The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

In judging of the elevation of a nation's sentiments, the first thing that strikes us is the motive assigned by the Irish representatives for refusing to pass the bill of supremacy. "Five or six changes of religion in twelve years were too much for conscientious people." Such was the answer sent back to Elizabeth, and spoken as though easy of comprehension. Had they deemed that their language could have been misunderstood, they would undoubtedly have expressed themselves in stronger terms.

Strange that such an obvious and common-sense remark had never occurred to the intelligent and highly-civilized members of the English Parliament—those ardent lovers of freedom—when applied to by a new English monarch to acknowledge and confirm, as law, the religious system he had determined to establish!

Apparently, then, at this time, Ireland possessed a conscience which England either laid no claim on, or made no pretensions to; and it might not be too much to lay this down as the first reason why Ireland remained faithful to her religion. In fact, the whole history of the period bears out this general observation. The subserviency of the proud English aristocracy, of those pretended statesmen and legislators, in matters so intimately connected with the soul, its convictions and its morality, shows conclusively that the word "conscience" had no meaning for them, or that, if they were aware of the existence of such a thing, they made so little account of it that they were ready at all times to barter it for position, what they considered honor, and wealth.

On the other hand, the constant, unshaken, and emphatic refusal of the Irish to renounce their religion for the novel "speculations" of pretended theologians— in reality, heretical teachers —at the beck of king or queen; their willingness to submit to all the rigor of extreme penal laws rather than disobey their sense of right, proves too well that they possessed a conscience, knew what it meant, and resolved to follow it. There is not a single fact of their, history, general or particular, taking them collectively as a nation, when, by their actions, they spoke as one people or individually, when priest and friar, great man or mean man, chose to lose position, property, name—life itself—rather than be false to their religion and God—which does not prove that they owned a conscience and obeyed its voice.

Can a nation, deprived of this, be esteemed really free and truly civilized? and can a nation which possesses it be considered barbarous? The answer cannot be doubtful, and is of itself a sufficient solution of the question under examination.

But, to come to more special details. The Irish idea of civilization was certainly of a very different character from that of the English; but was it the less true? From the landing of the first invasion, the Norman nobles and prelates looked down on the invaded people as barbarous and uncouth, as they previously looked down upon the Anglo-Saxons. Later on, they spoke of the Irish customs as "lewd;" and, later still, the majority of them adopted those "lewd customs."

If the question be merely one of refinement of outward manners, and aquaintance with the artificial code established by a society with which the Irish, up to that time, had never come in contact, the Normans may be granted whatever benefit may accrue to them from such, though, even here, the Irish chieftains might later on compare favorably with their foes. For instance, if is doubtful whether Hugh O'Donnell and O'Sullivan Beare, one of whom went to Spain, and the other to Portugal—and the second, Philip II. commanded to be treated as a Spanish grandee —were not as courteous and dignified as Cecil or Walsingham, or Essex or Raleigh, at the court of Elizabeth. And, if we take the case of the descendants of Strongbow's warriors, who became "more Irish than the Irish," there is no reason why we should not prefer the manners and bearing of young Gerald Desmond, when, after leaving Rome, he appeared at the court of Tuscany, to those of the young lords who danced at Windsor, under the eyes of Henry, with Anne Boleyn. But, treating the subject seriously, and examining it more closely, we may find a necessity for reversing the opinion which is too commonly entertained.

Civilization does not consist only, or chiefly, in refinement of manners, but in all things which exalt a nation; and, after the "conscience" of which we have spoken, nothing is so important in making a nation civilized as the institutions under which it lives.

The laws are the great index of a people's civilization, chiefly as regards their execution. Nothing can be more indicative of it than the criminal code of a people.

The law of England at that time compares poorly with the Irish compilation known as the "Senchus Mor," which scholars have only recently been able to study, and which is being printed as we write, and to be illustrated with learned notes. From all accounts given by competent reviewers, it is clear that wisdom, sound judgment, equity, and Christian feeling, constitute the essence of those laws which Edmund Campian found the young Irishmen of his day studying under such strange circumstances and with such ardor and application as to spend sixteen or eighteen years at it.