This week’s choice is “The Eviction” by William Allingham, an indictment of avaricious landlords who squeeze their tenants and force evictions without notice.
Breathless and fix’d one moment stands the crowd
To hear this malediction fierce and loud.
- William Allingham (1824—1889)
Poem 338. The Eviction
1. In early morning twilight, raw and chill,
Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill,
Through miles of mire in steady grave array
Threescore well-arm’d police pursue their way;
Each tall and bearded man a rifle swings,
And under each greatcoat a bayonet clings:
The Sheriff on his sturdy cob astride
Talks with the chief, who marches by their side,
And, creeping on behind them, Paudeen Dhu
Pretends his needful duty much to rue.
Six big-boned labourers, clad in common frieze,
Walk in the midst, the Sheriff’s staunch allies;
Six crowbar men, from distant county brought,—
Orange, and glorying in their work, ‘tis thought,
But wrongly,—churls of Catholics are they,
And merely hired at half a crown a day.
2. The hamlet clustering on its hill is seen,
A score of petty homesteads, dark and mean;
Poor always, not despairing until now;
Long used, as well as poverty knows how,
With life’s oppressive trifles to contend.
This day will bring its history to an end.
Moveless and grim against the cottage walls
Lean a few silent men: but someone calls
Far off; and then a child ‘without a stitch’
Runs out of doors, flies back with piercing screech,
And soon from house to house is heard the cry
Of female sorrow, swelling loud and high,
Which makes the men blaspheme between their teeth.
Meanwhile, o’er fence and watery field beneath,
The little army moves through drizzling rain;
A ‘Crowbar’ leads the Sheriff’s nag; the lane
Is enter’d, and their plashing tramp draws near,
One instant, outcry holds its breath to hear
‘Halt!’—at the doors they form in double line,
And ranks of polish’d rifles wetly shine.
3. The Sheriff’s painful duty must be done;
He begs for quiet—and the work’s begun.
The strong stand ready; now appear the rest,
Girl, matron, grandsire, baby on the breast,
And Rosy’s thin face on a pallet borne;
A motley concourse, feeble and forlorn.
One old man, tears upon his wrinkled cheek,
Stands trembling on a threshold, tries to speak,
But, in defect of any word for this,
Mutely upon the doorpost prints a kiss,
Then passes out for ever. Through the crowd
The children run bewilder’d, wailing loud;
Where needed most, the men combine their aid;
And, last of all, is Oona forth convey’d,
Reclined in her accustom’d strawen chair,
Her aged eyelids closed, her thick white hair
Escaping from her cap; she feels the chill,
Looks round and murmurs, then again is still.
Now bring the remnants of each household fire;
On the wet ground the hissing coals expire;
And Paudeen Dhu, with meekly dismal face,
Receives the full possession of the place.
4. Whereon the Sheriff, ‘We have legal hold
Return to the shelter with the sick and old.
Time shall be given; and there are carts below
If any to the workhouse choose to go’.
A young man makes him answer, grave and clear,
‘We’re thankful to you! but there’s no one here
Goin’ back into them houses: do your part.
Nor we won’t trouble Pigot’s horse and cart.’
At which name, rushing into the open space,
A woman flings a hood from off her face,
Falls on her knees upon the miry ground,
Lifts hands and eyes, and voice of thrilling sound,—
‘James Pigot!—may the poor man’s curse pursue,
The widow’s and the orphan’s curse, I pray,
Hang heavy round you at your dying day!’
Breathless and fix’d one moment stands the crowd
To hear this malediction fierce and loud.
5. But now (our neighbour Neal is busy there)
On steady poles he lifted Oona’s chair,
Well-heap’d with borrow’d mantles; gently bear
The sick girl in her litter, bed and all;
Whilst others hug the children weak and small
In careful arms, or hoist them pick-a-back;
And, ‘midst the unrelenting clink and thwack
Of iron bar on stone, let creep away
The sad procession from that hill-side gray,
Through the slow-falling rain. In three hours more
You find, where Ballytullagh stood before,
Mere shatter’d walls, and doors with useless latch,
And firesides buried under fallen thatch.
William Allingham is best known for his poem “The Fairies” which I covered in October 2020. This poem is a very different proposition. It records a disgraceful event in the life of John George Adair who earned the title “Black Jack Adair” for his overnight eviction of nearly fifty families from their homes in Derryveagh, County Donegal during a period of famine (the potato famine had ravaged the land from 1845 to 1852. Men, women and children, the aged and infirm were all put on the road to seek shelter where they could while Black Jack enjoyed the fruits of this atrocity. Allingham was born in County Donegal and clearly felt the injustice of this mass eviction keenly. According to Wikipedia, more than 50% of those evicted at Derryveagh eventually went to live in Australia and established successful lives; their descendants still thrive there.
