Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

by Sir Michael McDonnell

[114]was found to exist as that between the total number of voters and the whole population, in this way completely disproving the allegation.

A great deal of capital has of late been made of the alleged excessive church building in Ireland during the last few years. In the light of the fact that less than forty years have passed since the money of these same peasants for the expenditure of which so much concern is now expressed, was devoted to the maintenance of what Disraeli admitted to be an alien Church, it is a little surprising to hear this taunt from Englishmen and Protestants. Relieved, as the people have been only in the last generation, from this obligation it is not strange that the work of providing churches for their own worship should have been undertaken. The Catholic churches have in large measure been built by the contributions of successful emigrants, subscribed in many instances with the secondary object of providing work in building during times of distress. There are 2,400 Catholic and 1,500 Protestant churches in Ireland at the present moment, and there is one Episcopalian Protestant church for every 320 members of that creed and one Catholic church for every 1,368 Catholics.

Sir Horace Plunkett, who started this new fashion of attack by giving it the cachet of respectability in the first edition of "Ireland in the New Century," after declaring that he has "come to the conclusion that the immense power of the Irish Roman Catholic clergy has been singularly little abused," goes on to add in connection with the topic on which we are touching that "without a doubt a good many motives are unfortunately at work in the church-building movement which have but remote connection with religion." What is meant by this I cannot pretend to say. It seems to me unworthy of a gentleman in Sir Horace's position, and with his acknowledged good intentions to adopt an attitude

[115]which can only be compared to that which Pope satirised in the lines:—

"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering teach the rest to sneer,
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike."

But the remarkable part of the facts about this unframed charge is that in the popular edition of Sir Horace's book, published in 1905, the passage which I have quoted is omitted, and in spite of the fact that nearly forty pages are devoted to an Epilogue containing answers to his critics, the author makes no mention of its omission, and gives no reason for the implied retractation of what may be interpreted as being a very grave charge.

The books of one or two writers on the abuses of clericalism in Ireland, written in violent, unmeasured invective, and innocent—which is more important—of all notion of the value of evidence, are, I understand, eagerly snapped up and readily believed by pious Protestants in England, and it is from these books that many Englishmen have learnt all that they know to-day about the Church in Ireland.

The picture which is presented of the Irish priest as a money-grabbing martinet, whom his flock regard with mingled sentiments of detestation and fear, is a caricature as libellous as it is grotesque. Even the high standard of sexual morality which prevails in the country is attacked as being merely the result of early marriages, inculcated by a priesthood thirsting for marriage fees, and virtue itself is in this way depicted as being nothing but the bye-product of grasping avarice. I would not have thought it necessary to have touched on this subject if I were not assured of the vast circulation of the type of books to which I refer, which are not worth powder and shot, more particularly in dissenting and evangelical circles in England. The reiterated assertion by their

[116]author that he is a Catholic produces the entirely false impression that he is the spokesman of a considerable body of Catholics in Ireland whose mouths are closed by the fear of consequences.

One fact which shows how bitter is the hatred towards the religion of Ireland on the part of a section of the population of England is this—that there is no more certain method by which a book on that country can be assured of advertisement and quotation in the English party Press of the baser kind, which for partisan reasons plays on the bigotry of English people by the booming of such books, no matter how scurrilous or how vile are their innuendoes. The comment of M. Paul-Dubois on these attempts to foist on the Catholic Church responsibility for the evil case in which Ireland finds herself, deserves quotation:—"Cette thèse grossière et fanatique ne vaut l'honneur d'un devellopment ni d'une discussion: contentons nous de remarquer comme il est habile et simple de rejeter sur Rome la responsabilité des malheurs d'Erin en disculpant ainsi et l'Angleterre et la colonie anglaise en Irlande!"