According to the British and Irish Communist Organization's 'Two Nations' dogma, the Unionist bourgeoisie is the only section of the bourgeoisie capable of understanding developments in Ireland.¹ It is, of course, necessary for them to assert this since so much of their position is derived from Unionist propaganda. But here there is a strange anomaly. The argument for the Two Nations dogma was initially based on the fact of uneven capitalist development in Ireland, engendered by the different forms of land tenure which existed North and South.² However, it was not the Unionists but the Nationalists who discovered and stressed the importance of this fact. It was none other than the Catholic-Nationalist bogeyman, George O'Brien, who popularized this explanation, and it was from him that the Unionists, including the BICO, plagiarized it.³
This constituted a fundamental flaw in what appeared to be a neatly wrapped dogma. To attempt to construct the Two Nations thesis on a premise of Nationalist historiography was like trying to build a house on shifting sands. So a new twist in the thesis was called for. Certainly, it was admitted, the uneven economic development of Ireland explains the evolution of the Protestant people as a distinct nation. But then again, this uneven economic development has itself to be explained. Accordingly, we are told that 'the uneven economic development itself followed from the fact that there have been two distinct communities in Ireland since the 17th century, in one of which production relations were more advanced than in the other.'⁴ This tautological statement, which asserts that two different forms of production relations developed in Ireland because two different forms of relations existed to begin with, makes sense only if we take it to mean that the Protestant community in the North, due to some innate charisma (Protestantism), was able to develop advanced property relations which the Catholics, as a result of their non-charisma (Catholicism), were unable to do.
Of course, this is no new explanation. It has been advanced for many years by the ideologues of the Protestant community itself. In 1852, for instance, the Missionary Agent of the Irish Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Edward Marcus Dill, set out to find what reasons 'make Ireland a desert and Ulster its only oasis'.⁵ And the solution he commended was to 'venture the supposition that Romanism is false and Protestantism true, and like some dissected map the most shapeless part of Ireland's puzzle falls into its place in a moment. Observe how it unfolds every mystery in our physical and moral state; and explains why the "Black North" is a garden, and the "Sunny South" a wilderness.' Dill proceeded at length to explain how 'Romanism' or 'Popery' had been the bane of the Southern Irish. Not only was it responsible for their political and economic thralldom and wretchedness, but it was even the source of their physical deformities! Faced with this uneven economic development, the venerable missionary suggested the conversion of the Catholic population or, failing this, the extermination of Catholics. While he advocated evangelicism, he did not hide his delight at the Famine (which, of course, was caused by 'Popery') and the consequent outflow of the Catholic peasantry to America. He sent his reverent blessings after them and called for a second plantation of Scottish presbyterians to take their place.
Naturally, the BICO thesis is a little more sophisticated. After all, the Rev. Dill claimed only to be 'a humble man' and not a 'Marxist'. The BICO, in fact, categorically deny that they in any way attribute economic development in Ireland to religious factors.⁶ Of course, they deny this. Not to do so would immediately expose their dogma for the Unionist propaganda which it is. But such denials do not alter the reality of their views.
The substance of their position is that both the Catholics and Protestants in Ireland laboured under the same yoke of oppression. But because the Protestants came from a higher civilization, which found expression in their religion, they were able to impose capitalist property relations on their landowners. The Catholics, on the other hand, were a backward race, still at a primitive stage of tribal development, which found a cultural manifestation in the community's adherence to reactionary Catholicism. They had no desire to share individually in the ownership of the land and submitted willingly to their tribal overlords. Thus, in its latest stage of refinement, the Two Nations dogma makes the whole of future development hinge on religious factors: Protestantism was the ideological embodiment of new property relations, and being transplanted to Ireland automatically reproduced these property relations. This is plainly, a version of historical development turned inside out.
'It was the democracy of Scotland which went to Ulster',⁸ we are told, and consequently 'the fact that the Ulster peasants have been involved in the Presbyterian struggles in Scotland made them particularly well fitted to look after their bourgeois rights on the land'. On the other hand, the lack of a similar democratic history for the peasants further south would have hindered them in generating an independent movement for securing bourgeois rights on the land.⁹ This interpretation contrasts sharply with the position adopted [by other historians, where] property relations are accepted as given and there is no question of them growing out of the alleged struggles, precipitated by the democratic traditions of the Scottish Presbyterian religion.¹⁰ But leaving aside the nature of a historical interpretation which sees property relations coming into existence as a result of religious causes, the arguments put forward here are historically inaccurate. [The extent to which the Ulster peasants shared in the] democratic traditions of their religion, are grossly exaggerated. On the other hand, the level of development attained by the Catholic peasantry during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is grossly underestimated. The gap which existed between the two communities is not sufficient to explain the divergent lines of evolution and the ultimate uneven economic development of the country. Other factors which we have not space to deal with here have to be introduced to explain this.
The Scottish Peasantry
The ancient Scottish society fused with the Norman system during the twelfth century, and the slow and painful emergence of feudalism in the Lowlands began. The peculiarities of the development hindered the establishment of a stable and secure system of land tenure over a long period. This was true not only with regard to the peasantry but also with regard to the highest grades of the nobility. Lands were continually reverting to the Crown and being regranted. This was due mainly, one supposes, to the instability of the Crown and the strict laws of inheritance which were then recognized. The War of Independence initiated a major reallocation, and 'during the next three hundred years', says Grant, 'land was constantly changing hands as the Crown waxed and waned in strength'.¹¹ In subsequent years, many acts of reallocation were passed, by James II in 1437, James IV in 1488 and 1503, James V in 1535 and James VI in 1587. While the forfeitures had less effect the further one went down the social scale, it is also obvious that the absence of security amongst the aristocracy must have also militated against security for the peasantry. At any rate, Grant is of the opinion that 'the matter is of importance, not only because of the lairds themselves, but because the same conditions have affected the smaller folk'.¹²
It is true that at the beginning of the seventeenth century, security of tenure became more common amongst the nobility, as a result of the feuing movement. Feuing consisted in the nobles more or less buying out their holdings and was in no sense a democratic movement of the peasantry towards perpetuity of their holdings.¹³ In fact, security of tenure was not common in the peasantry until after the middle of the eighteenth century. 'About the middle of the century (1750)', says Graham, 'there arose a new era in the economic and social conditions of the country... Previously to this period most of the farms had either been let without leases, or on very short tenure — two or four years — which starved all enterprise.' If anything, the position of the peasantry in relation to security of tenure worsened during the period which we are discussing.
