Painting: Ursuline nuns in New France / National Archives of Canada
Nearby libraries to KINGS COUNTY- NOVA SCOTIA- CANADA
- www.libraries411.com/libraries/library
locator.php?ls=... Cached Annapolis Valley Regional Library Find a Location Near You. ... To display information about a library location, ... Annapolis Royal Branch ... 
Online Renewals (avrl), , , NS Headquarters (avrl), 26 Bay Rd,
Bridgetown, NS B0S 1C0, (p) (902) 665-2995, (f) (902) 665-4899 , Administrative
Office , Hours: Mon-Fri 8:30-4Headquarters Collection (AVRL),
26 Bay Rd, Bridgetown, NS B0S 1C0Bookmobile (AVRL), 26 Bay Road,
Bridgetown, NS B0S 1C0, (p) 1-866-922-0229, (f) 1-902-665-4899Bookmobile East (AVRL), 25 School
Street, Kentville, NS B4N 3X7, (p) (902) 679-6653, (f) (902) 679-6653 , Hours:
See website for stop scheduleOutreach Services (AVRL), 26 Bay
Road, Bridgetown, NS B0S 1C0 , Previously Bookmobile West - changed name
6122012
Annapolis Royal Branch (avrl),
285 St George St, Annapolis Royal, NS B0S 1A0, (p) (902) 532-2226 , Hours: Mon
2-5, 6:30-8:30, Wed 10-5, Thu 10-5, 6:30-8:30, Fri 10-5, Sat 10-2Berwick Branch (avrl), 236
Commercial St, Berwick, NS B0P 1E0, (p) (902) 538-4030 , Hours: Mon 2-5 &
6:30-8:30, Wed 10-5, Fri 2-5 & 6:30-8:30, Sat 10-2Bridgetown Branch (avrl), 38
Queen St, Bridgetown, NS B0S 1C0, (p) (902) 665-2758 , Hours: Tue 2-5 &
6:30-8:30, Thu 10-5, Fri 2-5, Sat 10-1Hantsport Branch (avrl), 11
School Street, Hantsport, NS B0P 1P0, (p) (902) 684-4005 , Hours: Mon
6:30-8:30, Tue 2:30-5:30 & 6:30-8:30, Wed 2:30-5:30, Thu 2:30-5:30 &
6:30-8:30, Sat 10-2Kentville Branch (avrl), 95
Cornwallis St, Kentville, NS B4N 2E5, (p) (902) 679-2544, (f) (902) 679-2544 ,
Hours: Mon 10-5, Tue 2-8, Wed 10-5, Thu 10-8, Fri 10-5, Sat 10-2Kingston Branch (avrl), 671 Main
St, Kingston, NS B0P 1R0, (p) (902) 765-3631 , Hours: Tue 2-5 & 6:30-8:30,
Thu 10-5 & 6:30-8:30, Fri 6:30-8:30, Sat 10-2Lawrencetown Branch (avrl), 489
Main St, Lawrencetown, NS B0S 1M0, (p) (902) 584-3044 , Hours: Tue 2-5 &
6:30-8:30, Wed 10-1, Thu 2-5, Fri 2-5 & 6:30-8:30, Sat 10-1Middleton Branch (avrl), 45 Gates
Ave, Middleton, NS B0S 1P0, (p) (902) 825-4835 , Hours: Tue 10-5 &
6:30-8:30, Wed 10-5, Thu 10-5, Fri 2-5 & 6:30-8:30, Sat 10-2Port Williams Branch (avrl), 1045
Main Street, Port Williams, NS B0P 1T0, (p) (902) 542-3005 , Hours: Mon 2-5
& 6:30-8:30, Wed 10-5, Fri 2-5 & 6:30-8:30, Sat 10-2Windsor Branch (avrl), 195 Albert
St, Windsor, NS B0N 2T0, (p) (902) 798-5424 , Hours: Tue-Thu 10-8, Fri &
Sat 10-5, Sun 2-5Wolfville Branch (avrl), 21 Elm
Ave, Wolfville, NS B4P 2A1, (p) (902) 542-5760, (f) (902) 542-5780 , Hours:
Tue-Thu 10-8, Fri & Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5
- Nova Scotia Community College, Kingstec CampusKentville, Nova Scotia B4N 3X3, Canada2m / 2.3km
- Acadia UniversityWolfville, Nova Scotia B4P 2R6, Canada7m / 10.3km
- Annapolis Valley Campus Library, Middleton SiteMiddleton, Nova Scotia B0S 1P0, Canada30m / 48.0km
- Halifax Reg LibraryLower Sackville, Nova Scotia B4C 3M1, Canada47m / 75.6km
- NovaNET IncHalifax, Nova Scotia B4A 1E6, Canada48m / 75.9km
- Council of Atlantic University LibraryBedford, Nova Scotia B4A 1E6, Canada48m / 77.1km
- Lunenburg Campus LibraryBridgewater, Nova Scotia B4V 1V8, Canada50m / 79.9km
- Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC)Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia B0S 1M0, Canada50m / 80.0km
- Mount Saint Vincent University LibraryHalifax, Nova Scotia B3M 2J6, Canada51m / 81.7km
- Nova Scotia Community College BLHalifax, Nova Scotia B3J 3C4, Canada53m / 83.8km
---
And
anyone who reads any of my blogs... know I'm Roman Catholic, love our Canada
troops and always ...our kids.... along with #1BRising
The
Acadians
Where,
one might ask, is ‘Acadie’ today? As a
French colony it ceased to exist in 1713, but its spirit lives on and thrives in Nova Scotia’s
Acadian French population.
Today’s
Acadians are descended from the first European settlers in Nova Scotia. Second
only to the Mi’kmaq they have the deepest roots of any founding culture in the
province. French colonists first arrived in 1603, but early attempts at
permanent settlement did not last. Beginning in 1632, however, and continuing
for 75 years, a small but steady stream of immigrants arrived from France,
coming mostly from the western provinces of Aunis, Saintonge and Poitou.
Other
European colonists joined them over the years, namely small numbers of English,
Irish, Portuguese and Flemish. Most came as soldiers, tradesmen, fishermen and
farmers, seeking opportunity and a better life in America. The French brought
skills in land reclamation, and instead of clearing the forests for
agriculture, they built dikes and aboiteaux (sluices that controlled water
flow) to create extensive fertile marshlands for livestock and crops.
From
their base in Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal) the Acadians gradually scattered
south along the coast in tiny fishing settlements and north in farming
communities stretching from Grand-Pré on the Minas Basin, up to Chipoudie
(Shepody River, New Brunswick) and Beaubassin (Amherst).
By the
early 1700s they had developed a strong and distinct identity, marked by a
special relationship with the Mi’kmaq. They were still French, but they were
first-and-foremost ‘Acadians’. Over the years their colony was repeatedly
handed back and forth between England and France, and as a result they prized
peace and being left undisturbed.
This
distinct identity was reinforced when mainland Acadia became British in 1713.
The Acadians refused to pledge full allegiance to the King of England and chose
instead to claim neutrality, both in peacetime and in any new war which might
erupt.
This
went unchallenged for the next thirty years, during which time the population
prospered and grew, from approximately 2,700 in 1713 to an estimated 13,000 in
1744, when war broke out again. Over the next decade most Acadians remained
neutral, but as war escalated, the
British in Nova Scotia lost patience.
Heavily
outnumbered by the Roman Catholic Acadians in their midst, they decided to
round up and deport the entire French population. This event, known as the
Expulsion of the Acadians began in 1755 and continued intermittently for
several years.
More
than 6,000 men, women and children were carried away in British vessels and
dispersed among various American colonies -- Massachusetts, Connecticut, New
York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Many eventually found their way
south to the French colony of Louisiana, where their numerous descendants are
known today as ‘Cajuns’.
Up to
a quarter of the population escaped into French territory – Ile Saint-Jean
(Prince Edward Island), Ile Royale (Cape Breton) or across the border into
present-day New Brunswick and on to Quebec. A few fled deep into the Nova
Scotia woods and survived there until the war ended. Approximately 3,000 were
rounded up in Ile Royale and Ile Saint-Jean and deported to France after the
British captured Louisbourg in 1758.