The first stanza sets the scene: a brooding atmosphere as day breaks and mist hovers over the hills, the sheriff riding on his cob (a draft type pony) and sixty policemen marching behind him through the marshy ground, their rifles and bayonets concealed under heavy greatcoats. The sheriff chats with the police chief as he rides along and Paudeen Dhu (who I assume is the land agent, Black Jack does not appear in person for obvious reasons) skulks along behind them, his apparent reluctance covering his zeal to carry out his master’s will. Paudeen was a derogatory nickname for a Catholic man at the time, and Allingham also paints the “crowbar men” as common workmen dressed in frieze (coarse woollen clothes) purporting to be Orangemen, though they are actually Catholics hired for a pittance to do the dirty work of destruction and ensure that the buildings are no longer habitable.
The scene shifts to the mean hamlet of Ballytullagh in the second stanza: twenty ramshackle houses sheltering wretched and downtrodden souls tottering on the edge of poverty and hardly suspecting the blow that is about to fall. Grim-faced men stand by their houses and a naked child runs out and as quickly jumps back indoors, prompting a banshee chorus of wails from the women and curses from the men. Meanwhile, the little army continues on its way through the rain; a crowbar man now leading the Sheriff’s horse, and a hush falls as they enter the lane leading to the squalid dwellings, form ranks and prepare their rifles for action.
With the armed policemen standing watch, the sheriff begins the process of eviction, calling for silence before announcing the pending eviction. Each household makes ready to leave, collecting their families and meagre belongings and carrying out those who are unable to make their own way: the sick girl Rosy and aged Oona, reclining on a chair made of straw, her eyes closed until “she feels the chill” and stirs briefly before relapsing into quietude. An ancient fellow, lost for words in the distraction of this sudden reverse in fortune, can only bestow a kiss on the doorpost of his house. The coals used to inadequately heat their homes and cook their meals are dumped outside unceremoniously, hissing as they are extinguished by the mud. Paudeen Dhu looks on with an assumed semblance of sorrow as he is handed official title to the land.
The sheriff, having executed his duty, attempts some consolation: although the legal right to eviction is being asserted, “Time shall be given” and the sick, the old and the destitute need not leave immediately for some uncertain fate or to the workhouse via the dubious charity of Pigot’s carts. He is rebuffed, though not unkindly, by one of the men: no one will be staying to watch the crowbar men destroy the empty houses, and nobody is prepared to take up James Pigot’s offer of a lift to the workhouse—a woman underlines this by cursing Pigot and hoping that this day’s work will hang heavy on him when he comes to judgment. The crowd of people look on, mutely approving this malediction as she kneels on the ground, her head bared and her hands and face raised to appeal to God.
The people begin to move, the man Neal lifting Oona’s chair on poles like a sedan, the old lady wrapped in capes and covers begged from generous neighbours; young Oona is borne away on a stretcher and parents gather their children, clutching their little ones to them or lifting them to ride on their backs and as the crowbars begin to fall on the stones of their forsaken dwellings, the “sad procession” sets forth through the rain on a dangerous and uncertain road into the future. Three hours later, all that is left of the hamlet is broken walls, shattered doors and tumbled hearths. The crowbar men have finished their task and Black Jack has won another estate to his fortune.
Allingham’s sympathies are all on the side of the victims although he does seem to have a soft spot for the sheriff whose role in this sad business is, we sense, rather unwilling. He clearly has no time for the land agent who is represented as rather smarmy, with an ingratiating manner that is entirely false.
Ballytullagh is an Anglicized corruption of the original name Baile Tulach, meaning Town of the Hillock—it is a settlement area in County Cavan, rather than a specific hamlet—Allingham is using the name of a broader area to indicate that it wasn’t only one village that was uprooted.
I like it because Allingham creates a marvellous brooding atmosphere and accurately shows the destitution of the unfortunate families forced to find shelter in other places. It’s very visual—we can easily imagine the rainy morning, overcast with steel-grey clouds, the bearded policemen with their weapons at the ready, the slinking land agent, and the fear and despair of the evicted tenants, their whole lives cast into the melting pot: the old man kissing his doorframe in farewell, the old lady carried off by an obliging neighbour: it’s like a snapshot of this scene from history.
Sadly there is only one video on YouTube which has apparently been produced by feeding the poem to Siri on an iPhone and is quite unsuitable for listening to.
Links
- Read about Black Jack Adair and the mass eviction at Wikipedia.