So it is that Leyburn, in his important work, describes the Scotland from which the settlers come as the most backward place in Europe, which had not yet escaped from the Middle Ages.¹⁴ In the context of the situation described by Grant, he draws a general picture of the backwardness of the Scottish Lowland peasantry.
Although they were grossly oppressed and exploited by the aristocracy, they did not resist, as the peasantry of England had, but continued to cultivate a primitive kinship with their social superiors. 'The curious point must be made', says Leyburn, 'that the humble farmer, who suffered most, did not attribute his calamities to the noblemen and lairds.'¹⁵ Leyburn, in fact, is struck by the submissiveness of the Scottish peasantry and particularly by 'the notable fact that in Scotland, probably alone among all the countries of Europe, there was never anything approaching an uprising against the lords',¹⁶ and 'whatever grievances and complaints may have arisen against individual landlords, the meagre Scottish records before 1600 show little that might be called democratic stirrings'.¹⁷
The only explanation for this remarkable fact is that class differentiation and awareness amongst the peasantry had not reached a very fine point, with the aristocracy still continuing to hold reasonably powerful hegemony over the lower ranks of society. The relationship between the principal classes in the Lowlands was in fact very much the same as what the BICO insists existed in Ireland at the time. 'In actuality', says Leyburn, 'there was a rough and practical sense of belonging that gave humanity to the class system of the Lowlands and kept it from [becoming] onerous.'
Parallel with the meagre social development and backwardness of the Lowlands, went a general economic and cultural (in the Marxist sense) primitiveness. By all accounts agricultural production was not very advanced. Again, Leyburn's social survey is very revealing on this point. To him the situation was unbelievable, with the people being unaware of improvements which had been introduced since the Dark Ages. So primitive were conditions that people were even incapable of implementing the few paltry suggestions of the government. The custom of 'ploughing by the tail' has often been invoked to demonstrate the backwardness of the Irish peasantry; but in Scotland, according to Leyburn, instruments and techniques were as primitive as those used in ancient Mesopotamia, and lo and behold, harrows were drawn by the horses' tails!
It is against this background that we must examine the specific nature of the democratic traditions of Presbyterianism. To interpret the Scottish Reformation simply as a bourgeois democratic movement against the feudal aristocracy is naive and mechanistic in the extreme. There was a complex web of interests and the interests of the peasantry and the nascent bourgeoisie formed only a minor element of this.
It is true that the Reformation began in the urban centres, where a small trading class had crystallized. For historical reasons the trade of these merchants was mainly with the continent, particularly France, where the burghs had been granted free access to the market. But after the wars which swept France in the latter half of the 16th century, these markets became extremely fragmented and their importance to the Scottish merchants diminished.²¹
Simultaneously, the possibility of trade with England increased. One of the main reasons why such trade did not already exist was because of the lack of diversity between the two areas. The importance of this was obvious, vis-à-vis France, to which essential foodstuffs and raw materials were exported and from which luxury goods, especially wine, were imported.²² But the industrial and agricultural development of England during the 16th century laid the basis for commercial exchange and a further integration of both English and Scottish middle classes. It was this change in the relationship between Protestant England and Catholic France which explains the ideological ferment amongst the Scottish middle classes at the time of the Reformation. But this urban stratum was as yet insufficiently developed to challenge the dominant position of the feudal aristocracy, and the Reformation was a movement against feudalism only in a secondary and limited sense.
The real meaning of the Scottish Reformation is to be found in the sharpening contradictions amongst the feudal nobles themselves. Without the broad layers of the aristocracy which were drawn into the struggle, the Reformation could not have succeeded. 'Capturing the towns was only the first step', says Smout, 'the burghs were much too small for it to be decisive. It had to be followed by winning a significant number of lairds and magnates who could take the initiative against a hostile Crown with a well-armed offensive army.'²⁴
There were two important sources of conflict amongst the aristocracy. Firstly, a massive segment of the lesser nobles, who incidentally supplied the leadership and tenantry for the Ulster plantation, were deeply impoverished and strongly resented the payment of tithes to a parasitic and decadent Catholic church. Moreover, they benefited from the expropriation of church lands and wanted to see their gains consolidated by a thorough routing of the Roman Church. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, since the threat of the Angevin monarchy in the 12th century, Scotland and France had maintained a close alliance out of fear on both sides of England's designs. Between 1500 and 1560 there was great alarm that the whole of Scotland would become a subordinate and integral province of France, thus leaving the Scottish nobility further out on the periphery of power and authority. When James V died in 1542, Mary Queen of Scots was only one year old. Almost immediately a struggle broke out over the Regency, between one faction led by the dissenting Earls of Argyle, Morton and Arran, who favoured an alliance with England to offset the dominance of France, and another faction, led by Bishop Beaton of St. Andrews, who favoured the French connection, thus drawing in another powerful layer of support for the Reformation.