After
war ended in 1763, a trickle of Acadian families slowly returned from the
American colonies and France to Nova Scotia, where they joined families that
had escaped deportation and remained in the colony. By the early 1770s they
numbered about 1,600. Their homes had been burnt and their farmlands given to
the New England Planters, so they were forced to start over in more isolated,
less hospitable areas of the province.
Today,
Acadians live in every corner of Nova Scotia. Their presence is especially
strong in Cheticamp and Isle Madame on Cape Breton Island, in Pomquet near
Antigonish, and in southwestern Nova Scotia in Wedgeport, Pubnico and Clare, or
the French Shore along Baie Sainte-Marie.
Family
names such as d’Entremont, Amirault, Muise, LeBlanc, d’Eon, Theriault, Samson,
and many others fill the telephone books and make for wonderful summertime
family reunions. Acadians also celebrate their heritage in events such as the
Festival Acadien in Clare, the Festival de la barge in Buttes-Amirault, and the
Festival de l’Escaouette in Cheticamp.
In
smaller communities where French has sometimes been lost as the mother tongue,
there is still a strong attachment to ancestral roots. Local museums in places
like Minudie and Chezzetcook, for example, celebrate the Acadian heritage and
culture of long ago.
The
Government of Nova Scotia supports and encourages survival and growth of the
French language and Acadian culture. French schools, cultural organizations and
radio stations are found in all the larger Acadian communities, and a weekly
newspaper, Le Petit Courrier, ensures that people from different Acadian
regions can all share information in the language of their ancestors.
Most
Acadian communities in Nova Scotia are located close to the ocean, and although
the early Acadians were farmers on the
marshlands of the Bay of Fundy, their descendants today live off the sea, with
lobster-fishing being the main industry.
The
next time you meet someone who argues that ‘Acadie’ no longer exists, just tell
them that it’s alive and well in a vibrant culture and joie de vivre that have
endured across four centuries. Tell them that a memorable experience awaits
them on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, at the sound of the fiddle or an old
French ballad, and in the taste of succulent lobster!
BLOGGED;
CANADA-
NOVA SCOTIA- HUMAN RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS- A BIT OF HISTORY OF NOVA SCOTIA - 1500s
onwards
-------
-------------
QUOTE: just a little good news.... and not a shot
was fired in Ireland...or Lebanon
Anne
Murray 1983- A LITTLE GOOD NEWS
BLOGGED:
CANADA FORMED ON JUDEO-CHRISTIAN HERITAGE- please
learn and respect r Canada history youngbloods- French/English/First Peoples-
there is so much and all of our history matters..imho- God bless our troops and
God bless our beautiful Canada/September 19 2014Valley Jewish community
celebrates Rosh Hashanah
------------------
Some
Nova Scotia history 4 ya...
That's
a lotta lobster-kallista d'entremont west pubnico nova scotia's lobster...
kallista
d'entremont west pubnico nova scotia's lobster...
Pubnico.ca - oldest Acadian Village in the World Plus
Ancient Village Acadien au Monde
Oldest
Native Languages of the Americas: GETCHA NOVA SCOTIA ON
Mi'kmaq
(Mi'kmawi'simk, Mi'kmaw, Micmac, Mikmaq)
Mi'kmaq
Nova Scotia Culture and Legends...
Native
Languages of the Americas:
Mi'kmaq
(Mi'kmawi'simk, Mi'kmaw, Micmac, Mikmaq)
BLOGGED-
wordpress:
CANADA-
GETCHA NOVA SCOTIA HISTORY ON FOLKS…. incredible find- history of newspapers,
internet, radio and Nova Scotia’s own Navy- bandits, pirates, slaves- and the
Nova Scotia-Little Scotland- England-France -lower Canada -Come
Visit-March20/15- In Honour of Oxford Journal Local Newspaper Closing
-------------
MOVIE
MUST SEE- '71 ABOUT THE IRISH (GLOBAL SYSTEMATIC RACISM IT
WAS ON CATHOLICS VS PROTESTANTS)- this movie from Protestant English Army
kid.... caught in Northern Irland...
'71
Haunting
vision of the Troubles
Brilliantly,
beautifully acted ’71 describes early 1970s conflict in Northern Ireland
On the
weekend following Run All Night comes ’71, which is also about one long and
treacherous night in the life of a man desperately trying to survive while
being pursued by Irish gunmen with the worst of intentions. The similarities
pretty much end there.
In one
of the more impressive feature directing debuts in recent years, Yann Demange
has fashioned a searing, remarkably realistic and unforgettable periodpiece
thriller reminiscent of the docudrama films of the great Paul Greengrass
(Captain Phillips, United 93, Bloody Sunday).
Jack
O’Connell, who spent most of Angelina Jolie’s Second World War film Unbroken
enduring unspeakable tortures at the hands of a sadistic Japanese POW camp
commander, is once again playing a soldier who’s banged up and battered to
within an inch of his life — but this time it all happens over the course of
one long and extremely harrowing night behind enemy lines during the Troubles
in Northern Ireland in 1971.
Just
25 and looking younger, O’Connell gives a stirring performance as Gary Hook, a
green recruit with the British army who is deployed to Belfast even though he
and his mates are clearly far too inexperienced to navigate the tricky
politics, the shifting motives of agents and double agents, and the
increasingly agitated locals who greet their presence by throwing bags of feces
and rocks at them.
Once
shots are fired and blood is spilled, the parallels between Northern Ireland in
the early 1970s and the Iraqs and Afghanistans of the current day are clear
without any heavy-handed symbolism from Demange and screenwriter Gregory Burke.
It’s chaos in the streets, with the British soldiers doing everything they can
to NOT fire — until an Irish civilian shoots a Brit in the head, execution
style, and a fullscale riot ensues.
Gary
barely escapes with his life, but his unit leaves him behind, either unwilling
or unable to get to him. (It’s possible they believe he, too, is dead.) From
that point on, the complex, sometimes convoluted nature of the conflict is
reflected in Gary’s experiences. A young Irish boy comes to his aid. Members of
the Provisional IRA construct a bomb in the back of a pub while Gary sits out
front, awaiting his fate. An Irish couple find Gary near death, passed out on
the street, and they debate whether to come to his aid or to keep on walking —
because helping this man will put their own lives in imminent danger.
O’Connell
is brilliant at conveying Gary’s resourcefulness and bravery — but also the
flat-out terror he feels when he’s certain his life is about to end. This young
man is no hero. He spends little or no time trying to understand the politics
that put him in a uniform and led to strangers either wanting to cut him to
pieces or risk their lives to save his. He just wants to go home.
’71 is
filmed with such a realistic tone, at times it was a little difficult to follow
what was happening in the nighttime fog of war. Once or twice, I found it hard
to decipher the thick British and Irish accents. And Demange didn’t do himself
any favours by casting two main characters — one Irish, one British — who look
alike, down to the facial hair. It just added to the mild confusion. Quibbles.
Frame
by frame, ’71 is one of those intense war thrillers where you know it’s
fiction, you know it’s not a documentary, and yet every performance and every
conflict feels true to the history and the events of the time.
Movie
Review
’71
...............................................................................................
Starring:
Jack O’Connell, Sam Reid, Charlie Murphy
Directed
by: Yann Demange. Written by: Gregory Burke. Running time: 99 minutes.
...............................................................................................
Jack
O’Connell plays a green recruit with the British army who is deployed to
Belfast in 1971 in the film ’71. DEAN ROGERS • Roadside Attractions
AT THE
MOVIES- RICHARD ROEPER
-----------
Instructions:
Explain
why Irish Catholics were discriminated against in Canada. In relation to this
statement: The Irish Catholic immigrants experience in Canada was not a
welcoming one during the first half of the 19th century because Canadians saw
the Irish as an inferior race and were subjected to brutal discrimination,
hatred and unjust racism. Please focus on religion throughout the essay.
Content:
Irish
Catholic Racism in Canada Name: Institution: The Canadian history is largely
influenced by the events of different cultures meeting therefore causing
tension among various groups yielding to prejudice among the groups. One of the
groups moving into Canada was the Irish people from Ireland who were natively
Catholics. This caused tension between the catholic Christians and the faith of
the typical inhabitants of the new found land today’s Canada. Four hundred
years after the settlement in the land there was still discrimination against
the Irish Catholics in the nineteenth century. The immigration of the Irish
people continued in Canada to the better half of the nineteenth century.
