Sensation in Political Circles.
Dashing round to Downing Street on our motor-scooter we were just in time to catch Sir Philip Kerr by one of his coat-tails as he was disappearing into the door of No. 10 and to ask him whether the strange rumour as to the Prime Minister’s latest project was true.
“Perfectly,” replied the genial Secretary, gently disengaging us. “Mr. Lloyd George has been greatly struck by Mr. Jack Jones’s comparison of Lord Robert Cecil to Oliver Cromwell, and has been studying the whole Irish Question anew from an historical standpoint. He has decided that the mandate for Ireland ought never to have been undertaken for the Papal See by Henry II. Strongbow——”
“Let’s see, wasn’t he a Marathon runner?” we asked.
“You are thinking of Longboat,” he replied. “The Earl of Pembroke was invited to enter Ireland by Desmond MacMorogh, and between you and me and the lamp-post Desmond was a bad hat. Look at the way he stole Devorghal, the wife of Tigheiranach O’Rourke.”
“Quite, quite,” we replied. As a matter of fact, if he had mentioned “The Silent Wife” we should have felt a bit more at home with the situation.
“Now take the Danes,” said Sir Philip. “Do you ever hear an Irishman complain of the injustice done to Ireland by the Danes? After that little scrap at Clontarf they accepted the Danish invasion quite naturally. Anyhow, the Danes got there first, and the Prime Minister’s view is ‘first come first served.’”
“But will Denmark undertake the mandate?” we asked doubtfully.
“Why not? They have Iceland already, and there is only one letter different.”
Scooting thoughtfully away, we went to visit Mr. T. P. O’Connor, feeling sure he would have some light to throw on the situation. We found him overjoyed with the proposal.
“Ireland and Denmark are simply made for each other,” he pointed out; “both are butter-producing countries and, welded together, they will form one homogeneous and indissoluble pat. Peace will reign in Ireland from marge to marge.”
Mr. Devlin was less optimistic. The rule of Dublin Castle under Olaf Trygvesson was, he declared, not a whit better than the rule of Dublin Castle to-day. It was true that Turges the Dane was King of All Ireland in 815, but it was not until that chieftain had been very rightly and carefully killed by Melachlin that the Golden Age of Ireland began. He was doubtful whether Mr. Edmund de Valera would consent to be a toparch under Danish suzerainty. As for himself, he held by the Home Rule Bill of 1914 or, failing that, Brian Boru.
When we asked Sir Edward Carson how he viewed the prospect of becoming a Scandinavian jarl, he adopted a morose expression reminding us not a little of the “moody Dane.”
“If the Prime Minister’s proposal becomes law,” he said firmly, “I shall have no alternative but to hand over Ulster to Holland.”
We scooted slowly back to the office, forced to the conclusion that the Irish Question is not settled even yet.