Unfortunately, the peasantry does not figure as an independent or even distinct force in the whole process. Certainly, the growth of individualism and the struggle for security of land tenure did not enter into the question, and it is difficult to see what useful conclusion the BICO could possibly arrive at by invoking the participation of the Scottish peasantry in the Reformation. The fact that the Reformation spread rapidly into the Highlands should be sufficient to warn against a vulgar materialist interpretation of the effects of the change in religious outlook on the peasantry or indeed the burghs.²⁵ 'Few countries were more completely Calvinist than Scotland', says Smout, 'yet it is hard to see how any support can be found for Weber's thesis from the situation in this country between 1560 and 1690. Within this period the Reformation cannot be shown in any way to have favoured the rise of economic individualism.'²⁶ And Tawney points out that 'In Scotland the views of the reformers as to economic ethics did not differ in substance from those of the church before the Reformation.'²⁷
To sum up and emphasize the essential features of the sketch we have just drawn, we can say the Scottish settlers who came to Ulster during the period of the Ulster plantation came from a depressed region where economic relations were at a low level; these settlers, while by no means slaves, had not developed the independence attributed to them by the BICO and were certainly not in a position to pioneer bourgeois property relations on the land.
The Gaelic System
It is difficult to make a direct comparison between the Scottish and Irish peasantry of this period, but it will be clear that they did not live in two entirely different worlds. Naturally, the BICO accepts uncritically the superficial view that the primitive clan system still persisted in Ireland at this time. 'The Clan System', they say, 'as it existed in Ireland for many centuries before its abolition smothered all power of independent action by the people.'²⁸ The historical facts when sifted show that this view is completely untenable. The 'Clan System' as popularly conceived probably never existed in Ireland at all, and if it did, it had disappeared subsequent to the Northern Invasion. From that time onwards we find the gradual development of a particular Gaelic form of feudalism, which while utilizing many ancient institutions, filled them with a new content.
Most authorities deny that this Gaelic system was feudal in nature. This is true of Hayes MacCoy, Cyril Falls and Bagwell, not to mention the BICO 'authorities'.²⁹ Their judgement, however, is not based on sound scientific criteria. Most notably there is no rounded conception of historical evolution in their writings. They fail to see any definite stages in the development of society. For instance, they simultaneously deny that Gaelic society was feudal or tribal but refuse to categorize it in any other way. Instead, they merely isolate various aspects of the Gaelic system which distinguish it from English feudalism, and in this way assert the existence of two qualitatively different social orders.
The two most important peculiarities of the Gaelic system on which they concentrate are: the absence of primogeniture and the lack of absolute title of ownership. But neither of these affect the essence of feudalism. Primogeniture was not always and everywhere an inherent feature of feudalism. As Professor Strayer points out, 'In the early middle ages there was no rule of primogeniture and no preference for descendents through the male line. Thus, while there was a tendency to give counties only to men who had some tie of kinship with previous counts, there could easily be a dozen or so candidates who had such ties.'³⁰
If primogeniture is absent, then absolute title of ownership cannot exist, since the noble is unable to pass on his holding as he pleases. In this case title is dependent solely on office. In other words the noble's interest in his title is more or less limited to his own lifetime. So, on this point also we must admit that absolute ownership is not necessary to the functioning of the feudal order.
The confusion which arises on matters such as these can easily be cleared up with the help of a scientific definition of feudalism. To aid us here, we have ready to hand the work performed by Maurice Dobb, under the tutelage of Stalin himself. Notwithstanding the BICO's recent discovery that this particular mentor of theirs has been a life-long revisionist, we believe that they will find his definition of feudalism unexceptionable. Feudalism, according to Dobb, is defined essentially in terms of 'an obligation, laid on the producer by force and independently of his own volition, to fulfil certain economic demands of an overlord, whether these demands take the form of services to be performed, or dues to be paid in money or kind'.³¹ If we go by such a definition, then there is no doubt that the social order which existed in Ireland was feudal in character.
By the 16th century, this system prevailed in most areas. It was spread over most of Ulster, parts of the Northern Midlands, North, West and South Connacht, Thomond, parts of West Cork and Kerry, the central and South Midlands, and parts of Wexford and Wicklow. The system was characterized by the typical hierarchical structure of feudalism. Society was divided between two distinct social entities, the freemen and the peasantry. The freemen themselves were divided into a number of categories: professional people, and lower and higher grades of the land-owning lords. The lower grade of the nobility was the most numerous stratum of the class of freemen. These nobles were subordinate to their overlords by a system of clientship, which was characterized by the overlord advancing them livestock while guaranteeing protection and the underlords paying interest on this livestock and reciprocating this guarantee of protection.³² Groups of such subordinate nobles as were under the same lord formed a distinct unit called the tuath, and groups of adjacent tuatha formed even greater units known as ur-riogha, building up in the form of a pyramid.
Traditionally, the tuath was supposed to be a democratic institution governed by the members. However, by the 16th century, the overlord had usually usurped authority. 'Although historically', says Hayes McCoy, 'political power in the tuatha belonged to the freemen gathered together in assembly, the lord, captain, chieftain or king of the tuatha (the titles as reported are various) appears by the 16th century to have assumed effective rule in his own person.'³³
As we remarked above, inheritance through primogeniture had not yet been established, though we may note that it did exist temporarily in the relative stability following the Norman invasion. But the absence of primogeniture does not mean that there was no form of inheritance.
In fact, inheritance in a wider form existed within the legal family, the derbfine, which was composed of a four-generation group, including sons, grandsons and great-grandsons. Inheritance passed through this grouping and a narrowing in towards primogeniture was proceeding through the system which grew up after the Norman invasion. Under this system, the successor within the derbfine was chosen while the leader of the derbfine, and ultimately of the whole tuath, was still alive.