However, their experience during this period was not welcoming to them (Bramadat,
& Seljak, 2008). They faced brutal discrimination, unjust racism and hatred
from the Canadians who perceived them as an inferior race and religious people.
There were various reasons why the Catholics were brutally discriminated in
Canada during the early years of the nineteenth century as discussed herein.
One of the major causes of the Irish Catholic Christians in Canada was the rise
of the anticlericalism. In the early modern age, the Catholic Church under the
leadership of pope strived to maintain its original role in politics and
religion as there arose the modern secular world and powers. This on the other
hand, l...
--
------------
THE
FORCE OF HOPE: The Legacy of Father
McGauran- Irish Immigration 2 Canada
Obstacles
to Re-settlement:
The
misery of the journey on board the coffin ships wasn't the only obstacle Irish
immigrants would face in coming to Canada. The religious divisions of their
homeland followed them. The Protestant Irish and Catholic Irish were two
distinct ethnic groups(12). The Catholics claimed themselves to be the original
inhabitants of Ireland, colonized but never defeated by the British. The
Protestants represented the Scottish and English colonists who came to Ireland
under the rule of the British and who were often rewarded with free land for
their loyalty to the Crown. The Irish Catholics and Protestants inherited a
fierce mistrust of each other which, though often overcome by individual acts
of generosity, would take generations to heal here in Canada(13).
The
majority of Protestant Irish came to Canada with ample savings and a religious
background that allowed them to fit in almost anywhere in British Canada. The
Catholics, however, were socially and politically marginalized in Ireland, and
came to Canada with few advantages other than a familiarity with the English
language, British institutions, and the Catholic religion they shared with the
French of Québec(14). That wasn't nearly enough.
The Irish
Catholics were English-speaking which complicated their relations with the
French. But it was Québec that welcomed them most vigorously, partly because of
religion and perhaps because of their shared resistence to the English. In the
wake of their calamitous arrival at Grosse Isle, hundreds of Irish children were
orphaned and alone. Québec families and parishes rallied around these children,
adopting them and allowing them to keep their Irish names. In Québec today, you
can find fourth and fifth generation Donovans, O'Neills and O'Brians who do not
speak English.
But
outside Québec, acceptance was more difficult. Irish Catholicism was frowned
upon by the Protestant majority in other parts of Canada. And in Canada,
citizenship was tied to the British Crown. This made it extremely difficult for
the "native Catholic Irish" to remain loyal to their political
culture and heritage while at the same time being good Canadian citizens(15).
There was much suspicion of the Irish Catholics. Those who came during the
Famine arrived poor and sick with cholera and typhus. The fear of spreading
disease and of hungry, indigent hordes threatening public order worried
government and public alike. The painful stereotype of the Irish Catholic as
lazy, drunken and proliferate-the old hurts from home-followed them into
English Canada and would remain etched in the public mind for several
generations. It was a stereotype the Irish would defeat only through hard work,
social ascendancy and education.
ENDNOTES:
12,13,14,15
- The 1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia
(McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, 1998).
(McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, 1998).
LINKS:
Related
Internet Links:
Canadian
Association for Irish Studies
The Canadian Association for Irish Studies has been serving students of Irish culture for a quarter of a century. CAIS members include teachers, genealogists, researchers, students, and many others committed to Irish culture in Canada, and can be found in every province and territory of Canada. And CAIS supporters come from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A., Europe, the Orient, and Australia.
The Canadian Association for Irish Studies has been serving students of Irish culture for a quarter of a century. CAIS members include teachers, genealogists, researchers, students, and many others committed to Irish culture in Canada, and can be found in every province and territory of Canada. And CAIS supporters come from Ireland, Northern Ireland, Britain, the U.S.A., Europe, the Orient, and Australia.
Irish Nova Scotian Genealogy Conference
Looking for information on Irish descendants in the Nova Scotia area? This may be your site.
Looking for information on Irish descendants in the Nova Scotia area? This may be your site.
The Irish Genealogical Project
As this home page describes, the aim of the Irish Genealogical Project is "to provide a comprehensive guide for anyone wishing to trace their ancestors in Ireland. Emigration has long been a sad fact of life in Ireland. Irish emigrants have travelled far and genealogical research offers the children of these emigrants an opportunity to discover a part of their own history."
As this home page describes, the aim of the Irish Genealogical Project is "to provide a comprehensive guide for anyone wishing to trace their ancestors in Ireland. Emigration has long been a sad fact of life in Ireland. Irish emigrants have travelled far and genealogical research offers the children of these emigrants an opportunity to discover a part of their own history."
Irish
Family History Foundation
Irish Family History Foundation has genealogy and family history from across Ireland: the site covers the 32 counties of Ireland, North, South, East and West. And the millions of genealogical records computerized at the Irish Family History Foundation's network of research centres makes it possible to get started on some extensive research.
Irish Family History Foundation has genealogy and family history from across Ireland: the site covers the 32 counties of Ireland, North, South, East and West. And the millions of genealogical records computerized at the Irish Family History Foundation's network of research centres makes it possible to get started on some extensive research.
On the
IRISH NET
This site it dedicated to the Irish abroad and is aimed at keeping in touch with Irish communities around the world. There's also a great listing of Irish publications in Canada and the US -- a source of less well known writings on and from Ireland.
This site it dedicated to the Irish abroad and is aimed at keeping in touch with Irish communities around the world. There's also a great listing of Irish publications in Canada and the US -- a source of less well known writings on and from Ireland.
Québec
Family History Society
This site has more links to genealogical and Irish Internet resources.
This site has more links to genealogical and Irish Internet resources.
The National
Archives of Ireland
An excellent place to trace your family history. There's a wide selection of documents available for searching including some documents from the Great Famine. Admittedly, most of these records are only available on microfiche in the archives. But this is a useful place for finding out what's available. Ordering and cost info is also provided.
An excellent place to trace your family history. There's a wide selection of documents available for searching including some documents from the Great Famine. Admittedly, most of these records are only available on microfiche in the archives. But this is a useful place for finding out what's available. Ordering and cost info is also provided.
North Ireland
Family History Society
For those interested in family history from the north of Ireland, this Web site will provide many useful facts and resources.
For those interested in family history from the north of Ireland, this Web site will provide many useful facts and resources.
United
Irish Societies of Montreal
Looking for something to do on St. Patrick's Day? The United Irish Societies of Montreal organize the parade in Montreal. And their site also has information on parades across North America and links to Celtic sites on the Internet.
Looking for something to do on St. Patrick's Day? The United Irish Societies of Montreal organize the parade in Montreal. And their site also has information on parades across North America and links to Celtic sites on the Internet.
Grosse
Isle and the Irish Memorial
Here you can do virtual tour as you would experience it during a visit to Grosse Isle. You can also find out when this National Site is open and how to arrange for transportation to get there.
Here you can do virtual tour as you would experience it during a visit to Grosse Isle. You can also find out when this National Site is open and how to arrange for transportation to get there.
AND...
Legacy:
One
advantage Protestant and Catholic Irish immigrants shared in coming to Canada
was fluency, or at least some familiarity, with the English language. This
allowed them to participate more immediately and more directly in Canadian
society than many other non-English-speaking immigrants(16).
The
social cohesiveness of Irish Catholics was of great benefit during their
re-settlement. Years of oppression had made the Irish very close-knit. They'd
developed mutual aid societies to help one another. This independence of the
state and natural generosity was underscored by a strong religious conviction
that you were your brother's keeper. It was this kindness that helped soften a
nation and made it more decent.
The
descendants of Irish immigrants today comprise more than ten per cent of the
Canadian population(17). Well known Irish in Canada have included:
Edward
Blake, barrister, businessman, politician, statesman and dominant figure of the
Liberal Party during the first twenty years of Confederation and the opponent
most feared in debate by John A. Macdonald(18).
Timothy
Eaton, who emigrated to Canada in 1854 with 100 pounds and in 1869 opened a
little store on the south-west corner of Yonge and Queen, which became the
foundation of a great retail organization serving all of Canada(19).
Nellie
McClung, an activist and prominent campaigner in the drive for female suffrage
in Manitoba and Alberta. McClung is a nationally known feminist and social
reformer. Sixteen books and numerous articles made her one of Canada's best
known authors(20).
