Engels Visits Galway
By
Introduction
Friedrich Engels, a German socialist, collaborated with Moses Hess as editor of Mirror of Society, 1845-1846, and with Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto (1847). He was a manufacturer in Manchester from 1850 to 1869. Engel's edited and published Marx's works and his important independent contribution is a study of the development of socialism "from Utopia to Science".
Letter from Engels to Marx
Manchester
May 23rd, 1856
Dear Marx,
In our town in Ireland we went from Dublin to Galway on the west coast and then twenty miles north inland to Oughterard, then to Limerick and down the Shannon to Tarbert, Tralee, Killarney and back to Dublin again. We travelled in all some 450 to 500 English miles whilst in Ireland and have thus seen about two-thirds of the whole country.
With the exception of Dublin, which bears the same relation to London as Dusseldorf to Berlin, has the character of a one-time small capital and its built in an exclusively English style - the whole country, and especially the towns, look like France or Northern Italy. Police, priests, lawyers, bureaucrats, owners of demesnes, are there in delightful profusion; but there is a total absence of all and every industry so that it would be hard to understand how all these parasites live were it not that the poverty of the peasants supplied the corresponding contrast.
"Strong measures" are visible in every part of the country. The government meddles in everything; there is no trace of the so-called self-government. It can clearly be seen that Ireland is the first English colony and one, which is still ruled directly in the old way on account of its proximity. Indeed it can be noted here that the so-called freedom of the English citizen depends on the oppression of the colonies. In no land have I seen so many police and the drink sodden type of the Prussian gendarmerie has here been developed to perfection into a constabulary armed with carbines, bayonets and handcuffs.
A distinctive feature of the country is its ruins, the oldest of which date from the 5th and 6th centuries and the most recent from the 19th century, with all the intervening periods represented. The most ancient are churches only; but dating from 1100 there are castles and churches and since 1800 peasants cottages.
Throughout the West, but especially in the region round Galway, the country is covered with these ruins of peasants' cottages, most of which have been abandoned only since 1846. I never understood before that famine could be such a tangible reality. Whole villages are deserted and there amongst them lie the splendid parks of the lesser landlords (mostly lawyers) who are almost the only people who live there now. Famine, emigration and clearances together have accomplished this. Here there are not even cattle to be seen in the fields. The land is an utter desert, which nobody wants.
In County Clare to the south of Galway things are somewhat better. There are still cattle there and towards Limerick there are hillsides excellently cultivated for the most part by Scottish farmers; there the ruins are cleared away and the land looks inhabited.
In the southwest are many mountains and bogs but also a marvellously luxuriant growth of timber forests and beyond this, splendid grazing again especially in Tipperary and around Dublin where the country is quite obviously gradually falling into the grasp of the large farmers.
The country has been completely ruined by the pillaging wars of the English, lasting from 1000 to 1850. (They have actually lasted off and on all this time and martial law in between). Most of the ruins are known to have been destroyed during the wars. It is this that has given the people themselves their distinctive character. With all the national fanaticism, which the people have acquired, they can no longer feel at home in their own country. Ireland for the Saxon! That is now being achieved. The Irishman knows that he cannot compete against the superior power and might of the Englishman. Emigration will continue until the predominating, indeed almost exclusively, Celtic character of the population has gone to the devil. How often have the Irish begun to achieve something and every time they have been crushed, politically and industrially! They have been artificially transformed by persistent and thorough going oppression into a completely demoralised people, and are now notoriously fulfilling the role of providing England, America, Australia, etc., with whores, day-labourers, bullies, pickpockets, swindlers, beggars and other demoralised elements.
This demoralised character persists also in the aristocracy. The landlords, everywhere else transformed into bourgeoisie, are here completely demoralised. Their houses are surrounded by enormous and wonderful demesnes; but outside these the country is a desert, and where their money comes from is nowhere to be seen. These fellows want shooting. Of mixed blood, mostly big, strong, handsome, scoundrels, they all wear colossal beards under enormous Roman noses and put on the pseudo-military airs of retired colonels, travel over the country after every sort of pleasure and, if you make enquiries they haven't a half-penny but a pile of debts and live in fear of the Encumbered Estates Court.
I must tell you later about the manner in which England rules this country - repression and corruption - Bonaparte tired it a long time ago. But more of this later unless I see you up here first.
What about it?
Yours. F.E