The ultimate caricature of the Gaelic system contends that the land was owned in common by the 'clan', and was periodically redistributed among the members. It is true that gavelkind still prevailed, but only in a form which [afforded] a certain security of tenure. When contemporary historical records speak of redistribution they are referring only to alterations in the pattern of holdings. Very [little] land had to be carved out for the new freemen which frequently resulted in portions of the lands of lesser freemen [being reallocated]. As Hayes McCoy points out, this juggling took place within the sept or tuath. 'Periodic redistribution appears to have taken place within the derbfine and not within the sept as a whole, and it [did] not mean, as Davis claimed, that no man's [holding was secure. In the inhabited parts of the country], every acre had its owner and each knew what he was entitled to.'³⁴
The Catholic Peasantry
It is difficult to frame a unified picture of the conditions and life-style of the peasantry under this system. From the meagre information we possess, however, it is evident that the BICO have an entirely erroneous impression of what the Catholic peasantry's existence and mode of behaviour was like. They certainly were not the indolent, docile mass, which the BICO have depicted. They neither submitted willingly to their aristocracy, harkened back to their tribal origins or squandered away their time and energy. On the latter point an anonymous Elizabethan testifies that 'there are two sorts of people in Ireland to be considered of, the Kern and the Chorle. The kern bred up in Idleness and naturally inclined to mischief and wickedness, the chorle willing to labour and take pains, if he might peacefully enjoy the fruits thereof.'³⁵
When we piece together the evidence of competent authorities we cannot avoid the conclusion that a new form of tenure was emerging and parallel with this, that the peasantry was acquiring sturdy and independent traits. Montgomery, who was no Catholic-Nationalist, says in his prizewinning essay of 1888, that 'Ireland was steadily progressing towards a modern system of land tenure (at the beginning of the 16th century — J.C.). The extensive growth of the power of the chief makes it evident that in reality the practical development of tenure and even primogeniture was not far distant.'³⁶ George Campbell, who again could hardly be mistaken for a Catholic-Nationalist in his 1869 account, dealt more extensively with the mode of tenure as it affected the ordinary peasantry. From his examination of some legal records and with his wide knowledge of the history of land tenure in Europe and India, he was confident that the village system operated in Ireland during the Tudor period.
'There can be no doubt', he says, 'that the village system formerly prevailed in Ireland. The whole system of settlement and valuation is based on it to the present day, the town-lands being exactly preserved, though the villages have generally dissolved into separate forms.'³⁷ After examining the records of a villeinage in Westmeath in 1682, Campbell draws a sketch of a typical feudal manor. The land was divided into shares called 'plough lands', and the villagers managed their own affairs and paid their rent in lump to the 'landlord'. The function of the lord was merely to collect the rent and settle disputes amongst the villagers.
Parallel with the development of tenure the peasantry was also steadily developing as a separate social entity, conscious of its interest in its holdings and challenging the absolute supremacy of the nobles.
As early as mediaeval times the peasantry or betaghs, as they were known, began to assert themselves in struggle. Admittedly, these betaghs were bound to the soil and might be recovered if they fled, and were obliged to perform labour services for their lords. But by the 13th century these services had been commonly commuted to money rent and the process whereby the peasantry would inevitably be emancipated was in motion. Professor Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven has pointed out that, while theoretically the peasant might have been a tenant-at-will, in reality his tenancy was secure by established custom, i.e. by class struggle. 'It is clear from the enumeration of the betagh's obligations given by the rentals', says Otway-Ruthven, 'that he was in fact protected by fixed custom. And when labour services had been generally commuted for money rent the anticipation of the betaghs or villeins was well in sight.'³⁸
By the 16th century we find many references to the resistance and independence of the peasantry. It was not uncommon for the entire inhabitants of an estate to band together and abandon their lord if conditions were not to their satisfaction.⁴⁰ For instance we find the Bishop of Cork writing that the peasantry of Munster 'continued not past three years in a place but ran roving about the country like wild men fleeing from one place to another'.⁴¹ And other examples of this practice, particularly in the North, can be gleaned from the correspondence of Davis and Cecil.
At all events, the peasantry was not a feckless mass which took no interest in individual private ownership of the land. It is true that the evolution of absolutist feudalism in England cut across the path of Ireland's natural development. The Tudor intervention in Ireland led to incessant war and strife, which put a brake on the consolidation of the peasants' drive towards a more advanced form of tenure. While this may have prevented the emergence of a mass national movement amongst the peasantry, it was not sufficient to negate the consciousness and tradition which had already been established. And when the conquest and expropriations of the 16th century led to the decomposition and final disintegration of the Gaelic system, the Gaelic peasantry was not incapable of taking advantage of the new situation. The Catholic-Nationalist economic historian, George O'Brien, who held no brief for the new system imposed by 'the foreigners' was forced to admit that 'the tenants on the confiscated land were in a relatively good position: owing to the escheats growing up and which were becoming generally recognized'. Another Catholic-Nationalist historian, Sigerson, testifies to the same development.⁴²
Apart from these, however, there are more 'objective' accounts. Montgomery points out that, while the Gaelic nobility was removed from the land in the Cromwellian plantation, the ordinary tenantry was not interfered with. They were not despised by the new owners as mere barbarians who could not be harnessed to produce a steady ground rent. On the contrary, says Montgomery, 'The earth tillers were kept in their holdings for several reasons; firstly they had always been a fairly quiet and toilsome class, and when freed from the influence of the disquieting element ... might be expected to develop into a peaceful tenantry.'⁴³ Montgomery goes on to say that the peasantry was admitted to fixity of tenure even after the plantations. He draws attention to the fact that Petty, in his famous survey of the confiscated estates, calculated that they were worth only two-thirds their total value to their new owners since a third of the value was held in the form of leases by the tenantry. 'This appears to prove conclusively that he did not regard them (the ordinary peasants — J.C.) as mere tenants at will',⁴⁴ adds Montgomery.