Francis
Michael(King) Clancy grew up in Ottawa and went on to become a legend in the
sport of Hockey. King was a star defence man in the National Hockey League, a
coach, a referee and finally, the vice-president of the Toronto Maple Leaf's
hockey club(21).
Other
notables include John Joseph Lynch, D'Alton McCarthy, John O'Connor, Eugene
O'Keefe, Michael Sullivan, Timothy Sullivan, Edmund Burke, Sir Guy Carleton,
Benjamin Cronyn, and Brian Mulroney, former leader of the Conservative Party
and prime minister of Canada.
Perhaps
the earliest Irish Canadian statesman was Thomas D'Arcy McGee. First and
foremost McGee was a champion of the rights of the Irish. He emigrated to the
United States at the age of seventeen in 1842, but returned to his homeland
during the Famine years and led the fight for Independence. In 1848, disguised
as a priest, he made his way onto a ship bound for America.
From then
on he was driven by the dominant concern of his life: the condition of the
Irish in the United States and Canada. His efforts were directed through his
pen; he circulated pamphlets and edited various newspapers. In 1857 he focussed
his attentions on Canada and made the transition from journalism to politics.
McGee was elected as a member of parliament for Montreal and was instrumental
in establishing the right of Catholics to funds for separate Catholic
schools(22).
By this
time, Father Bernard McGauran was continuing his own humanitarian efforts for
the Irish. McGauran had survived the miserable summer of 1847 at Grosse Isle,
despite his own bout with typhus. After his work was done for the Famine Irish,
Father McGauran established Saint Brigid's Home, a shelter for destitute Irish
immigrants, widows and orphans. Saint Brigid's still exists today as a senior
citizen's residence and carries on with McGauran's legacy. The home has moved
and grown over the years and now stands on a lot beside St. Patrick's cemetery,
the burial place of Father Bernard McGauran(23).
ENDNOTES:
17,18,19,20,21,22
- The Irish in Canada, Volume I
edited by Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (Celtic Arts of Canada, Toronto, 1988).
edited by Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynolds (Celtic Arts of Canada, Toronto, 1988).
16 - The
1998 Canadian & World Encyclopedia
(McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, 1998).
(McClelland & Stewart Inc., Toronto, 1998).
23 - Saint
Brigid's, Québec
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte Foy, 1981).
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte Foy, 1981).
and...
Related
Books:
Eyewitness,
Grosse Isle, 1847
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte Foy, Québec, 1995).
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte Foy, Québec, 1995).
Grosse
Isle, Gateway to Canada
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte-Foy, Québec, 1984).
by Marianna O'Gallagher (Carraig Books, Sainte-Foy, Québec, 1984).
Grosse
Ile: a Record of Daily Events, 1847
by Andre Charbonneau and Andre Sevigny(Parks Canada, 1997).
by Andre Charbonneau and Andre Sevigny(Parks Canada, 1997).
Flight
From Famine, The Coming of the Irish to Canada
by Donald MacKay (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ontario, 1990).
by Donald MacKay (McClelland & Stewart, Toronto, Ontario, 1990).
The
Untold Story: The Irish in Canada
edited by Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynalds(Celtic Arts of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 1988.
edited by Robert O'Driscoll and Lorna Reynalds(Celtic Arts of Canada, Toronto, Ontario, 1988.
The
Irishman in Canada
by N.F. Davin (London, England, Irish University Press, 1878, reprint 1969).
by N.F. Davin (London, England, Irish University Press, 1878, reprint 1969).
-----------------
pure
hatred between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants
Irish Canadians
·
While
it has been argued (with little supporting evidence) that Irish explorers such
as Brendan the Bold preceded the Norse to Canada, such wishful thinking is not
necessary to establish the significance of the Irish contribution to Canada.
While
it has been argued (with little supporting evidence) that Irish explorers such
as Brendan the Bold preceded the Norse to Canada, such wishful thinking is not
necessary to establish the significance of the Irish contribution to Canada.
Since the 17th century, because of political and military links between France
and southern Ireland, the Irish have lived in what is now Canada. The Irish may
have constituted as much as 5% of the population of New France. Indeed, some
"French-Canadian" and "Acadian" surnames derive from a
corruption of Irish names, eg, Riel (from Reilly) and Caissie (from Casey).
There
have also been Irish in Newfoundland since the early 18th century, if not
before. "Bristol"; fishing vessels habitually stopped at Wexford and
Waterford to take on provisions and an Irish crew and labourers for the
Newfoundland fishery. There is some indication from New France and Newfoundland
that among the Irish at this time there existed a measure of group
consciousness, especially in Newfoundland where the Irish population continued
to increase until the middle of the 19th century. During the 18th century,
smaller groups of Irish began to arrive in the new British colonies. During the
1760s a group of Ulster Presbyterians settled at Truro, NS, and an undetermined number of Irish
were part of the Loyalist migration.
javascript:DisplayMedia('986', '986', '986',
252, 285, 0, 0, 0);All of the above were precursors of the main
waves of Irish immigrants that arrived during the first half of the 19th
century. By the 1850s, over 500 000 Irish had immigrated to British North
America, although many of them had moved on to the US (in NY and Boston there
were 4 million Irish out of a total population of 24 million) or elsewhere.
Today the descendants of these Irish immigrants comprise almost 14% of the
Canadian population (4 354 155 single and multiple response, 2006 census) and
have helped define the meaning of "Canadian." Because they spoke
English, the Irish could participate more directly in Canadian society than
many non-English-speaking immigrants, and they brought to bear on Canadian life
many values that were Irish in origin.
javascript:DisplayMedia('4020', '4020', '4020',
237, 300, 0, 0, 0);In particular, education, law and politics have
felt the impact of the Irish mind. Well-known Irish in Canada have included Edward Blake, Edmund Burke, Sir Guy Carleton, Benjamin Cronyn, John Joseph Lynch, D'Alton McCarthy, John O'Conner, Eugene O'Keefe, Michael Sullivan, Timothy
Sullivan, Thomas D'Arcy McGee and Brian Mulroney.
Migration
and Settlement
javascript:DisplayMedia('customcode/TCEmedia.cfm?MediaId=7652&TCE_Version=A',
null, 'Lookup',330, 450, 0, 0, 1);The migrations of the 17th and
18th centuries had little permanent impact on Canada, except in Newfoundland
where many Irish worked as fishermen and lived in the kind of dire poverty they
had hoped to escape by migration to the New World. Newfoundland had acquired a
name in the Irish language - Talamh an Eisc - a singular distinction in
the New World. In the 19th century, the growing population and deteriorating
economy of Ireland forced a growing stream of Irish to emigrate, particularly
after 1815. Simultaneously the economy of the mainland colonies of British
North America expanded, offering better opportunities for immigrants. However,
because they were relatively poor immigrants with little money for moving
across Canada, the Irish tended to settle in the Maritimes.
By
the 1830s, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Upper and Lower Canada had significant
Irish populations. Some immigrants spread throughout the countryside, partly
because land from recent timber operations was cheap, but generally because the
Irish tended, unlike the Scots or English, to remain in the ports, such as Halifax
and Saint John, where they provided cheap immigrant labour. Even in rural districts, many
Irish preferred to seek employment instead of, or in addition to, setting up
farms. By the 1830s, Cumberland County in Nova Scotia; Kings, Queens, Carleton
and Northumberland counties in New Brunswick; Queens in PEI; and virtually the
whole of Upper Canada east of Toronto and north of the older Loyalist
settlements were notably Irish in character.
The
Great Famine of the late 1840s drove 1.5 to 2 million destitute Irish out of
Ireland, and hundreds of thousands came to British North America. This wave was
so dramatic that most Canadians erroneously think of 1847 as the time
"when the Irish came." The famine immigrants tended to remain in the
towns and cities, and by 1871 the Irish were the largest ethnic group in every
large town and city of Canada, with the exceptions of Montréal and Québec City.
The
"Famine Irish," who supplied a mass of cheap labour that helped fuel
the economic expansion of the 1850s and 1860s, were not well received. They
were poor and the dominant society resented them for the urban and rural
squalor in which they were forced to live. But the Famine Irish had another
characteristic: the propensity to immigrate to the US. Thousands had left for
the US by the 1860s, establishing a tradition that remained unbroken well into
the 20th century. As a result, in Canada today "Irish" districts and
communities are generally those that were established before the famine. For
example, in the Maritimes, only Saint John has a significant Famine Irish
element. Today, Ontario has the largest population of Irish outside the
Atlantic provinces. By the 20th century, there was a significant Irish
community in Winnipeg and in a few rural districts of Manitoba, but the impact
of the Irish in the West has not been as important as in the East.
