Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule

by Robert John Buckley

"Can we go across for half-a-crown each?"

"No, ye can't, thin."

"An' why not?"

"Because 'tis a cattle boat."

"Never mind that, sure we're not particular."

"No, but the cattle are."

There was a great rush for Dynamitard Daly's letter, and some of his sentences were made subjects of leading articles in the Nationalist press. One paragraph seems to have been neglected. He writes—"Friend Jack, you amazed me when you mentioned the names of ex-felons now honourable members of the Imperial Parliament. And so they seem to forget the days when they were felons? Ah, well, thank God, the people did not forget them in their hour of need, and though some of them may try to palm off their own selfish ambitions on the people to whom they owe everything as genuine patriotism—oh, it won't do!" John Daly holds the same opinion of his fellow patriots as is expressed in a remarkable letter to the Separatist Dublin Evening Herald, wherein the writer says that his party is "disgusted with the duplicity of Mr. Gladstone," and goes on to say that "No one now believes that the bill will pass, and almost everyone believes it was never intended to pass. I have not yet met anybody who expressed themselves as even remotely satisfied with it. Peace to its ashes." I quote this as proving two points I have always endeavoured to urge—first, that the Irish distrust Mr. Gladstone, and are not grateful to him or his party; and, second, that no bill short of complete independence will ever satisfy the Irish people. It is what they expect and look forward to as the direct outcome of Home Rule, which they only want as a stepping-stone. This cannot fail to impress itself on any unbiassed person who rubs against them for long. The teaching of the priests is eminently disloyal, and although the utmost care is taken to prevent their disloyalty becoming public, instances are not lacking to show the general trend. Father Sheehy, an especial friend of the Archbishop Walsh aforesaid, thus delivered himself anent a proposed visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Ireland:—"There is no need for a foreign prince to come to Ireland. The Irish people have nothing to say to the Prince of Wales. He has no connection with Ireland except that link of the Crown that has been formed for the country, which is the symbol of Ireland's slavery." This priest said he hated landgrabbers; all except one. "There is but one landgrabber I like, and that is the Tsar of Russia, who threatens to take territory on the Afghan border from England." Father Arthur Ryan, of Thurles, the seat of Archbishop Croke, has printed a manifesto, in which he says:—"Ever since the Union the best and most honourable of Irishmen have looked on rebellion as a sacred duty, provided there were a reasonable chance of success. It has never occurred to me to consider acquiescence to the Government of England as a moral obligation or as other than a dire necessity. We have never, thank God, lied to our oppressors by saying we were loyal to them. And when we have condemned the rebels whose heroism and self-sacrifice we have loved and wept over, we condemned not their want of loyalty, but their want of prudence. We thought it wrong to plunge the land into the horrors of war with no hope of success."

So much for our trusty and well-beloved fellow-subjects of this realm of England. Father Ryan is candid, truthful, and outspoken, and commands respect. Better an open enemy than a false friend. His summing-up of Irish feeling to England is both concise and accurate, but one of his sentences is hardly up to date. He thanks God that the Irish have never lied by saying they were loyal. How many Irish members can make this their boast? Compared with them, the Ribbonmen were heroes. The glorious prototypes of the modern member murdered their foes themselves, did their slaughtering in person, and took the risk like men. They hated Englishmen, qua Englishmen, and made no secret of it. The modern method is easier and more convenient. To murder by proxy, to have your hints carried out without danger to yourself, and to draw pay for your hinting, is a triumph of nineteenth-century ingenuity. To pose as loyal subjects and to disarm suspicion by protestations of friendship and brotherly love may be a more effective means of attaining your end, but it smacks too much of the serpent. The Ribbonmen were rough and rugged, but comparatively respectable. The Irish Separatists are just as disloyal, and infinitely more treacherous. The parchment "loyalty to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen," which Lord Houghton is in some places receiving, is revolting to all who know the truth. The snake has succeeded the tiger, and most people hate sliminess. Nationalist Ireland is intensely disloyal from side to side, and from end to end. Disloyal and inimical she has been from the first, and disloyal and inimical she remains, and no concessions can change her character. She is religious with a mediæval faith, and she follows her spiritual guides, whose sole aim is religious ascendancy. So long as the Roman Catholic Church is not predominant so long the Irish people will complain. You may give them the land for nothing; you may stock their farms—they will expect it; you may indemnify them for the seven hundred years of robbery by the English people—they say they ought to be indemnified; you may furnish every yeoman with a gun and ammunition, with carte blanche as to their use with litigious neighbours; you may lay on whiskey in pipes, like gas and water, but without any whiskey rate; you may compel the Queen to do Archbishop Walsh's washing, and the Prince of Wales to black his sacred boots, while the English nobility look after the pigs of the foinest pisintry in the wuruld, and still the Irish would be malcontents. The Church wants absolute predominance, and she won't be happy till she gets it. Parnell was Protestant and something of a Pope. Tim Healy tried to wear the leader's boots, but Bishop Walsh reduced him to a pulp. This good man rules Dublin, and through Dublin, Ireland. You cannot walk far without running against his consecrated name. At present the city is labelled as follows:—

"By direction of his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin, the annual collections for our Holy Father the Pope will take place on July the second." The National League and Our Holy Father the Pope between them cut very close. No wonder that poor Paddy has hardly a feather left to fly with.

"An ardent Nationalist" thus expresses himself in the Separatist Herald:—"I fear we must reluctantly abandon hope of a Home Parliament for a few more years. For the present we will have to content ourselves with Local Government, an ample measure of which will be given by the Conservatives. On the whole, ardent Nationalist as I am, I do not look on this as an unmixed evil. What kind of Government would be possible under six or seven factions?" This should be a staggerer for the English Home Rule party. The italics are in the original, and the writer goes on to say, "It is open to doubt that we should be able to at once manage our own affairs without some preliminary training." The whole letter is a substantial repetition of the sentiments emanating from a Home Ruler of Tralee, recounted in my letter from that town of Kerry.