George Campbell also testifies along the same lines. He says that after the expropriations, 'The country was gradually recovering from the effects of war and depopulation and the general tendency during the greater part of the time was rather for landlords to compete for tenants than for tenants to compete hotly for land. The external pressure which kept the village system together being removed, that system gradually went to pieces ... Without protection of law, the idea of property in their holding again took hold of the Irish mind.'⁴⁵ Indeed, in Campbell's view, a situation was rapidly developing where the new aristocracy would have been quite willing to concede and recognize fixity of tenure and fair rents as a general principle governing their relationship with the Catholic peasantry.⁴⁷
By the beginning of the 18th century the consciousness of the peasantry was at a high enough level, and its traditions of struggle sufficiently entrenched, to steel it against total disintegration and demoralization under the great pressures of the next two centuries which were to elapse before the land question was finally solved. The odds mounted against it were tremendous. The twin aims of English rule in Ireland, as manifested in the penal laws, were to abort economic development and prevent ownership of the land from falling into the hands of the Catholic masses. Central to this policy was the system of absentee landlordism, which was imposed on most of Ireland. This was a massive stumbling-block on the road to the creation of a custom in the whole of Ireland — similar to the Ulster Custom or the customs which prevailed in most of Europe. Without direct contact between the peasantry and their landlords it was impossible to consolidate customary rights, since the landlords had no intimate knowledge of the proceedings on their estates, nor indeed had many of them ever laid eyes on them. 'The curse of absentee owners', says Montgomery, 'is responsible in a great measure for that total want amongst the lowest tenants of continuity in holdings which prevented the growth of customary rights.'
However, notwithstanding the great difficulties, the Catholic peasantry were able to enforce customary rights, albeit of an elementary nature and at a great price. Taking a look at conditions in the first half of the 19th century, we can scarcely find the BICO's 'helpless peasantry'. Campbell remarked that in theory the landlord was supposed to be absolute owner of his land. In practice, however, this was far from being the case. In the North East where the Ulster tenant right prevailed it was obviously not so, and in the South the issue was less clear cut: 'by an infinitely more disagreeable process, a similar result is arrived at ... viz, that the theoretical landlord cannot do what he likes with what he considers to be his land'.⁴⁷ Campbell readily concedes that the Ulster Custom did not exist in the South. But this is not to say that the Southern tenants were a 'helpless peasantry' at the mercy of the landlords. 'A tenant', says Campbell, 'seldom goes, without being bought out by someone, and the feeling of the country is that in some way, regular or irregular, he is entitled to something which amounts to selling his holding.'⁴¹ The fact that such a custom could develop gives the lie to the BICO's caricature of the Catholic peasantry.
We have, then, a picture placed against the background of subsequent developments which, while not exaggerating the level of progress reached by the Catholic peasantry in the 16th and 17th century, differs radically from the popular image and descriptions given by the BICO.
When we place side by side the picture of the peasantry already in Ireland, and the picture of the Scottish peasantry which eventually came to the North East as a settler community, we find that the differences which the BICO sees are established only through the most sweeping and unconvincing generalizations. A difference there may have been, but it was not an epochal difference, a difference which took — as the BICO claims — two centuries to bridge!
The Peasant Struggles in Ulster
If, then, the BICO grossly exaggerates the difference between the Protestant and Catholic peasantry, how are we to explain the subsequent gap which widened between them? How did the Protestant peasantry secure permanent tenure and a right to compensation for improvements made, while the Catholic peasantry remained systematically excluded from these rights? The BICO deny that this development had anything to do with official favouritism towards the Protestant community. Indeed, they go as far as to say that the Protestant peasantry was oppressed as much as the Catholic peasantry. With a sweeping statement that the Protestant peasantry came under the operation of the penal laws, the BICO imagine that their point is adequately proven.⁵⁰
There is no need to labour a refutation of this. The fact that the BICO are forced to adopt such flimsy arguments is evidence of the bankruptcy of the Two Nations dogma. Suffice it to say that only one sub-section of one of the seven Penal Acts against the Catholic population affected the Presbyterian peasantry. This was the sacramental test act included in the sixth penal enactment of 1705. While it placed limited political restrictions on those who were not prepared to abide by the Test (and these by no means included the whole Protestant or even Presbyterian community), it did not affect their property rights in the slightest. By contrast, almost all the penal enactments contained some element of economic repression against the Catholics.
Parallel with this, the BICO claims that the Protestant peasantry had to fight tooth and nail for their rights and attempts to construct a history of that struggle. Significantly enough, this struggle is represented as only beginning midway through the 18th century. The crucial century and a half before this, in which the essential internal social relations of the settler community were moulded, is not analysed at all. When we come to examine the opinion of the Protestants themselves on the origin of their rights, we will find the good reason for which the BICO skipped over this period. For the moment, however, we will examine the BICO's 'new' addition to Irish history.⁵³
Firstly it should be noted that only two periods of struggle are mentioned: 1700-72 and — making a jump of nearly a whole century — the land struggle which resulted in the Gladstone reforms. Such an episodic form of struggle is hardly the stuff out of which land customs are forged. The strained method of argument is again evidence of the bankruptcy of BICO theorizing. It should be noted that these two periods are not representative of the general relations which existed between the Protestant peasantry and the aristocracy over the three centuries of their existence. The turmoil of the mid-18th century had specific and exceptional causes. And it could not have been otherwise, for as the BICO itself recognizes 'Once the system (of the Ulster Custom — J.C.) had been established it would not have been in the interests of the landowners to revert to the system of rack rent.'⁵⁴
Around 1760 the price of provisions rose significantly and this made a turn from cultivation to pasture, usually through the medium of some urban entrepreneur, a profitable proposition. Perhaps nothing would have come of this in the North-East, where established custom governed the calm relations between the peasant and landlord, except for two important facts. 1. The existence of a small nucleus of absentee landlords, who by the fact of their absenteeism had little respect for the custom. These were the wealthier and more politically important of the landlords, and they set an extremely bad example for the rest of their society. 2. Around this time, many of the original leases from the beginning of the plantation fell through and placed enormous temptation in front of the landlords. Given these exceptional circumstances there was bound to be friction.
