THE “SCOTCH-IRISH” AND “ANGLO-SAXON” FALLACIES.
BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE, BOSTON, MASS.
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the American-Irish Historical Society:
A few weeks ago I attended a performance of Sheridan’s comedy, “The Rivals,” very ably interpreted by a new company of players.
One of them, an excellent performer, taking the part of Sir Lucius O’Trigger, interpolated a “gag,” as it is called in theatrical parlance, to the effect that modesty is a word which has no equivalent in the Irish language. It was an interpolation to make the unthinking laugh—but to make the judicious grieve.
For the Irishman is not immodest, not as the word is meant to imply—impudent. Thackeray, the shrewd judge of character, rather condemns the Irishman for his national bashfulness.
The Irishman, at home and abroad, has ever been shamefully apologetic for his race and himself. He, the proudest of mortals, is always depreciating his nation’s glory before the world.
The most successful of Irish soldiers, as we gauge success, was Wellington, a man of Irish birth, whose family had lived in Ireland for three hundred years. Yet, if we may believe biography, he always called himself an “Englishman.” If he with three hundred years of Irish ancestry behind him was English, is there, on all this continent, such a being as an “American,” since not many of us can call ourselves “natives” by much over one century of heritage?
Quite recently, in Boston, a wise and patriotic Irishman, though not a Home Ruler, said, in presenting his case before an American audience, that his family was not exactly “Irish,” since they had been in Ireland only six hundred years!
And the patriotic poet, Doctor Sigerson, of Dublin, talking with my dear lamented friend, the late Alfred Williams, himself a descendant of the great Roger Williams, of Rhode Island, remarked, incidentally, in regard to a mutual friend, that “there was an old feud between his family and mine—but we have agreed to forget it.”
The “feud” dated back to the Danish invasion—many centuries ago—when Doctor Sigerson’s ancestors fought against Brian Boru! I mention this incident merely to show that it is possible to go back—too far—in the path of genealogy.
Let us be content with reasonable research. If we can prove that St. Brendan was the first discoverer of America, and that a seaman named “Patrick Maguire” was the bow-oar who set the first foot on the strand of the New World, from the boat of Columbus—what of it? Any clumsy forger will come forward at once and declare that Brendan was a “Scotch-Irishman” and Maguire an “Anglo-Saxon,” as their names imply. For have they not demonstrated, to their own entire satisfaction, that St. Patrick was not only a Scot, but also a Calvinist—centuries ere Calvin was born? We can afford to ignore the fables of what is, to us, comparative antiquity.
The point that I wish to make is this: I concede willingly, and, I may say, gladly, that the founders of the great Irish-American societies in America, a century or a century and a half ago, were not all of the distinctively Irish race whose faith was Catholic; but of their nationality there was not the shadow of a doubt. They were Irish, and proud to call themselves such. They were not “Scotch-Irish,” nor “Anglo-Irish.”
If they belonged, for the most part, to the faith of Grattan and Tone and Emmet, does any true Irishman love their memory the less therefor? Not one! In all the history of this, our poor, crime-stained, unhappy world, there is no nation so free from the sin of persecution for conscience’s sake as poor, persecuted Catholic Ireland. Our national saints and martyrs have been Catholic and Protestant. We have never discriminated against any man because of his religious belief, but, rather, have been proud of following our leaders who loved Ireland first.
But we are jealous in claiming our own. We do not want any man to be called “Scotch-Irish” or “Anglo-Saxon,” because he did not happen to be of the same faith as Strongbow or Henry the Second, the Catholic invaders who first overran Ireland.
Emmet is ours as much as O’Connell; Parnell belongs to Ireland as much as Owen Roe. We do not discriminate between Andrew Jackson and Phil Sheridan when we glory in the deeds of Irish-Americans.
We have only one living thought at present. Our faces are set against any alliance with the hereditary enemy of Ireland and of America. That feeling is not Irish alone; it is American. It is born of experience. On our part, seven hundred years old. On the part of America, over one hundred years old. But is not the experience of one century as valuable as that of seven when we have to deal with real things? It ought to be more valuable, even as the injury of yesterday is more stinging than one of seven years ago.
The danger of an Anglo-American alliance is imminent. Its effect on Ireland is comparatively trivial. Its effect on America is immeasurably disastrous. By it we should forfeit the friendship of France, whose men and money made our freedom possible, and of Russia, whose timely aid saved us from disintegration during the Civil War. “Republics are ungrateful,” says the old adage. This republic must prove, at least, one exception to the rule, if it be a rule.
The American, and especially the Irish-American, who would favor an alliance with England, would be unworthy of Heaven, unwelcome in Purgatory, and lonesome in Perdition.
THE IRISH NAME.
John Jerome Rooney, of New York, read the following beautiful and stirring poem:
Who fears to claim the Irish name?
Who will forswear his blood?
Who holds in shame the deeds and fame
Of Emmet, Grattan, Flood?
Their hearts held true through death and rue,
Through death and sore disgrace,
Then who’ll forget the boundless debt
We owe our Irish race?
Ere Learning’s sun had found the road
Above the Eastern hill,
Her lamp of art and wisdom glowed
By Irish lake and rill;
To Scotia’s crags it flashed a ray,
And Albion spoke reply;
From tower and shrine it beamed benign,
A beacon in the sky!
Where’er the rights of man were pressed
Beneath the heel of wrong—
Where’er, from utmost East to West,
The helpless sought the strong—
There—there the son of Erin found
His soul’s appointed place—
When Freedom calls, oh, what appals
The dauntless Irish race.
Within the mighty woods of Maine
You hear their cheery word;
Upon the boundless Texan plain
They drive their thundering herd;
They smite the veins of golden ore,
They gird the earth with plans—
But first and most (their proudest boast),
They’re true Americans!
Then, who would shame the Irish name
By one ignoble deed?
He—he alone we will not own
Who would belie his seed!
We claim our line—your blood and mine—
From out a sacred sod.
Then, hand in hand, we’ll take our stand—
True to ourselves and God!