by Colin Murphy
He had spent much of the previous week in the company of an Irishman, Detective Sergeant William Melville, a rising star in the newly created police division called the CID, the Criminal Investigations Department. The detective was an ambitious man who clearly knew the value of press publicity and had proven both entertaining and informative. He’d been working on a story that typified those ‘human interest’ articles that littered The Daily News. It concerned the decline of London’s Soho area, once the location of choice for the upper middle classes but in recent decades deteriorating like an apple left to rot. Nowadays it was the location of choice only for drinking dens, gambling pits, music halls and countless whores. Melville had conducted Becker safely through the area’s darkest pits of indigence and depravity, along narrow, unlit lanes and alleys where drunken figures lurched in doorways and the grunts of purchased sex sounded behind curtains flickering with lamplight – a maze of human corruption.
Afterwards, Becker had treated Melville to dinner and drinks, and the conversation had drifted towards the current unrest in the detective’s country of birth.
Most Englishmen, Becker among them, knew or cared little about their island neighbour. All the Irish appeared to do was whine interminably about their impecunious predicament, disrupt the British parliament, and terrorise the unfortunate Englishman at every opportunity. The Irish were viewed as an uneducated, violent and backward lot, and his colleagues in the press generally endorsed the view. Melville had enlightened Becker somewhat about the current internecine struggle between those who wished to pursue Home Rule (or outright independence) through parliamentary means, or those who sought a resolution through violence. Charles Stewart Parnell had managed temporarily to unify the constitutionalists and more moderate militants, but a well-equipped number of extremists had maintained a campaign of terrorism, particularly against landowners such as Lord Mountmorres. Becker could certainly sympathise with the landowners, who had been virtually abandoned to defend themselves against the forces of terror by their government.
And now this letter had appeared.
Through the haze of cigar smoke around him, he could see the assembled members of the press laughing and exchanging stories about their assignments, their glasses clinking and tongues clacking about their humdrum stories. Becker himself was fed up with London, with the squalor of the stories that illuminated The Daily News. His recent assignment in Soho had given him an urgent want to run to the nearby countryside and breathe deeply of some untarnished air. Unlike the dailies, the misleadingly titled Daily News appeared only once a month, which meant the stories were more deeply researched and less frantically prepared, which suited his style. But they also tended to focus on the underbelly of life. This was understandable, considering that Dickens had founded the newspaper. The current editor, Hill, and all of the editors in the intervening years since ‘Mr Great Expectations’, maintained that ethos, and Becker felt that this could work in his favour regarding the potential project upon which he had just stumbled.
He lifted The Times and brought his focus to bear on the letter written in the West of Ireland not four days ago. He then quickly skipped to the lengthy editorial, inspired directly by this Captain Charles Boycott’s letter, a singular honour indeed. In his treatise, The Times’ editor encouraged the immediate arrest of Parnell, Davitt and other Land League leaders as a means of shutting them up and undermining the movement, claiming that these men, through their inflammatory language, were directly responsible for the violent outrages against the landlord class. It also suggested that the government was being driven into a position where they would be forced to purchase all of the landlords’ land and then simply hand it over to the tenantry. The article posited an alternative – that Forster, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, should take whatever coercive measures were necessary to destroy the Land League. Parnell’s arrest should only be a ‘first step’. Becker could well imagine what the second step would be.
The article then went on to directly reference this Boycott fellow and painted a grim picture of what existed in a part of the British Empire not five hundred miles distant:
The state to which some parts of Ireland have been reduced by the terrorism of the Land League is described in a letter from a gentleman in Mayo, which we print today. A more frightful picture of triumphant anarchy had never been presented in any community pretending to be civilized. The persecution of the writer, Mr. Boycott, for some offence against the Land League’s code is an insult to the Government and to public justice. If such monstrous oppression cannot be put down by the ‘Constitutional powers’, Mr Forster must, however reluctantly, proceed to the alternative he has already recognized.
Becker knew full well what that alternative was – mobilisation of the army, troops patrolling the streets of Ireland and scouring her hills in search of militants. In effect, The Times was calling for aggressive suppression. But better than that, his newsman’s nose smelled a story that would prove much more compelling than thousands being slaughtered on some battlefield. People weren’t interested in reading about the fate of thousands.