The period of turbulence which had been smouldering since 1760 flared up in 1770 on the estate of the wealthy absentee Lord Donegal. When the leases of his tenants expired, he demanded an impossible levy of £100,000 on renewal. When the tenantry failed to comply they were evicted, and the estate was let to some prosperous Belfast merchants. This example was immediately followed by another wealthy proprietor, Clothworthy-Upton, and thereafter by the lesser aristocracy. 'A precedent so tempting and lucrative', says Froude, 'was naturally followed. Other landlords finding the trade profitable began to serve their tenants with notices to quit.'⁵⁶
It is true that the peasantry resisted strongly. The history of their resistance has been covered [by the] Catholic-Nationalist historian, Francis Joseph Brigger, and it is not essential to recapitulate on it here. It is, however, necessary to say that the resistance of the Protestant peasantry was only one element in the causes which preserved the Ulster Custom at this stage. Other essential elements were the [pressures] exerted from within the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and by the British Government. Archbishop Boulter recognized that any intensification of the struggle would have had disastrous effects for the Ascendency. 'But the worst of this is', he wrote, 'that it tends to unite protestant with papist and whenever that happens, goodbye to the English interests in Ireland for ever.'⁵⁸ Boulter was astute enough to see the folly of the aristocracy's behaviour and favourably presented the case of the tenantry to Walpole. King George III also showed signs of worry about the situation and ordered his Viceroy, Townsend, to make it known to the landlords that he was not pleased with their new 'infatuation'.⁵⁹ Indeed, Townsend himself had already been trying to do this, by introducing into the Irish Parliament a bill protecting the tenants.
With the massive emigration which occurred during this period, it is not extravagant to say that the Ulster Custom might possibly have been abolished or seriously altered had not the economic motivation of the landlords come into conflict with British policy in Ireland regarding the maintenance of a loyalist garrison. Brigger, who in accordance with the democratic content of his Catholic-Nationalist philosophy, is inclined to emphasize the resistance of the Protestant peasantry, is nonetheless forced to admit that 'by the middle of 1772 the agitation had become less fierce, not by reason of the hearts of steel growing less determined, but because undertakers and magistrates increasingly became more moderate in their dealings, in face of the storm that their many high-handed acts had provoked, and also in view of the royal expression regarding their conduct'.⁶⁰
After this episode calm returned once more to Ulster. Not until the second half of the 19th century do we again find substantial conflict. Once again, specific causes were at the root of it. After the famine the Irish aristocracy in general had become not only politically obsolete, but economically bankrupt. The British liberal bourgeoisie were anxious to liquidate them and thereby eliminate one of the more backward supports for the Tories. The aristocracy itself was willing to be liquidated, provided the price was right. From 1849, with the passing of the Encumbered Estates Act, the process of buying out the landlords was under way. It was such a profitable business that even the comparatively solvent aristocracy of the North-East joined in, and in the North as well as the South many estates began to pass into the hands of financial speculators. The sole motivation of these speculators was private profit and [they had no respect for the customary relations which had] grown up between tenant and landlord. 'The new proprietors', says the English liberal Thomas MacKnight, who spent many years in Belfast, 'acted on commercial considerations. They were generally less indulgent to the tenants than the old owners. They considered that all they had legally bought they had a right to sell. Thus in the death throes of the land system as it existed in most of Ireland, the position of the Protestant tenantry became [precarious]. Progressing towards fixity of tenure, they who had always had it were now in a precarious state. Understandably they fiercely [resisted] the [erosion] of the [customary] value of land. In this situation, the tenant's share in the land left him at a loss. When he went to sell his tenant right he found it was almost worthless, and the pittance he received on sale was more likely than not seized by the landlord in payment for arrears accumulated during times of distress. The weakness of the Ulster Custom coupled with the change in the ownership of the land — rather than any major attempt on the part of the landlords to abolish the custom — were responsible for the agrarian unrest in the North-East during the last decades of the 19th century.
Who Was Favoured?
In trying to construct a history of agrarian struggle for the Protestant peasantry, which would explain the existence of the Ulster custom in a way compatible with the theory of a sturdy Protestant community developing into a nation, the BICO simultaneously ignores the popular feelings of the Protestant peasantry on the subject and unwittingly adopts the standpoint of a certain section of the landed aristocracy. As the British liberal bourgeoisie were busy cutting the ground from under the aristocracy, a stratum of the larger, and politically more important, Northern aristocracy fought vainly to retain their old influence and prestige. They realized that the legal recognition of the Ulster Custom which the peasantry was demanding, in the context of a capitalist solution to the land question, would mean the end of the line for them. They were therefore hostile to any steps in that direction, their favourite argument being that the Ulster Custom was the result of agrarian outrages and it would be a gross profanity to enshrine it in legal code. The argument of the landlords was not taken seriously by anybody (until now by the BICO) and least of all by the Protestant tenantry. They remained firmly convinced that the Ulster Custom was a special concession to them in return for their counter-revolutionary services to Britain and the Ascendency.
