The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

All those evil consequences had their root in a feeling of bitter hostility between the higher or noble classes, and not only the villeins, whom they ground between them, but also the middle classes, who were dwelling in the cities, emancipating themselves by slow degrees, and forming in course of time the "third estate."

The workings of that hostility form a great part of the history of Europe from the twelfth century down to the present day, and many social convulsions, recorded in the annals of the six ages preceding our own, may be traced to it. The frightful French Revolution was certainly a result of it, although it must be granted that several secondary causes contributed to render the catastrophe more destructive, the chief among which was the spread of infidel doctrines among the higher and middle classes.

But our days witness a still more awful spectacle, the persistent array of the poor against the rich in all countries once Christian, and this may be traced directly to their mediaeval origin now under our consideration; and, the evils preparing for mankind therefrom, future history alone will be able to tell.

In Ireland, this has never been the danger. In the earlier constitution of the nation, there could be no rivalry, no hostility of class with class, as there never existed any social distinction between them; and if, in our days, the poor there as elsewhere seem arrayed against the rich, it is not as class against class, but as the spoiled against the spoiler, the victim against the robber, against the holders of the soil by right of confiscation—a soil upon which the old owners still live, with all the traditions of their history, which have never been completely effaced, and which in our days are springing into new life under the studies of patriotic antiquarians. This fact cannot be denied.

The case of Ireland is so different in this respect from that of other nations, that in no other country have the people been reduced to such a degrading state of pauperism, yet in no other country is the same submission to the existing order of society found among the lower classes. No communism, no socialism has ever been preached there, and, were it preached, it would only be to deaf ears. Until the last two or three centuries, no seed of animosity between high and low, rich and poor, had been sowed in Ireland. The reason of this we have seen in a previous chapter. And if, since the wholesale confiscations of the seventeenth century, the country has been divided into two hostile camps, the fault has never laid with the poor, the despoiled; they have always been the victims, and never uttered open threats of destruction against their oppressors. If in the future men look to great calamities, Ireland is the only quarter from which nothing of the kind is to be feared, and the impending revolution by which she may profit will look to her for no assistance in the subversion of society.

We now leave the reader to appreciate to its full extent the real value of the opinion of modern writers who would justify the successive invasions of the Danes and Anglo-Normans, and also, we suppose, of the Puritans, as praiseworthy attempts to introduce into Ireland the municipal system, so productive of good elsewhere throughout Europe.

There is no doubt that municipal rights have been of immense advantage to European society, as constituted at the time of their introduction. They formed the germ of a new class, destined to be the ruling class of the world, by whom human rights were first to be understood and proclaimed, and the necessary amount of freedom granted to all and secured by just laws justly administered. Christianity is the true source of all those rights, as Christian morality ought to be their standard.

But what an amount of human misery was first required, in order that such blessed results might follow, merely because religion, which was and ever had been steadily working to the same end, was altogether set aside, and its assistance even despised in the mighty change! And after all—we might say in consequence— how limited has the boon practically become! How few are the nations, even in our days, which understand impartiality, moderation, justice! How soon will mankind become sufficiently enlightened to settle down peacefully in the enjoyment of those blessings of civil liberty proclaimed and trumpeted to the four winds of heaven, yet in no place rightly understood and equitably shared?

Ireland never knew those municipal rights from which have flowed so many evils, side by side with so few blessings, because their essential elements were never found there. What the future may develop, no man can say. It is time, however, for all to see that the nation is equal to any rights to which men are said to be entitled.

III. The great intellectual movement set on foot in Europe during the middle ages, by the numerous universities which sprang up everywhere, under the fostering care of Popes or Christian monarchs, failed to reach the island, in consequence of its exclusion from the European family; yet even this was not for her an unmitigated evil, though certainly the greatest loss she sustained. While Europe, during the eighth and ninth centuries, was in total darkness, Ireland alone basked in the light of science, whose lustre, shining in her numerous schools, attracted thither by its brightness the youth of all nations, whom she received with a generosity unbounded. Not content with this, she sent forth her learned and holy men to spread the light abroad and dispel the thick darkness, to establish seats of learning as focuses whence should radiate the light of truth on a world buried in barbarism.