The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

These reflections being kept in view, judicious men will agree that, among Europeans at least, there is scarcely any other nationality so strong and vigorous as the Irish. Their traditional feeling keeps their past ever present to their eyes; their ardent nature hopes ever against hope; misfortunes which would utterly break down and dishearten any other people, leave them still full of bright anticipations, and, as they seem to weep over the cold body of a dear mother—Erin, their country— they think only of her resurrection.

But are there not two nations among them—two nations radically opposed to each other and incapable of coalescing? Supposing a resurrection of the people, which of the two is to prevail—the numerical majority, or the so far influential minority? In either event, it is fair to suppose a new state of helotism for the one party or the other. Is this the spectacle which the regenerated nation is likely to present?

In speaking of the resurrection of Ireland, the old, massive, compact body of the people, the venerable race, Celtic in its aspirations and tendencies, if not altogether in its origin, has always been kept in view; and that anomalous, foreign excrescence which has so steadily refused to assimilate with the mass, and has until our days remained "encamped" in Ireland, as the Turks are justly said to have remained "encamped" in Europe, has never entered into our reckoning.

The true Irishman has ever been catholic—the word is used in its grammatical and not in its religious sense—in fellowship. The race, as now constituted, is assuredly of mixed origin, and large drafts of foreign population have been added from time to time to the primitive stock, which has always been kind to admit, absorb, and make them finally Celtic. Strongbow's Normans were not the last who submitted to that process; as was seen, many Cromwellians became the fathers, or grandfathers at least, of as sturdy an Irish branch as ever flourished in the strong air of the country.

But a comparatively small body of men has doggedly refused to submit to this process, and continued to this day an English or Lowland Scotch colony on the Irish soil. The future of Ireland does not take them in, for the very simple reason that they are not of her, they do not belong to her, they are as much foreigners to-day as they ever were. Therefore do we admit the existence of two nations, if people are pleased to call them so, in Ireland, but of one nation only have we written. The only question in regard to this second "nation" is: What will become of them in the future? Are they, in their turn, to become helots, after having vainly striven so long to make helots of the others? God forbid! No true Irishman nourishes in his soul such feelings of retaliation or revenge.

Assuredly, they will be prevented from disturbing any longer the public order, and forced at length to respect the majority, or rather, the mass of their countrymen. No one can object to having such a necessary measure imposed upon them. In the many civil discords which, for more than a century and a half, have disgraced the north of Ireland, they have almost invariably been the aggressors. The government openly taking their part for a long time, they had the whole field to themselves, and what use they made of their privilege, and how they improved their opportunity, is known to all. When, at last, the public authorities could no longer pretend to ignore their hateful spirit, and began to show some signs of protecting the hitherto much-abused majority, by forbidding those odious processions to which the others always attached such importance, they gave themselves the airs of a persecuted body of men, and pretended that henceforth their lives, and those of their wives and children, were no longer safe.

The province of Ulster being closed to them as a field of operations, they transferred to Upper Canada the exhibition of their blood-thirsty hatred, and on several occasions the Catholic population of the country had to protect their churches, musket in hand. Even in the United States they have rendered themselves odious to the people by foisting their spirit of strife on a land where they cannot but be strangers, and by staining some of the streets of New York with blood, in order to gratify their senseless animosity.

It is surely time that an end be put to such absurd and dangerous antics, not abroad only, but at home. In the new order of things now dawning upon Ireland, there can no longer be room for them; and the very name of Orangeman must disappear forever from the vocabulary of the new nation, to the joy of all peaceful and law-abiding citizens.

That is all the persecution they need expect. Not only will there be room for them still in the country of their birth, but of course they will have their due share in all the privileges of citizenship. Political distinctions between themselves and the old race will be unknown; social distinctions will be a question for themselves to settle. Should they show the slightest desire of combining with the majority of their countrymen, these latter will be generous enough to forget the past, and perhaps the others may imitate their predecessors, the Danes, the Normans, and even some of their Cromwellian kin, and become, at last, Hibernis hiberniores.

What is said of political and social distinctions will hold good also for religious tenets. Let them, if they choose, continue to stand by their Presbyterian dogmas, provided they do not quarrel with the majority for professing what they love to believe; but that belief must come to an external and public profession. They will often hear the bells of Catholic churches; as they pass outside, if they do not enter, the strains of the glorious music and noble anthems, resounding within, will fall on their ears; they will see the statue of the Blessed Virgin borne through the streets on the 15th of August, amid showers of snowy blossoms, falling from the innocent hands of children; all this they must endure, if it be so hard to endure it; but this is not persecution. Even to their eyes, if their heart be not frozen by a cold belief, the sight will bear some attractions. And if they come to think, that what is oldest in Christianity is the best, and that, after all, Catholicity has something in it which makes life sweet and pleasant, it can scarcely be held a crime in the universal Church to open her arms and receive back to her bosom those wandering and so long obstinate children.