One hundred years have passed. Rises now the Genius of the Irish race in America to celebrate the centennial anniversary of that glorious birth, to invoke in tones that peal across the waves—the memory of that illustrious and beloved name. A majestic, youthful presence, daughter of Erin, robed in white and with a garland of green upon her brow, comes with her sisters to lay a wreath upon the tomb of the Liberator of his country. Non omnis moriar, wrote the Latin poet:
“I shall not wholly die. Some part,
Nor that a little, shall
Escape the dark Destroyer’s dart
And his grim festival.”
Conquerors and statesmen have repeated his words. But neither the glories of war nor the triumphs of politics have won for any a surer immortality than O’Connell’s. His fortunes waning at the close, his blighted hopes, the broken column of his labors, have only endeared his memory the more to his countrymen. Time has terminated discussion or softened its asperity. Nothing is remembered but his love and his labors for Ireland. From Montreal to New Orleans, from the first shore on which the Irish exile set his foot, across the continent to the Pacific Coast, over an expanse of country so vast that the parent isle would form but an oasis in its central desert—myriad voices repeat his name, proclaiming in various forms of words, but with one meaning, this eternal truth, that freedom beaten to the earth will rise again. If in spirit the heroic figure of the great Tribune could top once more the Hill of Tara, what a spectacle would spread out before his eye unobscured by its earthly veil! A mightier multitude would listen to his strong and mellow voice. The descendants of the men into whose bruised and downcast hearts he first breathed the hope and the ardor of liberty have built up a greater Ireland in America. Sharing in the glories and faithful to the traditions of American freedom—yielding to none in the duties of citizenship—they have yet carried with them, and handed down to their sons, that love of the mother country which seems ever to burn with a brighter flame in man’s heart in enforced or unmerited exile. Irish-American generals have equalled or eclipsed the fame of those distinguished soldiers whose exploits in the service of foreign powers are household words in the military history of the race.
Citizens and soldiers unite to commemorate the birth of the man whose single arm struck off the fetters that had bound their fathers for nearly three hundred years.
If we turn to Ireland itself, we shall find the change which has been accomplished in those one hundred years in some respects more profound and startling than the corresponding advance in the fortunes of the Irish in America. The latter has been the regular and graduated result of causes working in ascertained channels; the former has all the character of a moral revolution. Ireland has not, it is true, gained that political independence with which her sons in these United States started. But over the far longer road before her to reach that goal her stride has been vast and, if we consider the growth of nations, rapid. To appreciate the transformation in the character and position of the Irish peasant we must recall what he was in 1775. Catholic emancipation was a wrench to the religious and social traditions of the English nation, and at the same time a dead-lift to the moral status of the Irish, to which no parallel will be found in history. Repeal failed from causes which we can now easily discern, but which were hidden from O’Connell by his proximity to the Union. But no Coercion Bills can conceal the fact that the strength of Ireland is growing in a ratio greater than her bonds. The tendency of modern European politics, and, willingly or unwillingly, of English legislation itself, and the increasing material prosperity of Ireland, are adverse to them, and continuously wearing them away. Her national spirit is indomitable. The hour may be distant, but it is inevitable, when they will fall from around her, and she will step forth in all the majesty of freedom.
What, then, is the place O’Connell holds in the national development of his race during those one hundred years? What are the achievements, greater than all defeats, which demand from his countrymen a recognition that no centennial celebration of his memory can too honorably offer.
In any view of modern Irish history it is essential to a clear understanding of its motives that we should distinguish the character and position of the three great races occupying the island. It is not enough to divide the people into Saxon and Celt. The native Irish race, the blended result of the successive ancient colonizations of the island, remained essentially distinct from the Catholic Norman Irish even after the Reformation. The intermarriages and adoption of Irish customs, which had early given to the descendants of Strongbow’s followers the title “Hibernicis Hiberniores,” had still left them a higher caste. They retained a not inconsiderable portion of their great estates through all the civil wars. The Penal Code never fell upon them with the rigor and leaden weight that paralyzed the native Irish. Their wealth purchased immunity. Although formally ostracized from political life, their influence as landowners secured them consideration. The observance of the duties enjoined by their religion was connived at. In other cases they were powerful enough to make it respected.