But the heroic resistance of one fascinated them.
An hour later he entered Frank Harrison Hill’s office and approached the cluttered desk. The editor was a man headed for sixty, almost completely bald and rather pudgy. Hill didn’t look up from what he was doing, which seemed to involve butchering some unfortunate correspondent’s prose with a broad-nibbed fountain pen.
‘What is it, Becker?’
He set The Times on Hill’s desk, folded to show the Boycott letter.
‘What’s that?’ Hill muttered, yet to raise his eyes.
‘Something I think we should pursue in the interests of our readership.’
Hill paused, looked at Becker, and sat back in his chair, his instinctive cynicism evident. ‘Becker, you’ve never pursued anyone’s interests except your own.’
Becker said nothing; he felt like the acrobat he’d once seen walking a tightrope above the Alhambra Theatre’s stage in Leicester Square, terrified to lean even an inch to one side or the other. After a few moments, Hill picked up the paper.
‘Yes, I saw this. What of it?’
‘Did you notice The Times also thought it worthy of an editorial? It looks like this whole Land League thing is going to explode. The Times is effectively calling for blood.’
‘What do I care what the Conservatives’ mouthpiece calls for?’
‘Gladstone’s going to have to act. Every second conversation these days is about the Mountmorres murder. There’s a fuse burning in Ireland.’
‘Save the metaphors for your articles, Becker. Anyway, most people here don’t care a hoot about Ireland. This publication is struggling to survive. Filling it with stories about Irish politicians isn’t going to help. Nobody cares.’
‘They’ll care that one of their own, a fine English gentleman and his family, have been under siege in their home and are battling – outmanned and outgunned – against the forces of anarchy.’ Becker risked a subtle smile, his pitch now on the table.
Hill tapped his pen against the desktop meditatively. ‘You know, Becker, not everyone believes the Irish peasants are in the wrong. Some of these new unions would see them as comrades battling the forces of capitalism. And many in the Liberal Party think they’ve been handed a raw deal.’
‘Have you Irish blood in your veins, Mr Hill?’ Becker grinned.
Hill furrowed his brow. ‘No, Becker, I’ve got human blood in my veins. Maybe you should try one of these new blood transfusions and get some yourself. Anyway, how do you know this Boycott isn’t exaggerating? And what about the other point of view? Not, by the way, that I’ve agreed to this.’
‘Hear me out. If you give me this assignment, I promise to give you every side of the story, not just Boycott’s, but the peasants’ as well. But you have to admit, the idea of an Englishman under siege by a mob, abandoned by the empire, would have a genuine attraction for every blue-blooded Englishman.’
Hill relaxed into his chair. ‘How long would this assignment take?’
‘Well, for a full picture, I’d need to travel the west coast of Ireland. A police friend of mine from Kerry has given me a few contacts there. And this Boycott chap is in Mayo. I’d start there. I’d say a couple of months.’
‘Months?’ Hill thundered abruptly, causing Becker to flinch.
‘But if I can get our readers hooked on the Boycott story, they’ll want to know more.’
‘As I said, Becker, this publication’s nearly broke. And you want me to finance two months’ holiday for you in Ireland?’
Becker sat in silence. After a minute or so of idly staring out the window at the bustle of Fleet Street below, Hill turned and picked up The Times again.
‘If I think this isn’t working, I’ll drop it and you come back. And your copy had better be good enough to sell to other publications; it’s the only way we can afford the expense.’
Becker could barely conceal his delight, but he limited himself to a nod and a ‘thank you’, then walked to the door.
‘Becker.’
The journalist paused with his hand on the doorknob. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘Have the Soho story on my desk first thing tomorrow.’
CHAPTER 23
Off the main track there are no houses, only hovels as wretched as any in Connaught. It is quite evident that the poor people who inhabit them cannot buy much of anything. Men, women, and children, dogs, ducks, and a donkey are frequently crowded together in these miserable cabins, the like of which on any English estate would bring down a torrent of indignation on the landlord.
