much that the monotony of the trip was greatly relieved. Leaving Murraghaduny hill I should like to go there some moonlit night in June and verify the fairy legends, which I am inclined to believe our course lay off to the southward, over low, rolling hills and long levels. The j road was hard-with frost, and rang to ! the horse's hoofs. The surrounding scene was still the same beyond the low stone walls lay miles of green fields, with not a sign of farm or crops. Every few miles a little thatched house stood by the roadside, with a iny patch of vegetable garden and a cluster of hayricks, brown in the sun. These were the huts of the herders. Each man has 250 to 300 acres under his care. "That's it.." said Mr. Fitzgibbon, "the (Continued on page 4.) R0SSC0MM0N JAUNTING CAR RIDE. . (Continued from Page 1.) best land in Roscommon, fit to support thousands. And on that land where ten families might live in decent comfort com-fort the only occupants are a man and a dog. A man and a dog. Not a crop on twenty miles of it, and the people wanting for food over yonder." As we rounded the top of a hill a glimpse of historic Ireland broke the monotony of the depopulated land. Between Be-tween us and the low hanging sun was a ruin, a great . quadrangle of thick stone walls, with the remnants of a high tower at each corner. On the south front, covered with drapery of green ivy, the wall was less eaten by age than the rest. "Balllntober castle," said Mr. Fitz-gibbon. Fitz-gibbon. "The castle of the O'Connors, kings of Connacht." Grim, silent, deserted, this pile of blackened stones overlooking the fertile empty land seemed pathetically out of place. It should have crumbled to dust and disappeared with the fighting chieftains who ruled the Ireland of the Irish. The property, by the way, Is still in the royal family. It is owned by the O'Connor Don, a famous member of the older generation of today, i Still the miles were reeled off and we saw nothing but green fields on every side, with houses Just often enough to emphasize the loneliness. One hovel was such a wretched looking place ! that we stopped. The walls gaped with fissures, and the thatch of the roof was falling in. I thought it must be un-: un-: tenanted, but a woman came to the door. She was a weired-looking crea- ture, with gray haid that hung in ragged strips over her head and face. Her feet were bare. Mr. Fltzgibbon spoke to her. She answered sullenly. "Who lives here?" "I do." "What rent do you pay?" "I don't know. My brother pays it." "How much land have you?" "Not a perch." Then she turned and went back into the hut. As we drove along I had noticed peculiar formations in the. ground. Here and there, across the fields, lay low ridges, sometimes 200 or 300 yards long. In some places they looked like lines of graves. In others they melted Into the level ground. They were grass-grown. I asked what they were. "The remains of walls and ditches of the old farms," answered Mr. Fitzgibbon. Fitz-gibbon. "You will find them all over thf lands. When the tenants were i i and the grass grew over the places. You will see here and there a clump or row of trees. They mark where the farm houses used to stand. The houses were leveled and the walls that enclose the road we are on were built of stones that once sheltered evicted tenants." It was ghastly. I began to see the marks of devastation everywhere. The fields on every side were scarred with the green ridges, as though the whip of oppression had left great welts on i the surface of the land. In two or three I places we came upon the crumbling ruins of houses, which for some reason had not been carried away. There was one of which the four walls still stood with the chimney, though the roof had disappeared years ago. We could still trace the outlines of the little garden j and the remnants of a stable. A hare scampered away as I peered though a gaping hole where there had been a window. j "The family that lived there had fifty acres of good land," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "They were evicted because be-cause the landlord wanted the land to add to his grazing ranch. All of them ( went to America." j It would only be drawing out a j wearisome tale to describe the rest of our trip. Twelve miles southeast of I Castlerea we crossed the railroad and entered an avenue of great trees. Half way up the avenue we met a party of j ; men in knickerbockers and women in i furs. They were members of a shoot- j ing partv occupying Donamon Castle, which we saw further on. It was a ! fine old gray building, with a view of I miles of green country. 1 "This is a fair example of absentee landlordism," said Mr. Fitzgibbon. "This is the estate of Sir George Caul- field 11,000 acres, rent roll about $10.-000 $10.-000 a year. The good land is let to grazers the poor land to small tenants. The owners have not lived here for sixty years. Tne castle and woods are let to shooting parties during the season." sea-son." As we drove through the winding roads, with thick woods on either side, the game was evident enough. But I do not think it proper to call the hunting hunt-ing of it sport. Hares darted through the brush, grouse could be seen in the glades, and I counted half a dozen gorgeous pheasants that could not be frightened even by the rattling of the car. We passed Kilbegnet. turned north, skirted the tiny hamlet of Crosswell and so reached a place called Gllnsk. Here there was another relic of Irish Ireland. On the side of a hill was the gray ruin of a big house, known, of course, as a castle. It had belonged to the Burkes, I was told, a fine old family of the county. There were about 10,000 acres. The Burkes were good landlords. But they became embarrassed em-barrassed financially at the time of the great famine, and the estate was sold. It was bought by Pollock, "the arch evictor," and 1,100 tenants were turned out of their homes. I shall tell more of Pollock later. A few miles more of the empty ranches, then a few miles across bogs that seemed to stretch to the horizon. It was nearly 5 o'clock, and the sun had set long ago. A new moon made the road white, and showed the bog heather"Silvering with frost. Befriended Befriend-ed by the darkness, Policeman Reilly pedaled along close to the rear of the car, whistling softly to himself, for his ride was nearly over. So we passed through the quiet street of Ballymore and on to Castelerea. At Mr. Fltzgib-bon's Fltzgib-bon's door, we climbed down, stiff and cold. |