Therefore must Ireland be restored to Europe, if Europe is to be free. An independent, neutral Irish Nation would be the natural bulwark of European liberty in the West. The freedom of Europe depends on the freedom of the seas; and the freedom of the seas depends on the liberation of Ireland.
We hear a lot about Ireland’s helplessness and poverty. And it is nothing but trash accumulated by England’s scribes and hirelings. Ireland, the most fertile country in Europe; Ireland, whose flourishing industry was deliberately destroyed by England; Ireland, whose civilisation reaches back far beyond the Christian Era into the dim twilight of the ages, and whose missionaries carried, during the early Middle Ages, the torch of learning and piety all over Western and Central Europe; Ireland, who, in the nineteenth century alone, whilst artificially-made famines wrought havoc amongst her children, furnished one thousand million pounds sterling to her oppressor for investment in the latter’s world policy; Ireland, whose sturdy sons, broken on the wheel of misery, were decoyed to the number of 2,000,000 during the nineteenth century into England’s army of mercenaries; Ireland, whose geographical position makes of her the connecting link between Europe and America, and whose forty harbors to-day lie empty and desolate at England’s behest; Ireland, whose economic and biological wealth has formed the basis on which the whole structure of the British Pirate Empire has been reared:—Ireland is a rich country, rich by reason of her economic resources, and rich by reason of the incomparable moral qualities of the Irish race.
Europe has too long forgotten Ireland, too long has she shut her ears to Ireland’s cry of distress. And to-day the most far-sighted of her thinkers and statesmen recognise that the secret of Europe’s future destinies lies embedded in the green isle of Erin.
In his great speech in the Reichstag on August 19th, 1915, the German Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, said: “The welfare of all peoples and nations demands that we obtain the freedom of the seas, not—as England has done—in order to rule the latter ourselves, but in order that they may serve equally the interests of all peoples.” The words spoken by the Chancellor prove that Germany understands the nature of the immense historical task incumbent on her; and we may confidently believe that she likewise realises the conditions under which alone this task can be satisfactorily accomplished.
Despising the foul calumnies and the impotent vituperation of England’s scribes, Erin waits calmly and confidently for the great day of her liberation. The best proofs of her invincible strength—proofs which no English lies can suppress—she carries within her bosom: namely, her Existence and her Faith. Alone against the most powerful empire in the world since the days of Rome, Ireland has survived. The British Butcher has tried in vain during three centuries to exterminate her; and yet, just before the war broke out, he was forced to hold out his gory hands in a vain attempt to coax the victim he had intended to strangle. Her race, her religion, her traditions, her language—Ireland has maintained them all, and yet no foreign help has been hers since the days of Napoleon. Often has she been deceived, but none the less is her faith to-day stronger than ever. For England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity. These who, to-day, are intently listening, can hear the groan of an empire staggering under the blows rained mercilessly upon it—they can hear, as if borne on the wings of Time, a music like unto a distant death-knell, tolled by bells of the future cast by German hands, strong, swift, undaunted.
And meanwhile voices are calling to us, voices from the grave, the voices of our dead—of the martyrs who died for Ireland,—sacred voices that we hear both waking and in dreams, and that bid us watch and pray and be of good cheer, for the Green Flag of Erin is to-day unfurled in the whirlwind alongside of the Black, White, and Red.
G. C.-H.
Geneva, September MCMXV.
THE VAMPIRE OF THE CONTINENT