This was a jocosity if not a mockery, but it was the first time I had heard the words in Ireland. The tune is almost unknown, and the current issue of United Ireland ridicules the notion that the Irish are going to learn it. The band of the Royal Irish Constabulary, playing in front of their barracks in the Phœnix Park, Dublin, on Friday evenings, sometimes include the tune in their programme, but when I heard them it was led up to and preceded by "St. Patrick's Day in the Mornin'," to which it was conjoined by one intervening chord. A Castlereagh Protestant said:—
"The children here are taught to curse the Queen in their cradles. Don't know how it is, but hatred to England seems bred in the bone of the Catholic Irish. They make no secret of their hopes of vengeance. The Protestants will have to levant in double-quick time. The people here hate Protestants, whether English or Irish, likewise anybody who holds a Government appointment. Some few days ago I was at Westport, and while in the post office there, a beggar asked Mr. Hildebrand for alms. You know that every western town swarms with beggars. He said No, and this tramp immediately turned round and said:—
"'We'll very soon have ye out o' that, now.'
"A relative of mine, who holds a sub-office, has been told the same thing fifty times. There you have the spirit of the poorer people. And don't forget that the illiterates have the power in their hands. Just think what this means.
"In England, with all your agricultural districts, with all your back slums of cities, there was only one person in each hundred and seventy who could not write his name, or at all events, one in a hundred and seventy who was unable to manage his voting paper.
"In Ireland the figures were one in every five, and of the remainder two at least were barely able to perform so simple an operation as making a cross against the right name. Are these people fit to govern themselves?
"There were two polling booths in Westport. There were three priests at each door. Tell the English people that, and see what they think of it.
"A Scotch gentleman staying in Westport during the late 'mission' was stopped at the door of the Roman Catholic Church. He was not permitted to enter, because the priests are ashamed to show civilised people the credulity and crass ignorance of their congregation. At one of these services everybody held a lighted candle, and at a given signal, Puff! out went out the lights, and with them away went the sins of the people.
"A priest was sent for in Achil. The case was urgent. A man was dying, and without Extreme Unction his chances in the next world were reckoned shady. The priest was enjoying himself in some festivity, and the man died before his salvation arrived. A relative declared he would tell the bishop. The priest reassured him with a scrap of paper, whereon were written these words, signed by himself, 'Saint Peter. Admit bearer.' 'Stick that in the dead man's fist,' said he. The man went away delighted. These are the intelligent voters whose influence is now paramount in the Parliament of England. It is by these poor untutored savages, manipulated by their priests, that the British Empire is now worked. The semi-civilised peasants of Connaught, with the ignorant herds of Leinster and Munster, at the bidding of their clergy have completely stopped the course of legislation, and left the long-suffering and industrious working men of England and Scotland to wait indefinitely for all the good things they want. The cry is, Ireland stops the way. Why doesn't England kick it out of the way?
"Turn about is fair play. Let England have a turn now. Fair play is a jewel, and Ireland has fair play. Ireland has privileges of which neither England nor Scotland can boast. The Protestants of Ireland are everywhere prosperous and content. The Catholics of Ireland are everywhere impoverished and discontented. Wherever you go you find this an invariable rule. The two sects may hold their farms from the same landlord, on precisely similar terms, and you will find that the Protestants pay their rent, and get on, while the Catholics don't pay, and go from bad to worse."