What's the Matter with Ireland?

by Ruth Russell

THE BISHOP ON COMMUNISM

Possibly, I thought, the clergymen of Limerick were hurried into support of red labor. What was the attitude of those who had a perspective on the situation towards communism?

Just outside Limerick, in the town of Ennis in the county of Clare—Clare as well as Kerry has the reputation of shooting down informers at sight—there dwells the most loved bishop in Ireland. The Lenten pastoral of the Right Reverend Michael Fogarty, bishop of Killaloe, was so fervently national that when it was twice mailed to the Friends of Irish Freedom in America it was twice refused carriage by the British government. There was no doubt that he was for Sinn Fein. But how did he stand towards labor?

Past an ancient Norman castle on which was whitewashed the legend "Up De Valera!" into the low-built little town of Ennis, I drove up to the modest colonial home that is called the "episcopal palace," Bishop Fogarty invited me to take off my "wet, cold, ugly coat," and to sit at a linen-covered spot at the long plush-hung library table. As he rang a bell, he told me I must be hungry after my drive. Then a maid brought in a piping-hot dinner of delicious Irish stew. I sat down quite frankly hungry, but from a rather resentful glance which the maid gave me, I have since suspicioned that I ate the bishop's dinner.

First I told the bishop that I am a Catholic. Then I said I was informed that there was a reaction against the Church in Ireland, against being what American Protestants call "priest-ridden." The first reason of the reaction, I was told, was the fact that the people felt that the hierarchy was not in favor of a republic. Indeed I had it from an Irish-American priest in Dublin that many of the Irish bishops were in a bad way, because neither the English government nor the people trusted them.

"Priest-ridden?" The bishop smiled. "Priest-ridden? England would like us to control these people for her today. We couldn't if we would. Priest-ridden? Perhaps the other way about."

The second reason, it was said, is due to the fact that the workers feel that the Church is standing with the capitalists. A Dublin Catholic, wife of an American correspondent stationed in that city, told me that socialism is so strong in the very poor parish of St. Mary's pro-cathedral in Dublin that out of 40,000 members, there were 16,000 who were not practising their religion.

"A lie!" exclaimed the bishop as his jaw shot out and his great muscular frame straightened as if to meet physical combat on the score. "It is simply not true. The loyalty of the Irish to the Catholic Church is unquestionable."

And anyway, he indicated, if the people desired a communistic government there is no essential opposition in the Catholic Church.

In the past, said the bishop, the Church in Ireland had thrived under common ownership. When in the fifth century Patrick evangelized Ireland, the ancient Irish were practising a kind of socialism. There was a common ownership of land. Each freeman had a right to use a certain acreage. But the land of every man, from the king down, might be taken away by the state. There was an elected king, and assemblies of nobles and freemen. There were arbitration courts where the lawgivers decided on penalties, and whose decisions were enforced by the assemblies. One of the reasons, the bishop said, that England had found it difficult to rule the Irish, was that she attempted to force a feudal government on a socialistic people.

Recently—to illustrate that the Irish still retain their instinct for common ownership—there had been, as the bishop mentioned, a successful socialistic experiment in Clare. On looking up this fact at a later time, I discovered that the experiment had points of resemblance to the ancient state.[2] In 1823 the English socialist, Robert Owen, visited Ireland. His outline of the possibilities of co-operation on socialistic lines inspired the foundation of the Hibernian Philanthropic Society. It was in 1831 that Arthur Vandeleur, one of the members of the society, decided he would establish a socialist colony on his estate in Ralahine, Clare county. A large tract of land was to be possessed and developed by a group of tenants. This property was not, incidentally, a gift, but was to be held by Mr. Vandeleur until the tenants were able to pay for it. An elected committee of nine, and a general assembly of all men and women members of the society, were the government. The committee's decision against an offending member of society could be enforced or not by the members. The success of the society is acknowledged. Through it was introduced the first reaping machine into Ireland. By it the condition of the toiler was much raised, and might have been more greatly elevated but for the fact that the community had to pay a very heavy annual rental in kind to Mr. Vandeleur. The experiment came to a premature end, however, because of the passing of the estate out of the hands of Mr. Vandeleur, and the non-recognition of the right of such a community to hold a lease or to act as tenants under the land laws of Great Britain.

"Why should there not be a modernized form of the ancient Gaelic state?" asked the bishop.

When I spoke of the Russian soviet, and stated that I heard that the Roman Catholic church had spread in eight dioceses under the new government, the bishop nodded his head. The Church, he said, had nothing to fear from the soviet.

"Certainly not from the Limerick soviet," I suggested. "It was there that I saw a red-badged guard rise to say the Angelus."

"Isn't it well," smiled the bishop, "that communism is to be
Christianized?"

[Footnote 1: Notice was given by the General Prison Board of Ireland on
November 24, 1919, that no prisoner on hunger strike would obtain release.
It was stated that the hunger-striker alone would be responsible for the
consequences of his refusal to take food.]

[Footnote 2: "Labour in Irish History." By James Connolly. Maunsel and
Company. 1917. P. 122.]