–Bernard H Becker, Special Commissioner of The Daily News, 23 October 1880
20-23 OCTOBER 1880
On the Thursday following the publication of Boycott’s letter, a fellow ex-officer of Weekes, Captain Raymond Jephson, made an unexpected appearance at Lough Mask House. In his company was his attractive, dark-haired ‘housekeeper’, Miss Reynolds.
Jephson was an incorrigible playboy, was enormously rich, had been married twice, and spent his days in the jolly pursuit of life’s pleasures. The captain had read of Boycott’s plight, knew Weekes resided at Lough Mask, and had decided that he ‘couldn’t leave a comrade to perish at the hands of the natives.’ Bound for a ship from Galway to the United States, he had left his Dublin estate at Brooklawn House in Kimmage and taken a diversion to Mayo to help ‘relieve the siege’. With him he brought a cartload of supplies, such as tinned meats, preserves, biscuits and soaps, which brought no small measure of joy to all. Most importantly, from Annie’s point of view, Miss Reynolds had volunteered to remain as their housemaid until the ‘siege’ ended, causing Annie to literally hug the girl, which Boycott found unseemly.
Boycott and Weekes entertained Jephson over brandies and the ex-officer produced a copy of the previous Monday’s Times. Boycott was overjoyed to see his letter in print and that he’d merited an editorial. Weekes updated his friend on the news that Dublin Castle had agreed to increase by twenty the number of constables guarding the house. Given the uniqueness of their predicament, they’d also ceded to Boycott’s request to use the RIC’s internal mail system.
‘So, Jephson, has there been any other comment about my plight?’
‘Dublin and Westminster are positively awash with discussion about it, old man!’
‘But are they going to damn well do anything?’
Jephson shrugged. ‘Not for me to say, old chap. But Gladstone’s said to be sympathetic to the Irish. But politics and all that aren’t my forte. More a cricket devotee!’
Boycott sipped his brandy. He was grateful for the jolly fool’s help but the crops still lay in the ground unharvested. His letter might well have made him rich in terms of support, but the hard reality was that soon he might be bankrupt in terms of all else.
Bernard Becker dispatched the first of his letters to the editor of The Daily News in late October from Westport. His preconceptions of a country amid the throes of violent anarchy had already taken several knocks. But his brief stay in Dublin had, if anything, reinforced his fears, as a perception existed there of the west as a wild and lawless place. The air of disquietude lingering over the city had been rendered all the more chilly as a result of Boycott’s letter to The Times, which had confirmed the worst fears of the British gentry there, who believed that soon they would be under siege in their own homes. A gentleman at Becker’s hotel, upon hearing of his travel plans, had considered him mad and had conducted him to a gunsmith’s in Dawson Street, where the proprietor had persuaded him to purchase a double-barrelled carbine, the intention being to ensure one could fatally hit the frequently-drunk assailants even at thirty yards. He was warned also that he might well be murdered by one of these drunken killers simply because he looked English.
A few days later, sitting in his room in Hughes’s Hotel in Claremorris, Becker recorded that ‘the sense of alarm and insecurity diminishes, to put it mathematically, as “the square of the distances”. Even after a rapid survey of this part of the West I cannot help contrasting the state of public opinion here with that prevailing in Dublin. In the capital, the alarmists appear to have it all their own way. I was told gravely that there was no longer any security for life or property in the West…yet I have found the people here to have an absolutely delightful manner, and their kindness, civility, good humour, and, I may add, honesty, are remarkable.’
It was when Becker sought out two English peers who resided in the Claremorris area that he gained his first experience of the dichotomy between the landed gentry and the general populace. The gentlemen informed him that not only was a rising imminent, but that it was set for 31 October. Mayo and Galway were beyond the law, they said, and when he mentioned that he had witnessed no evidence of this, he was ridiculed. The killers were everywhere, every man and woman he met was a potential murderer, ‘their minds poisoned by the Land League’.
