Mr. John Dillon presided at a meeting of the Nationalists in Dublin, and spoke warmly in praise of the courage of the Ulster Nationalists, who had fought their battles throughout with vigor and determination. The Protestant farmers in Ulster were men whose promises could be relied upon. He could never forget the sacrifices they had made for him at the last election, or the fact that five hundred of them had voted for Mr. Healy. Though he himself had been defeated in North Tyrone, he had been gratified even in defeat. The men who had voted in those places, where there was no chance for a Nationalist, deserved the thanks of the Irish people for the loyalty with which they had obeyed the command of the leaders, and trampled upon their old prejudices and local feelings. Whigs had disappeared from Ulster, and would never re-appear, unless in honorable alliance with the Nationalists.
The grand old man, Gladstone, celebrated his seventy-sixth year on the 29th of December. May he live to accomplish the pacification of Ireland.
Orange Bluster.—Mr. John E. Macartney, who was the Tory member for Tyrone in the last Parliament, but who was ousted in the late elections by the National candidate, declares that the adoption of any form of Home Rule would be in direct violation of the Constitution, under the provisions of which thousands of Englishmen and Scotchmen have invested money in Ireland. To grant Ireland Home Rule, he says, would be to destroy the minority in Ireland, and the English people would be held responsible for the consequences. An Orange demonstration was held in Armagh, where several prominent "Loyalists" made violent speeches in opposition to the Home Rule doctrine. Following its leaders, the meeting adopted a series of resolutions declaring that a resort to Home Rule principles would be certain, sooner or later, to end in civil war, and exhorting the "loyalist" party to do its utmost to resist the efforts of the Home Rule advocates. The resolutions also commended the "loyalists" in Ireland to "the sympathy of all Protestants throughout the British Kingdom!" "The Ulster Orangemen are ready to come to the front," said one of the speakers, amid great applause, "and when their services are wanted sixty thousand men can readily be put into the field, for active service, in the defence of the cause of loyalty to the government."
Very Rev. Joseph D. Meagher, for years pastor of St. Louis Bertrand's Church, in Louisville, Ky., has been elected Provincial of the Order of St. Dominic in the United States, at St. Rose's, Washington County, Ky.
The article in the Dublin Freeman's Journal, said to have been inspired by Mr. Parnell, beseeching Irishmen to remember Mr. Gladstone's difficulties, and to "be prepared to accept a reasonable compromise on our extreme rights, if a sacrifice of our principal rights be not involved," is in the true spirit. If this advice be followed, the outlook will be hopeful for Home Rule.