Social
and Cultural Life
The
most important single feature of the Irish, both in Ireland and in Canada, is
that they have been divided into 2 different and mutually hostile groups. This
division is so fundamental that the Irish might be considered 2 ethnic groups.
Although it is common practice to refer to Irish people as either Catholic or
Protestant, religion itself has never been much more than the easiest
determinant of a group affiliation that consists of many factors. The Catholics
perceive themselves to be the representatives of the original inhabitants of
Ireland, while the Protestants represent the Scots and English colonists who
arrived in Ireland when it was under British rule. Because the Catholics were
socially and politically disadvantaged in Ireland, they arrived in Canada with
few advantages other than a familiarity with the English language and British
institutions. They lacked the means to establish themselves securely within the
economy and had little impact on the business community. The Catholic Church,
an important institution for the Catholic Irish in Ireland, was shared by the
Irish in Canada with the Highland Scots and the French, and helped the Irish in
the difficult process of integration into Canadian society.
The
Protestant Irish, in contrast, generally had more money and found it
significantly easier to re-establish themselves as farmers. They became one of
the most agrarian of groups in 19th-century Canada. Because their religion made
them more acceptable to the dominant society, they were able to move much more
freely in Canadian society.
Both
groups were rich in cultural traditions, but with significant differences. The
Catholic Irish tended to keep alive traditions of being Irish whereas the
Protestants tended to glory in their contributions to British civilization.
Neither group has preserved much lore about the actual migrations, even the
trauma of the famine, but both groups tend to be aware of the more recent
experiences in Canada.
Group
Maintenance
The
Protestant Irish tended to stress the importance of the British connection in
order to distance themselves from their Catholic compatriots. The Orange Order, the original purpose of which in
Ireland was to preserve British rule (at least in Ulster), was essential in
Canada as a vehicle by which the Protestant Irish could gain acceptance from
their Scots and English neighbours. Individual Orange Order lodges existed in
New Brunswick and in Upper Canada from the early part of the 19th century, and
the order was consolidated in 1830 as the Grand Lodge of British North America.
Whenever British institutions in Canada seemed to be in peril, Orangemen were
fond of bringing up the Protestant victory over the Catholics at the River
Boyne in 1690, and the anniversary of that battle (July 12) remains the great
Orange celebration. During the latter half of the 19th century, the lodge
became increasingly nativist, and today it is difficult to detect a specific
Protestant Irish tradition that is distinct from a broad British tradition.
Over
the past 150 years, the term "Irish" has acquired a Catholic
connotation. The Catholic Church, the institutional bedrock of the Catholic
Irish community in Canada, laboured to gain acceptance for its people, which
meant that Irish priests and bishops were often opposed to any manifestations
of sympathy for nationalism in Ireland. For the Irish in the US, there was no
such problem, because there it was possible to be a good Irishman, a good
Catholic and a good American. But in Canada, where citizenship remained British
for so long, it was extremely difficult to be Irish politically and a good
citizen as well.
It
was also difficult at times to be Irish and a good Catholic. For example, the
Fenian Brotherhood, whose aim was to free Ireland by force of arms, was very
popular among the Irish in the US, but in Canada the Fenians (though few in
number) were considered seditious by the government, were considered dangerous
by the Protestants, and were viewed as an embarrassment by the Catholic Church
and by respectable Catholic Irish. Fenian raids from the US against British North
America inspired hostility towards the Catholic Irish and provoked attestments
of loyalty from the church and from respectable Catholic Irish. The later and
more benign Ancient Order of Hibernians was also dedicated, if less violently,
to the cause of Irish nationalism, but it too fell afoul of the Catholic
Church.
As
English-speaking Catholics, the Catholic Irish in Canada found themselves at
odds with French-speaking Catholics as well as with the Protestant majority.
Because of the sense of isolation among the Catholic Irish, a sense of identity
was stronger among them than among the Protestant Irish.
The
Protestant Irish have sustained a powerful belief in institutional strength and
have clung to structures tenaciously. Stability is seen to be their greatest
virtue. By contrast, the Catholic Irish define power in personal terms to a
degree that may seem anarchistic, but which represents a survival of the
patron-client relationship, the basis of politics in rural Ireland. The talent
of the Catholic Irish in Canada and elsewhere has been that they could
translate this personal approach to politics and to power brokerage in the
modern setting.
·
Catholic
·
Fenians
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AND
CANADA
MILITARY NEWS: 11 September 2013-Tribute n photos of Canadians Sept. 11
2001-World Trade Center-New York USA/Photos and Memorial 2 Canadians sacrificed
Afghanistan- We Remember Always
AND..
CANADA
MILITARY NEWS: Oct 2013-POPE FRANCIS-cover of Rolling Stone-Time-The Advocate
winning the hearts of billions Jan 2014- Our Catholic-Christian Faith in
Canada/Pope Francis and Canada's love of our CANADA GAY MILITARY CHAPLAIN
GENERAL and our military/love of our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters and
our Canadian history/Dr.Lockeridge 1976/Latin/Rosary - we are Canadian -God is
Angry- WATER MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD- Pope Francis
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...
seems to be scarce scholarly study of their existence and more importantly
works supposedly detailing the breadth of Canadian history ... Canadian
Catholic ...
and..
news.nationalpost.com/...j...history-of-roman-catholics-and-the-crown
The discrimination
against Catholics never diminished my enthusiasm for ... The history
of Roman Catholics and ... The Canadian Crown will thus undergo
significant ...
and...
OH
CANADA AND BRITISH PROTESTANT COUNTRIES...
tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm
13
Was there any systematic job discrimination against the Catholic
Irish ... the Irish Catholics in urban Canada in 1901 ... History
Of The Irish In ...
and..
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_D'Arcy_McGee - Cached - Similar4 Assassination; 5 Impact of the assassination;
6 Honours; 7 Further reading ....
He argues that the Fenian element among the Canadian Catholic Irish was ...
and the fact that no convincing moderate leader replaced McGee after his death.
He argues that the Fenian element among the Canadian Catholic Irish was ...
and the fact that no convincing moderate leader replaced McGee after his death.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_Brotherhood - Cached - SimilarIn 1842 three of the Young Ireland
leaders, Thomas Davis, Charles Gavan Duffy
and ... supporters within Canada but did not receive support from all Irish
Catholics there ... In 1868, a Fenian sympathiser assassinated Irish-Canadian
politician ...
[PDF]
and ... supporters within Canada but did not receive support from all Irish
Catholics there ... In 1868, a Fenian sympathiser assassinated Irish-Canadian
politician ...
[PDF]
www.irishcanadiansociety.net/Swapping_Canada_for_Ireland_Fenians.pdf - Cached - Similarmore interested in winning the Irish
Catholic vote than in risking war with ... short
of the leaders' expectations, and their tentative foray into Canada was ... Fenian
death threats, culminating in his assassination on an Ottawa street in 1868.
of the leaders' expectations, and their tentative foray into Canada was ... Fenian
death threats, culminating in his assassination on an Ottawa street in 1868.
and
Religion
and Multiculturalism in Canada La religion et le multiculturalisme au Canada
The Challenge of Religious Intolerance and Discrimination
and..
BRILLIANT
CANADIAN ARTICLE... WELL DONE...we must remember our history... it defines
us.... and allowed us 2 keep and move forward on the good whilst changing the
bad and dumping the ugly..... our forefathers and mothers had horrific times
coming 2 a new land that was a forest, water and not much that they were used 2
... and over the years they built our Canada 2 what it is 2day... Kudos and
thank u.