A popular ballad addressed to the landlords, during the second period of conflict, showed the views of the tenantry: [illegible] and clansmen [illegible] but favours none, we're asking [illegible] We gave our Yeo[men ... we]'ll keep our lands.
This verse expressed succinctly what the peasantry, and indeed most historians of the Ulster Plantation and Protestant community, knew to be a fact of history. James McKnight, who was the most popular spokesman for the Ulster tenantry, and who has been described as 'one of the greatest authorities on the Ulster land question from the tenants' points of view',⁶¹ countered the landlords' argument in a pamphlet entitled The Ulster Tenant Right — an original grant from the Crown. McKnight states four different reasons why concessions had to be granted to the Protestant peasantry. Firstly, without such concessions no-one would have been willing to risk their lives and the lives of their families in coming to Ireland.⁶² Secondly, the aristocracy needed the plebeian masses to protect them against the dispossessed Irish and consequently had to woo them.⁶³ Thirdly, the provisions of the Ulster plantation, as outlined in the 'Collection of Such Orders and Conditions as are to be observed by the Undertakers upon the Distribution and Plantation of the Escheated Lands of Ulster', specifically excluded the return of the outcast Irish. The only meaningful way in which this could be done was through granting fixity of tenure to the Protestant peasantry. Even common sense would tell us that such a concession was essential to the success of the Plantation. Finally, the Plantation was conceived not solely with financial profit in view. If that had been the case, as he himself pointed out, King James would have kept the Plantation lands for himself. But in fact an important aspect of the exercise was to plant a loyal garrison in Ireland, and it would have been counter-productive to have installed a divided community.⁶⁴
After examining the historical records concerning the Ulster Plantation, McKnight comes to the following conclusions:
1. 'That the lands of Ulster never were granted, in simple, feudal ownership, to the original Proprietors, who could therefore convey to their successors only such title as they themselves held from the Crown and no other.
2. That, for purpose of State, the money terms required from these were made unintentionally easy.
3. One object of this leniency was that they might be enabled to share the benefits of their own bargain with the tenant settlers for the better encouragement of the Plantation.
4. That this was also one special object of making "fixity of tenure" to be a universal law of the Ulster Plantation, in order that the cultivators as well as the owners of the soil might have a "certain estate" or interest in it.
5. That the successors of the original Undertakers, and, in fact, all persons drawing titles from them, were held by the Crown, agreeably to its own declared intention at the time, to be bound by the Articles of the Plantation, equally with the individuals to whose right they have succeeded.
6. Hence, these successional landlords were bound in every instance to make fixed "estates" to their tenantry, and this too at rents proportionate to the easiness of their own.
7. Hence, also if the landlords were bound by the Crown to grant fixed tenures their tenantry had, under the Crown, a right to fixed tenures, and this by the very terms of the Plantation Articles.'⁶⁵
We have, above then, McKnight's view of how the Ulster Custom arose. After such a long quotation we hope that we will not be overtaxing the patience of our readers if we present the testimony of yet another important authority. The most substantial historian of the Ulster Plantation, the Rev. George Hill, wrote that special concessions were made to the aristocracy to attract them to Ireland ' ... but the benefits which they thus secured', he adds, 'they were obliged to share with their tenants, by letting their lands on the most liberal terms ... This was done to secure what was called "Civil Plantation" or an arrangement which would work well in every particular for the peace and welfare of the settlement in Ulster.'⁶⁷
Landlords and the Ulster Custom
The obverse side of the BICO's contention that the Protestant peasantry, armed with their democratic traditions, forced the Ulster Custom on the landlords, is its claim that the landlords were in constant fear of the peasantry. The picture which it projects is one of an aristocracy terrorized into conceding some of its most fundamental property privileges to the plebeian masses. In its typically schematic manner, the BICO gleans a few appropriate passages from the four monstrous volumes of the Devon Commission Report and rests content that it has clinched the argument. The substance of the matter, however, cannot be clouded by a few isolated quotations, no matter how well chosen. There were many good reasons why the aristocracy, far from being coerced, willingly conceded these privileges which, in the words of the Devon Commission, were 'either authorized or connived at by the landlords'.
The principal reason was the aspect of the custom which particularly favoured the landlords. It must, of course, be realized that the custom was not simply a surrender by the aristocracy to the peasantry, but more precisely a compromise which suited the landlords' long-term interests. The custom suited the landlords in that it ensured regular and continuous payment of rent. If a tenant defaulted, it was agreed by the custom that the landlord was entitled to delete arrears due from the sale of the tenant right. And, in the last resort, the custom guaranteed the landlord sovereign right over his property, since it permitted him first option on the tenant right once a sale price had been arranged on the open market.
Considering this, it should come as no surprise to learn that the passages and quotations which the BICO use to substantiate their position are of an extremely one-sided nature. This is most notable in the segment presented from the statement of James Hancock (Lord Lurgan's land agent) to the Devon Commission. Hancock, it is true, says that the peasantry resisted any interference with the custom. But it would be wrong to assume from such an isolated passage that this was the reason why the custom remained in force. In fact, earlier on in his statement he touches on a more likely explanation. 'I consider tenant right beneficial to the community', he says, 'because it establishes a security of land and leads to improvement of the estate, without any expenditure of capital to the landlord. It likewise affords the best security for his rent, as arrears are always allowed to be deducted from the amount the occupier receives for tenant-right.'⁶⁸ Only the BICO could find anything strange in a landlord's agent preaching that what was beneficial to the landlords was 'beneficial to the community'!
