Day 5

Day 5 Tuesday:  In the late 1800’s, a political party called the No Nothings arose whose slogan was “America First.”  They ridiculed and persecuted the Irish and tried to ban them from coming to America.  This anti-immigration emphasis particularly stereotyped the Irish as dirty little fat fellows caricatured in cartoons at time in green suits and hats. In the 1950’s Walt Disney picked up this image and the dancing, grinning leprechaun was widely distributed.  Anyone knowing Irish history thus finds the leprechaun demeaning while the harp, shamrock, Celtic cross, spiral, Claddagh, Irish knot, and Irish circle are all embraced as the symbols of this land and people.

We visited Castle Caldwell, a ruined castle owned by a landed Protestant gentry family, who took over Irish lands during the Plantation and Penal Law period (between 1611-1800).  The grandson of the first Caldwell found clay in the area, which became used to make Belleek porcelain, now world famous.  We visited this showroom and museum, and then headed to Silabh Liag (which sounds like Sheeve Leave).  This area is remote, wild, with nearly unstainable farming but breath-taking beauty.  Many people were pushed to this extremely poor western point where they subsisted rather than be tenant farmers to the new English and Scottish Protestant land owners.

We know how the Catholics could not vote or own property during Penal Law time, but they couldn’t even own a horse or go to school.  All the harpists were hung, and 90% of the population (8 million people) had no representation. Irish was banned.  The Penal laws set the stage for the Great Hunger, which is what the Irish call the period from 1845-1870 because there was food, just not for the poor, native Irish. 

Anyway, Niahm told us of a fascinating story where Ben Franklin was a bit on the fence about breaking away from England.  Obviously, this is bit earlier than the Penal Law time, but the Plantation period was well under way.  So Mr. Franklin visits Dublin and then tours some of the countryside outside this urban, well-heeled city.  There he sees some of the abject poverty, which was not even as bad as elsewhere, resulting from the English overseeing the Irish tenant farmers.  He decides this fate could be similar in America with British rule controlling the colonists.  He returns home and becomes a complete advocate for the American revolution.