The
History of Prejudice and Discrimination in Canada
French and English The animosity between French and English settlers
had its roots in the CONQUEST of 1760. The French population was placed under
British rule. The two groups had different cultures. The French were Roman
Catholic and the English were Protestant, one of the widest gulfs in European
society at that time. The French Canadians obtained freedom of religion from
the British government and had rights in Canada that were not given to
Catholics in Britain at the time. Nevertheless, they were aware of
discrimination, and bitterly resented it. After the REBELLIONS OF 1837, Lord
DURHAM came to Canada and reported that the French Canadians had no culture or
history. He suggested that the French be swallowed up by the British as soon as
possible. The French refused to disappear and as they gained confidence, they
began to assert themselves in the defence of their rights. Their strong
presence in the successive governments of the Province of Canada caused
hostility among some English Canadians. The creation of a separate and largely
French-speaking province of Quebec at Confederation in 1867 was intended to
solve this problem. The conflict between French and English broke into the open
again very quickly. The restriction, or outright elimination, of French-language
and Catholic religious rights in several English-speaking provinces was seen as
discrimination by French Canadians. The execution of Louis Riel in 1885 was
bitterly resented by many French Canadians, who regarded his rebellions as
justified by English Canadian prejudice. Canada's involvement in several wars
also bred misunderstanding. So has Quebec's QUIET REVOLUTION which some English
Canadians see as an attempt by French Canadians to dominate over them.
The
gulf between English and French Canadians has persisted largely because of
ignorance. Neither side knows much about the other's real motives and
intentions, fears and feelings. They see each other, and judge each other's
actions, largely in terms of stereotypes, and always fear the worst.
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IRELAND- CATHOLIC IRELAND....
A
History of the Irish Church 400-700 AD
30
November, 1999
John R
Walsh and Thomas Bradley provide an excellent summary history of that most
formative period of Irish history, the three centuries of Christianity after
the arrival of St Patrick.
192
pp, Columba Press, 2003. To purchase this book online, go to www.columba.ie.
CONTENTS
Foreword
1.
Pre-Patrician Christianity
2.
Patrick: the man
3.
Patrick: the mission and its setting
4.
Patrick and the church of Armagh
5.
Irish monasticism
6.
Some famous monastic founders
7.
Colum Cille
8.
Prominent Irish saints in Britain
9.
Columban and other Peregrini
10. The
Irish penitentials
11.
The Paschal controversy
12.
Celtic Church Art
Bibliography
and References
Review
The
golden age of Irish art, and the time when Ireland earned reputation as an
island of saints and scholars, is the subject of this splendid short history.
The records of the time and the best of modern historical scholarship are
combined in a clearly-written overview of the period.
Starting
with the origins of Christianity in Ireland, before the arrival of the national
apostle, it moves on to cover in detail the life, work and character of
Patrick. It outlines the origins and development of Irish monasticism and
introduces some of the major monastic founders. A separate chapter each is
given over to the work of Colum Cille in Britain and to Columban’s labours in
continental Europe. The book concludes with individual chapters on three
important topics of the period: the penitentials, the Easter controversy and
early Irish Christian art.
CHAPTER
1: Pre-Patrician Christianity
He is
coming, Adzed-Head,
on the
wild-headed sea
with
cloak hollow-headed
and
curve-headed staff.
He
will chant false religion
at bench
facing east
and
his people will answer
‘Amen,
amen.’
[Anonymous
sixth-century Hiberno-Latin poem, quoted by Muirchú]
Traditionally,
the humble Saint Patrick has been credited with converting the entire Irish
race from paganism in the very short period between 432 and 461. It would be
romantic and even gratifying if this were indeed the case. Sobering though it
is, however, we have to admit that there were certainly Christians in Ireland
before Patrick arrived as a missionary in the country and that the saint worked
as an evangelist only in a part of the island.
Christianity
entered Ireland, presumably in the fourth and early fifth centuries, by a slow
and gradual process of unplanned infiltration, from the Continent (Gaul and
perhaps even the Iberian peninsula) and/or Britain. British captives carried
off by Irish raiders are one possible means of entry; contacts made by the
Irish emigrés in Britain are another; and trade relations with Gaul, Roman
Britain or Spain are yet another. Some continental literati may even have
sought refuge in Ireland during the barbarian invasions of what is now France,
at the start of the fifth century, bringing their Christian religion with them.
As we
enter the twenty-first century, the communications era par excellence, we are
so familiar with high-speed trains, chartered flights and scheduled airlines
that our world is, indeed, a ‘global village’. It is possible nowadays to
breakfast at home in Ireland and to sit down to lunch on the same day three
thousand miles away in New York! Because of this we assume that our early
ancestors were totally cut off from the outside world by the cruel seas which
surround our island, that they were completely isolated and most insular. This
is not an accurate picture of life in ancient times. In fact, the sea then
united rather than divided peoples on the whole Atlantic seaboard of Europe in
what modern historians, like E. G. Bowen, call’ a Celtic thalassocracy’, and
the waters from Malin Head and Cape Wrath to Finisterre and beyond were a hive
of maritime activity.
Our
ancient mariners sailed in curraghs, wooden-framed craft covered in hides and
capable of negotiating stormy seas with agility and in safety. Irish boats of
similar (though somewhat later) construction were, we know, able to reach
Iceland, a journey of about a thousand miles, within six days! We learn from
Giraldus Cambrensis that in 1185 Ireland was considered ‘about one short day’s
sailing from Wales’, half a day’s journey across the North Channel ‘between
Ulster and Galloway in Scotland’, and ‘three ordinary days’ sailing from Spain.
In the twelfth century, vessels were, of course, more sophisticated than the
early coracles. But even in the period before Christ, some tiny sailing boats
had been given rudders and other navigational aids. The delightful little model
ship, part of the Broighter gold hoard (of Co Derry provenance) in the National
Museum, shows how large these sea-going vessels could be. It has nine benches
for eighteen oarsmen in all, a rudder, a mast, three booms, a punting pole and
an anchor. In seaworthy craft such as this, our proto-historic Celtic ancestors
plied the seas, searching for places on which to prey, in which to settle or
with which to trade.
The
primitive Irish were expert plunderers. We know, for example, that Patrick was captured
in a great raid which netted ‘many thousands of people’ [Confessio 1], some of
them, at least, lukewarm Christians, according to Patrick’s pessimistic
diagnosis of their common spiritual condition. Doubtless a number of his fellow
captives would actually have been committed Christians and a few may, indeed,
even have been priests. Doubtless, too, as Gildas (c 500-570) informs us, this
was not the only raid made on Britain by the grassatores Hiberni (‘the Irish
thugs’). One local king, Niall Noígiallach (‘of the Nine Hostages’), the son of
a ruler with the soubriquet ‘Lord of the Slaves’ and a woman who was herself
probably a British slave-girl, is said to have made seven marauding expeditions
across the Irish Sea. Looted Roman coins have been found in abundance all along
the northern and eastern coasts of Ireland: at the Giant’s Causeway in 1831; at
Coleraine in 1854; and in much more recent times at Limavady, Co Derry, for
instance. The advent of Christian slaves, then, possibly played a part in the
introduction of Christianity into the island. And, since rulers in a country
could obviously acquire the most slaves, it follows that enslaved Christians
might well have had access to the most influential people in the land of their
captivity.
The
ancient Irish were expansionists. From the end of the third century onwards the
Scotti, as the inhabitants of Ireland were generally called, established a
number of colonies on the island of Great Britain: in north-western and
south-western Wales, Cornwall and western Scotland. (1) Intercourse between
these immigrants and Christian Britons and members of the Roman imperial forces
could possibly have led to the conversion of some of them and ultimately to a
haphazard spread of the faith to Ireland; particularly to the south and east
coasts opposite the settlements in Wales and Cornwall.
The
Irish had strong trading links with Roman Britain and Gaul and some dealings
with Iberia. (2) While they were unfamiliar with ‘the interior parts’ of the
island, Tacitus (c 55-120 AD) tells us that British or Gallic merchants had a
reasonably good knowledge of Ireland’s ‘harbours and approaches’ and there is
good evidence that Roman traders reached not just the coastal harbours but
points well inland along large rivers like the Nore and the Barrow. It seems
that wine and oil (and possibly wheat) were carried in considerable quantities
from the Continent to Ireland. Archaeologists have discovered ample evidence of
a wine trade, especially in the south of the country. It is probably no
coincidence that the Corcu Loegde of the modern west Cork, who later claimed to
be the first Irish Christians, carried on an extensive wine trade with France.
It is interesting to note, also, that the word Bordgal, the Archaic Old Irish
form of the place-name Bordeaux, is to be found in the toponymy of Westmeath
and Kilkenny, and is also a word in Goidelic meaning ‘meeting-place’. The Irish
also imported pottery, metal-work and bric-àbrac from Roman Gaul and Britain.