1. 'The Ulster Unionist Movement came nearer to comprehending the reality of Ireland as a whole than did the Nationalist Movement' (The Economics of Partition, 1972 edition, p. 44).
2. See the original edition of The Economics of Partition.
3. George O'Brien, who has written a three-volume economic History of Ireland, and who was the most eminent [economic historian, has shown] that ... the reason [the Southern tenants could not] introduce improvements was due to their inability to amass capital owing to the land system, and it is equally the fact that the reason Ulster was enabled to progress was because capital could be accumulated owing to an essential difference in the land system in the North. The Ulster custom which was observed throughout the Northern counties did away with the worst evils which characterized the land system in the South by encouraging [improvement and] ensuring that [the tenant] would enjoy [the] capital [he had invested] in accumulating.' (From a special introduction ... E. J. O'Riordan, Modern Irish Trade and Industry, 1920, pp. 44-5). Conrad Gill, whom the BICO more or less credit with the formulation of the 'uneven economic development' thesis, did not publish his book until 1925.
4. The Economics of Partition (1972) p. 2.
5. Rev. E. M. Dill, The Mystery Solved, 1852, p. 34.
6. See A Nationalist [pamphlet], pp. 37-8.
8. The Economics of Partition (1972) p. 2.
10. The Economics of Partition (original edition) p. 14. Here religion is correctly viewed as an outgrowth of the productive forces, and not vice versa.
11. I. F. Grant, The Social and Economic Development of Scotland before 1603, 1930, p. 244.
12. ibid. p. 243.
13. ibid., p. 247. 'Feu was not a democratic movement. The payments which made it worth while to the superior to feu land were fairly heavy ...', ibid. p. 270.
14. James E. Leyburn, The Scotch Irish — a Social History, p. xv. It should be noted that Leyburn is here referring specifically to the Lowlands.
15. ibid., p. 11.
16. ibid.
17. ibid., p. 15.
20. ibid.
21. S. G. E. Lythe, The Economy of Scotland (1550-1625), p. 169.
22. ibid. pp. 215-16.
23. Donaldson adds that the Scottish burghs preferred an alliance with England because the incessant wars and disputes between both countries was disrupting commercial development. Their support for the Reformation, he holds, was conditioned by this fact. Gordon Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation, p. 46.
24. T. C. Smout, A History of the Scottish People (1560-1830).
25. The simplistic approach of the BICO is seen in the following passage: 'In the last half of the 16th century Scotland was undergoing a profound bourgeois democratic revolution against feudalism. An important economic feature of this was the struggle for bourgeois rights on the land. Culturally, it involved no break with the Catholic Church, which was the cultural and institutional backbone of feudalism.'
26. Smout, op. cit. p. 95.
27. R. H. Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, 1962 edition, p. 127.
28. The Economics of Partition (1972), p. 14.
29. Speaking of the Gaelic system, the BICO says: 'But the general opinion was that the chief did not have feudal ownership. Even the assumption that Gaelic society was feudal makes many [things] inexplicable.' (Was Connolly a Bourgeois Intellectual?, p. 28).
30. Joseph R. Strayer, Feudalism, p. 32.
31. Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, New York 1963, p. 35.
32. G. A. Hayes McCoy, 'Gaelic Society in Ireland in the Late [16th Century]'.
34. ibid. p. 54. Most authorities base their assessment of the Gaelic system on the observation of Davis, whom the BICO praise as a sharp social analyst. But it must be noted that Davis had a vested interest in claiming that security of tenure did not exist in the Gaelic system, since he was preparing the case for [confiscation]. [Davis] is quoted as saying that the native Irish were as dedicated as the Scottish and English settlers to agricultural pursuits.
36. E. [Montgomery], The [Irish] Land Tenure [essay], 1888.
37. George Campbell, The Irish Land, 1869, p. 27.
38. Professor Jocelyn Otway-Ruthven, 'The Native Irish and [English Feudal Institutions in Ireland]', in [Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series], vol. VII, no. 25 (March 1960), p. 10.
39. Campbell, op. cit. p. 33.
41. McCoy, op. cit. p. 30.
42. George Sigerson, History of Irish Land Tenure, p. 103.
43. Montgomery, op. cit., p. 80.
44. ibid.
45. Campbell, op. cit. p. 34.
46. Montgomery, op. cit. p. 92.
47. The Economics of Partition (1972), p. 17.
48. Campbell, op. cit. pp. 6-7.
49. ibid. p. 54.
50. The Economics of Partition (1972) p. 10.
53. [The BICO's history is] plagiarized, without acknowledgement ... straight from the Orange ideologist Hugh Shearman — cf. Anglo-Irish Relations, pp. 44-5.
54. The Economics of Partition (1972), p. 6.
56. J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland in the 18th Century, 1874, Vol. II, p. 120.
58. Quoted in F. J. Brigger, The Ulster Land War of 1770, p. 22.
59. ibid. p. 29.
60. ibid. p. 105 (Our emphasis).
* Thomas MacKnight, Ulster As It Is, 1896, Vol. I, p. 107.
* George Gavan Duffy, The League of North and South, p. 26. The Yeomen were a counter-revolutionary militia closely linked with the Orange aristocracy, who ruthlessly suppressed the 1798 uprising and harried and persecuted the Catholic [population].
61. Thomas MacKnight, op. cit. p. 97.
62. James McKnight, The Ulster Tenant Right, 1848, p. 15.
63. ibid. p. 9.
64. ibid. p. 41.
65. ibid. p. 24.
66. ibid., p. 25. (Emphasis in original throughout).
67. Rev. George Hill, The Plantation in Ulster 1608-1620, 1877.
68. Report of the Devon Commission, Vol. I, p. 484.