Much of the diaries have been published. For example:
“The Highland Lady in Ireland” from 1840 to 1850.
“A Highland Lady in France” from 1843 to 1845.
“The Highland Lady in Dublin” from 1851 to 1856.
Her diaries from 1857 to 1884 have not as yet been published.
All the diaries as she wrote them are kept in the National Library of Ireland.
I will start with:
3rd July 1864:
“An unpleasant rumour that the 2nd Batallion (of which her son Jack was a member) is to be sent to New Zealand where the savages are still unconquered.” (Here Smith shows her support for the British Empire).
21st August :
“Foundation stone of O’Connell monument laid….great processions, rebel speeches. The immense multitude gathered in the wake of this piece of ‘mischief’ were as orderly as their betters at a flower show. My maids tell me that disaffection to English rule is spreading among all of their own rank on which I tell them that all those foolish people will get a flogging and a right good one if it comes to that. They had much better try to earn their daily bread.”
7th November:
“Queen Victoria – she is not actually insane at present, only bordering on it and deprived of her guide cannot control her eccentricities.”
21st Jan. 1866:
“Poor old Aunt Mary died. Early in Nov. she began to die and between pain and temper she nearly broke everyone. It was a most dreadful deathbed.” (In my young days people would pray for a happy death).
“Money will not revive the dead but it will restore the living” she wrote.
4th Feb. 1866:
“Death of Lord Milltown, the 4th Earl : He had gambled away everything but the house and 300 acres around it. He was a kind neighbour, well read, very sagacious in everyone’s affairs but his own.” (The beautiful landscaped tree lined terraces behind the house fell into neglect and have never been restored).
19th Feb 1866:
“120 Fenians arrested and brought to Kilmainham, most of them American officers dismissed at the end of the Civil War”
4th March:
“James Stephens still at large …cheating the halter.” (He was a Fenian who founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood, some of whose members were leaders in the 1916 Rising).
7th June 1866:
(With her £30,000 Mrs. Smith paid off some debts, assisted daughters and their poor husbands, paid money towards Jack’s promotion in the army, bought the townland of Lacken, also a farm at Elverstown, lent £10,000 to the Bermingham Estate in Tuam, Co. Galway at 4½ % interest.)
25th Dec 1866:
“Jack ordered to Manchester to keep order while those 3 murderers were executed.” (Fenians had shot a policeman. Allen Larkin and O’Brien were hanged in retaliation. They became known as the Manchester Martyrs). “Fenian documents found….plan to blow up Houses of Parliament etc, and the Queen to be shot, the good little woman who lives but to do good. She has sent her own doctor to the sufferers, fruit from her hothouses, delicacies from her table, linen, clothes etc.”
15th March 1868:
“Jack and I going to do it well for the Punchestown Races. Prince of Wales coming. Jack going to town to bring down his friends. Jack mad about hunting. In the school’s case (Mrs Smith donated the site.) Govt. to give 2/3 of cost ; my third £80, but the Lacken tenants will help, also Ld.Waterford and Mrs Brady, for their tenants’ children will benefit from the introduction of the National System of Education.” (In these National Schools Irish culture was forbidden. It was as if the children were English. Apart from that a good range of subjects was taught).
23rd May 1869:
“Mr. Richey delivered excellent lectures on ‘Early Irish History’ in Alexandra College. His book is having a rapid sale. We are having 2 or 3 murders a week here of unpopular landlords.”
4th July:
“Jack and his Fusiliers have been almost killed…5½ hours under the blazing sun on the scorching sands.. The men fell fainting. Officers had hard work to keep from same.” (Officers, of course, were made of sterner stuff !)
NO ENTRIES UNTIL
23rd Sept. 1883:
“Jack came home in 1870 on half pay. He never was my own bright boy again. He had received sunstroke at Aldershot. Four of the officers were deprived of their senses for life; two died in lunatic asylums. My poor son was the worst. He went off to England. Then came his marriage to an old attachment. They had been friends since his stay at Walmer. She was granddaughter of Admiral Harvey, friend of Nelson. Back home he became very violent, had to be removed to an asylum, where he died in Nov. 1873. (His death certificate states that, in fact, he died of general paralysis, the 3rd stage of which is insanity – what a terrible cross the Highland Lady had to bear.) In January little Lily was born. It was hard to save either mother or child. Most miserable were those last few years. All seemed ended for me at least and my eyesight gone.”
Feb. 1874:
“I underwent an operation for cataract which restored me the sight in one eye. (She returned from Dublin to Baltyboys.) I entered on a ruin, the ground worn out from over cropping, fences taken for firing. There had been an auction of my property without my knowledge. My fine cows gone, pigs and poultry and horses and carts, plants from the greenhouse etc. All had belonged to Capt. Smith. But the scandal of an auction could have been avoided. Mr. Hornidge was bent on doing his best for the young widow and orphan child. He tried to sell the house furniture but was stopped by Mr Cathcart who produced my marriage settlement made all those years ago in Bombay.” (Have a look at the article entitled ‘From Bombay to Baltiboys’)
(Here the Highland Lady shows great courage and gets going again).
“I bought a horse and cart, 2 wheelbarrows, spades, rakes, shovel, plough, harrow, cow, pig, 6 hens, 3 aylesbury ducks- and had work for many a year to come. My jointure (from the Marriage Settlement) paid the rent and I took in grazing cattle to meet labour claims etc. Jack’s widow Fanny had to buy his watch, rings, pictures, sword etc. Such is the law. In 1879 poor James King died. He is buried in Blessington. His wife has her home with me and all of her 10 children, 7 boys among them. Gladstone’s land Act 1870: (It gave more rights to the tenants and signalled the beginning of the end of landlordism.) it is like the French Revolution without the guillotine. Pistols and dagger and dynamite are used instead. Another death, the worst of all, George Richey, loved and honoured, risen to fame.”
21st Jan. 1884:
“ The Land Commission sits in Naas today. Four more of the Baltyboys tenants are to apply for a reduction of rent. It is the same as was paid in the old Squire’s day near 100 years ago. My Col. was a fair landlord. Nothing has been added but the drainage money.” ( But was he fair, or indeed any landlord? The income from the tenants at Baltiboys for the 6 months ending Sept 1865 was almost £400. Of that the Smith children Jane, Jack and Anne were given just over £200).
5th August 1884:
“The Duke of Wellington died suddenly at Brighton; no loss to anyone- a bad man; he had not for some time lived with his wife.”
(To get a balanced view of the Smiths as landlords at their best it is necessary to read the published diaries especially “The Highland Lady in Ireland”. They were very charitable during the famine years. Elizabeth empathized with her tenants, visited them, wanted to uplift them, wanted to educate them, even if she could be scathing about them at times; she also castigated the gentry and the clergy. Her writing is always interesting and she paints a graphic picture of the plight of the Irish tenants and labourers for much of the 19th Century).
Copies of the book underneath are at present for sale on ebay, and at a reasonable rate.
Any comments or questions would be welcome: To contact Jim Corley please click here