In exchange for these commodities, they exported copper and gold, slaves,
hides, cattle and wolfhounds. While evangelisation is not the primary motive of
the commercial traveller, and while French wine-shippers were doubtless more
intent on filling Irish stomachs with liquor than Irish souls with religion, it
is possible that foreign merchants used the opportunities afforded by their
business contacts to interest some Irish people in Christianity. (3)
It is
a distinct possibility that some Christian ‘learned men’ fled to Ireland during
the invasion of Gaul by German-speaking peoples at the beginning of the fifth
century. The Leiden Glossary, a twelfth-century document based on a sixth or
seventh-century account written in Gaul but now lost, claims that such a
migration took place: ‘All the learned men on this side of the sea took flight,
and in transmarine parts, namely in Ireland and wherever they betook
themselves, brought about a very great increase of learning to the inhabitants
of those regions.’ That civilised men would have fled to Ireland in fear of
barbarian invaders is not beyond belief. The island would thus have gained from
the ill-wind that blew across the continent, and would have become the
recipient of whatever body of knowledge these men possessed. These Gallic
literati would probably have maintained their identity for a considerable
period of time among the pagan Irish. Patrick’s mention of ‘rhetoricians’
[Confessio 13] may be a reference to these scholarly fugitives.
It
seems, too, that that obscure product of a very sophisticated but Christian
environment, the Hisperica Famina (Western Sayings) may have been penned by
seventh-century scholars in Ireland from this particular background. Modern
authorities widely believe that the Western Sayings is of Irish origin and
probably from a monastic environment. An examination of the contents of the
document reinforces speculation that it originated in Ireland as it portrays a
country where the natives communicate in Irish. The work is in strange,
esoteric and unfamiliar language and gives the appearance of having been
composed as a lesson-book for students of advanced Latin. Its vocabulary is
most strikingly indebted to Isidore of Seville (c 560-636), but it also bears a
vague resemblance to the Altus Prosator (called in English Ancient of Days), a
poem attributed to Columba, and to some of the writings of Columban. James F.
Kenney suggests that this famous work may have been produced in Ireland by
descendants of the early fifth-century, fugitive Gallic men of letters
mentioned in the Leiden Glossary. (4)
One,
some or all of the avenues detailed above may have brought Christianity into
Ireland. Of its presence in the country by the start of the fifth century we
can be in no doubt for there is indisputable, mainly cumulative, evidence that
Christianity had reached Ireland before Patrick began his mission in 432. (5)
Linguistic
studies are of assistance in attempting to throw light on the progress of
Christianity in early Celtic Ireland. The history of certain British words
derived from Latin and borrowed by Archaic Old Irish, such as Cáisc (‘Easter’)
and cruimther (‘priest’), suggests the gradual conversion of Ireland by Britons
in the fourth and possibly early fifth centuries. These words reveal a most
basic practice of the faith in an undeveloped Church without a bishop, for
there is no word in rudimentary Old Irish for ‘bishop’. The first stratum of
Christian loanwords is therefore possibly pre-431 when ‘the first bishop’
arrived in the country. The improvised vocabulary of the nascent Irish Church
came into Archaic Old Irish through British speech rather than directly from
Latin. It follows from this that British Christians, or their Irish converts on
their return home, introduced these loan-words (and probably the faith they
reflected) into parts of the island. (6)
There
is a tradition, too, that certain Irish saints preceded Saint Patrick in date:
notably Ciaran of Saiger; Declan o Ardmore, Ibar of Beccére, Ailbe of Emly,
M’eltioc of Kinsale, Mo-chanoc and Mo-chatoc. The Lives of these saints are all
very late – no earlier than the twelfth century – and provide no conclusive
evidence that they were active in the pre-Patrician period. Most of these were
probably British by birth, to judge by their names, and most are associated
with the south and the south-east of the country. This, and other evidence
available to him, leads Thomas F. O’Rahilly to make the sweeping claims that
‘Irish Christianity owes its origin to Britain’, that ‘already before 431 no
small part of the population of the south-east and south of Ireland must have
been converted by British missionaries’, that British evangelists continued to
arrive in Ireland during the next three decades, and that after 461 British
influence had the field to itself. Nor does the dearth of evidence prevent E.
A. Thompson from basing his account of Patrick’s activity in Ireland on the
supposition that British Christians resident in Ireland formed the nucleus
round which he established his Church in Ireland. All we can say with
confidence is that British Christians, either directly or indirectly,
influenced the spread of the faith to Ireland and that this influence may have
been exerted before 431.
James
F. Kenney is of the opinion that another ground for concluding that there were
Christians in Ireland prior to Patrick’s mission is that there are traces in
Ireland of certain heresies – Arianism, Priscillianism and Pelagianism – which
were current in western Europe in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. It
is even possible that some of Priscillian’s adherents made their way to Ireland
after their leader’s execution in 386. Pelagius (355-425) was responsible for
much doctrinal controversy in the Church in the opening decades of the fifth
century. He denied the necessity of grace for salvation and emphasised instead
God’s gift of free will to men. Pelagius was certainly a most articulate and
highly influential individual in his generation. This celebrated figure may
have been an Irishman, for his adversary Saint Jerome vilifies him as a ‘most
stupid fellow, heavy with Irish porridge’ and claims that he, or his companion
Coelestius, had ‘his lineage of the Irish race, from the neighbourhood of the
Britons’. It is more likely that Jerome was merely insulting his opponent in
the way we might dismiss another as a ‘Philistine’. Pelagius received his
training, spent his life and made his real impact on the Continent. It would be
foolhardy, then, to accept the dubious evidence regarding his origins and to
claim that he was representative of a flourishing, if deviant, Irish Church.
The only conclusions that can be reached are either that these heresies
infected pre-Patrician Christians in Ireland or that the traces remain from a
later contamination. Pelagius definitely had a pernicious effect on the Church
in Roman Britain and it was to combat this threat that Germanus of Auxerre was
sent by Rome to that island in 429. An offshoot of this excursion was the
subsequent mission of the ‘first bishop’, Palladius, ‘to the Scotti who believe
in Christ': incontrovertible evidence that from at least the third decade of
the fifth century, there were sufficient Irish Christians to justify the
appointment of a bishop for them by Rome. (7)
431 is
regarded as the first unassailable date in Irish history. Under that year
Prosper of Aquitaine entered in his Chronicon (Chronicle) the words:
‘Palladius, ordained by Pope Celestine, is sent to the Scotti who believe in
Christ, as their first bishop.’ Palladius, probably a deacon of Auxerre at the
time of his elevation, is the man referred to above as having been instrumental
in having Germanus sent to tackle Pelagianism in Britain. James Carney claims
that Prosper ‘used Scotti in a restricted sense and intended to refer
geographically not to Ireland but to Scotland.’ He states that a number of
church-dedications to Saint Paldy in southern Scotland seem to attest his
presence there but he is convinced that there is no evidence of Palladius
having been in Ireland. It is most likely that Carney is wrong in this
conjecture for Dál Riata, the Scottic colony in what is now Argyll, was
probably founded only in the final years of the fifth century. Furthermore,
most modem scholars definitely associate Palladius with hallowed spots in
Leinster.
Thankfully,
Prosper gives us another small item of information which throws some light on
the matter. In his Contra Collatorem (Against the Contributor), written about
434 in Rome, Prosper seems to imply that Palladius’s mission was to Ireland
itself. He writes of his master Pope Celestine: ‘By ordaining a bishop for the
Scotti, while he strove to keep the Roman island Catholic, he also made the
barbarous island Christian.’ Most scholars accept that this gives proof
positive that Palladius’s mission was to Ireland, ‘the barbarous island’, itself
and that the Pope managed also to preserve Britain, ‘the Roman island’, from
the Pelagian heresy by sending Germanus of Auxerre there in 429. Undaunted,
Carney argues that Britain was metaphorically ‘divided into two “islands”, the
northern barbaric, the southern Roman, and we are not merely entitled, but
compelled, to dissociate Palladius from Ireland’. His theory is based on the
fact that all of Britain had not been subjugated by the Romans and that the
north had remained unconquered and pagan.