But he’d been largely disappointed with his experiences thus far. Much of what he’d seen had been a revelation rather than a revolution, and revolution made for better copy. Where were the soldiers pursuing armed marauders across the mountains? Where were the running battles between the locals and police, the villages ablaze, the hordes of drunken assassins killing indiscriminately? He recalled a line from The Times’ editorial: ‘A more frightful picture of triumphant anarchy has never been presented in any community pretending to be civilized.’ The nearest thing he’d seen to anarchy had been when a guest at the hotel had requested toast and Joe, the black-haired Celt in attendance, had cried ‘toast?’ as though a request had been made for broiled crocodile. The truth was that, after a few days, he had little to write about.
Having travelled on to Westport, he hired a car and driver and set off beyond the limits of the town in an attempt to get a more accurate picture of the countryside round about. The land, after all, was what all the trouble was about, so he was keen to see what had so riled the peasantry.
Collapsed houses speckled the countryside, their walls home to nesting birds, their floors grown through with foliage. His driver informed him that most were the remains of cottages abandoned during the famine. Becker had little knowledge of the famine of which the man spoke. As a boy he’d heard vague talk of thousands perishing in Ireland, but his knowledge was scant. Sharing his thoughts with his driver elicited a hollow laugh after which the man had informed him that it had been ‘millions more like, than thousands…and it has not been forgotten.’ Whatever was implied by that remark was lost on Becker, who assumed that ‘millions’ was an exaggeration. Experience had told him that tragedy and exaggeration often went hand in hand.
Spotting a plume of smoke some distance from the road, Becker requested they turn off along the ‘boreen’, a wretched track consisting of large stones and mud ponds. Eventually it deteriorated to the extent that they were forced to continue on foot, a short but precarious journey that left the skirts of his long overcoat infused with brown mud. He realised th
ey were approaching a small collection of hovels, as the word ‘cottage’ failed to adequately convey the repugnance he felt as he drew near. His driver informed him this was the ‘village’ of Cloontakilla. Some women nearby fled in terror at the sight of them, probably fearful he had come to evict them. His driver called out to a lone girl and with the fearless innocence that only a child can possess, she hurried to them with a sprightly skip, her mass of fair hair fluttering wildly in the cutting wind. The child, though evidently as pretty as a mountain sylph, was thin and scantily clad. Her legs and feet were bare and a faded red petticoat and ‘shirt’ of some indescribable hue, on which dirt largely predominated, formed all her visible raiment.
Enquiring of the child if they might visit one of the homesteads, she happily conducted them to that of a Mr Browne. Here Becker had his first insight into the multifold motives of Messrs Parnell and Davitt. The effect on him was profound and that evening, huddled over a dressing table, and by the light of a flickering candle, he wrote:
It has been my lot at various times to witness the institution known as ‘home’ in a state of denudation. It is not necessary to go far from London’s Whitechapel Church to find dwellings unutterably wretched. But Browne’s dwelling, when arrived at, exceeds the wildest of nightmares. Part of the wall has fallen in, and the two rooms that remain have the ground for a carpet and miserable starved-looking thatch for a roof. The horses and cattle of every gentleman in England are a thousand times better lodged. The chimney has long since ‘caved in’ and vanished, and the smoke from the turf burning on the hearth finds its way through the sore places in the thatch. In a bed in the corner of the room lies a sick woman, coughing badly; near her sits another woman, huddled over the fire.
Now, I have been long enough in the world to be suspicious, and had it been possible for these people to know of my coming I might have suspected a prepared scene. But this was impossible, for even my car-driver did not know where he was going till he started. There are no indications of cooking, and, besides an iron pot, a three-legged stool and a bench, no signs of property are visible. There is nothing at all to feed man, wife, sister-in-law, son, and daughter during the winter, and the snow is already lying deep on Nephin Mountain. The tenant, Mr Browne, is a sorrowful man; but, like all Irishmen, is not wanting in loquacity. He shows me his ‘far-r-rum’, as he calls it, and it is a poor place. An acre of oats and mayhap a couple of acres of potatoes and cabbages. Of beasts he has none, except an ass, the unfortunate creature, who is made to drink the dregs of any sorrow falling upon Western Ireland. The poor animal is a withered phantasm.