Some British and pro-British writers have taken a prejudiced position into which they will admit only such truthful ingredients as meet their views and shut out all the rest; just as much truth, as much sincerity, as much justice, as will allow them to call themselves fair and unbiased. It cannot be said that all act wittingly and purposely, but it seems to be the favorite practice of many writers of American history and biography to write events and conditions as they would like to have had them occur rather than as they really were.
What real historian, or writer of historical truths, will deny to the Celts the credit due them for the wonderful part taken by them in the constructing, upbuilding and general welfare of our great country? What people have done more than the warm-hearted and susceptible Celts, the hereditary fervor of their patriotism, the sacrifices which they have made and which—unchecked by defeat and disappointment, and hope deferred—they are daily making for their country and every country of their adoption; their Celtic veneration for ancient usages, and more than Celtic tenacity of ancient recollections; above all, their still unextinguished spirit of nationality and imperfect amalgamation even to this day with English interests and English feeling, could not fail, one would suppose, to find an echo in the heart of the most prejudiced writer of history. England has not only stolen the country of the Celt, but she has often stolen her genius. The biographical history of Ireland cannot be contemplated without pride and satisfaction to every one who feels an interest in her glory and sympathy with her sufferings.
Reduced to a condition of slavery such as no other nation on earth has endured—her name a by-word—her miseries a mockery—herself the amphitheatre upon which the dishonest ministers of England exhibited their games of blood and rioted in drunkenness and corruption,—it is, nevertheless, consoling to discover that from her condition she has partially recovered and is not completely cursed, but that the master spirits whom she produced may well take their stand beside the highest minds of any other nation, whether in poetry or literature, in eloquence or statesmanship, in camp or court.
Oppression, however it may debase the physical and mental energies of a people, cannot thoroughly destroy them; those very periods that to the ordinary observer seem less likely to be illuminated by distinguished minds, genius has often most splendidly adorned.
Mrs. Stopford Green, in her book, “The Making and Undoing of Ireland,” says: “There is no more pious duty to all of Irish birth than to help in recovering from centuries of obloquy the men of noble birth, Irish and Anglo-Irish, who built up the civilization that once adorned their country.
“It is by the study of this history alone that Irishmen will find a just pride restored and their courage assured. In this effort, however, Irishmen are confronted with a singular difficulty.
JOHN O’SULLIVAN, ESQ.,
Of New York City.
A Member of the Society.
“In no other country in the world has it been supposed the historian’s business to seek out every element of political instability, every trace of private disorder, every act of personal violence, every foreign slander and out of these alone neglecting all indications of industry or virtue to depict a national life.
“Irish annals are still in our own days quoted by historians as telling merely the tale of a corrupted land,—feuds and battles, murderings and plunderings; with no town or church or monastery founded, no law enacted, no controversy healed by any judgment of the courts. If the same method had been found for England, what an appalling story we should have had of that mediæval time, of its land-thefts, its women lifting, its local wars, the feuds handed from father to son with their countless murders and atrocious devastating for generations whole country sides.