Nevertheless,
most authorities remain unconvinced by Carney’s ingenious theory and believe
that Palladius laboured, for some time at least, unobtrusively in Ireland. The
fact that Muirchú, in his seventh-century Life, makes Patrick the successor of
Palladius adds strength to their position. Muirchú states: ‘They knew for
certain that Palladius … had been consecrated and sent to this island in the
cold north in order to convert it … Neither were these wild and harsh men
inclined to accept his teaching nor did he himself wish to spend a long time in
a foreign country, but decided to return to him [Pope Celestine] who had sent
him. On his way back from here, having crossed the first sea and begun his
journey by land, he ended his life in the territory of the Britons’ [I, 8].
Thomas F. O’Rahilly argues quite brilliantly that the activities of Palladius
and Patrick have become confused and that much of the work of Palladius, who,
he claims, was called Patricius in Ireland, has been wrongly attributed to
Patrick. He believes that Palladius laboured in Ireland until 461 and was then
succeeded by Patrick, who worked there until his death about 492. Most
Patrician scholars of this century do not make such exaggerated claims. John
Ryan [1931] holds that the first bishop’s mission in Ireland was short and that
‘within a year Palladius was dead’. Ludwig Bieler [1967] suggests that
Palladius was ‘still successfully active in Ireland at least two or three years
after his commission’ at the time (434) of Prosper’s entry in his Against the
Contributor. Bieler holds that Palladius laboured in the south-eastern corner
of the island. He observes that a bishop sent by Rome would have had the
assistance of quite a large staff and that a mission with papal backing would
have been constantly reinforced by fresh personnel.
Something
like this may indeed have happened. Palladius could have established a church
in Leinster, with his work being continued by shadowy figures like Secundinus,
Auxilius and Iserninus – men who had no contact whatsoever with Patrick.
Professor Corish, in his most incisive study, The Irish Catholic Experience
(Dublin, 1985), builds on the case put forward so cogently by D. A. Binchy in
1962. Corish speculates that ‘the fragments of topographical information that
cling to Palladius’s name locate his mission in Leinster’ (actually with three
very ancient churches in Co Wicklow) and that his efforts were supplemented or
continued in that general area by the missionaries named above. Auxilius and
Iserninus are credited, along with Patrick, with issuing the circular letter
known as The First Synod of Saint Patrick. Monsignor Corish has no difficulty
in associating the canons in this particular document with Auxilius and
Iserninus. Kathleen Hughes [1966] is of the opinion that the document was
produced by a fairly well-developed, second-generation yet still missionary
Church in Leinster. The venerable Church of Kildare, still strong enough in the
seventh century to be regarded as a rival of Armagh, may, we might add, have
then been a relic of the former effectiveness and independence of the
fifth-century Roman mission of Palladius and his followers in Leinster. Corish
believes that Patrick played no part in the framing of the document which now
bears his name and that it ‘is not hard to see circumstances in which his name
came to be added later’.
In his
Confessio [51], Patrick shows himself aware of episcopal activity elsewhere in
Ireland and the administration (independently of him) of the sacraments of
baptism, confirmation and ordination. He states that he himself had travelled
to places in Ireland ‘where no one else had ever penetrated, in order to
baptise, or to ordain clergy, or to confirm the people’ – thus insinuating that
there were, indeed, places in the country which had received spiritual
ministrations from another (possibly earlier) source or indeed other sources.
Furthermore, his account of his flight from slavery as a young man of
twenty-two may give evidence of an escape network for fugitive slaves run by
concerned Christians, presumably in Leinster, more than twenty years before Patrick
began his own mission [Confessio 17 and 18]. But Patrick does not refer to
Palladius or any other missionary, predecessor or contemporary, by name. One of
Patrick’s outstanding traits is his humility. If Palladius’s mission was
anything other than unspectacular (and probably short), it is difficult to
imagine that Patrick would not have acknowledged the fact. He clearly regarded
himself as essentially a pioneer, and not as anybody’s successor or
co-operator. Though the Palladian and Patrician missions may have coincided,
Patrick was working in virgin territory bringing the gospel to pagans, whereas
the Roman missionaries in Leinster were consolidating the work done by
Palladius and begun by the anonymous evangelists who, by 431, had ensured that
there was no small number of Scotti believing in Christ.
The
record of the coming of Christianity into Ireland is obscure and even
confusing. It cannot be denied, however, that the faith had already taken root
in the island before the mission of Saint Patrick, apostle of Ireland. How the
new religion established itself in the country is a hazy yet tantalising
chapter in our early history. By the time the saint had begun his mission, the
groundwork had been done and the foundations had been laid for a Celtic Church
in Ireland that over the next few centuries would become one of the most
vibrant parts of the Body of Christ.
1.
Though the settlement in Argyll in Scotland probably dates from the closing
years of the fifth century and has, therefore, questionable relevance for the
topic under discussion, we mention it to underline the extent of Irish colonial
activity in Britain in our period. For a fresh treatment of Irish emigrés in
Britain, see Lloyd and Jennifer Laing, Celtic Britain and Ireland, AD 200-800:
The Myth of the Dark Ages (Blackrock, Co Dublin, 1990).
2. Art
historians have discovered links between specialised motifs, notably the
Visigothic marigold design, on artifacts in the Iberian peninsula and in
Ireland. These supposed associations are confirmed (or at least supported) by
references in the writings of Orosius, the early fifth-century Portuguese
historian and apologist, to a special relationship between Galicia, the Celtic
settlement in Spain, and Ireland. (It is interesting to remember, as supportive
evidence of the strength and endurance of this interrelationship, the existence
of a very early Celtic monastery with Irish connections, prior to the Arab
conquest of Spain in the seventh century, at Santa Maria de Bretoña near
Mondoñedo in the same region.)
3. It
is surely significant that the earliest stratum of Latin loan-words in Archaic
Old Irish is concerned with the vocabulary of mercantile activity.
4. The
earliest form of writing in Ireland, the Ogham Script, is based on the Latin
alphabet and is most commonly found on standing-stones in Kerry, Cork and
Waterford, the very region where these French scholars are thought to have
settled. While these erudite emigrés did not import the art of writing into
Ireland (for Ogham Script may have been introduced as early as the fourth
century), they were coming to a country already touched by Roman scholarship
and open to deeper influences.
5. We
can, of course, dismiss the four pious legends which make an Irishman: (1) a
witness (Altus) to the events on Calvary; (2) a ruler in Ulster (Conor Mac
Nessa) who died broken-hearted on hearing of Christ’s crucifixion; (3) an
important local king (Cormac Mac Airt) who converted in the third century; and
(4) a bishop (Mansuetus) in fourth-century France.
6. The
cults of two prominent saints, one from France and the other from Britain, were
also imported into the country. Early Irish Christians venerated Saint Martin
of Tours and Saint Ninian, the founder of Candida Casa, the famous early
monastery on the west coast of northern Britain. There are the ancient parishes
of Desertmartin (Co Derry) and Templemartin (Co Cork] and a town-land called
Kilmartin (Co Dublin), for example, and Ninian feafures in many of the early
martyrologies. These cults may have been introduced by Gallic and Brittonic
evangelists in the decades before Patrick’s mission. However, it is more likely
that they reflect a later devotion to Martin or Ninian among Irish Christians
who had connections with Gaul or northern Britain.
7. The
reader will find translations (with notes and explanations) of pertinent texts,
written in Latin in the fourth and fifth centuries, in Liam de Paor, Saint
Patrick’s World (Blackrock, Co Dublin, 1993).
------------
ISLAM-from a Canadian Muslim
BEST
COMMENT EVER FROM A CANADIAN EGYPTIAN......Islam NEVER imposed face cover on
women, Saudi Arabia did and since people are taking the liberty to go and live
in Western societies, they should leave Saudi's habits where they belong...in
Saudi
BEST
COMMENT: Rania El Bakry Yes I too
agree...I know Al that sooner or later you were gonna ask me about my take on
this, being a Muslim and a Canadian. Yesss people should have the guts to show
their face and not only in Western society, but in Eastern societies too. Islam
NEVER imposed face cover on women, Saudi Arabia did and since people are taking
the liberty to go and live in Western societies, they should leave Saudi's
habits where they belong...in Saudi. Covering the face is disturbing to me,
even though I am a practicing Muslim and even here in Egypt, where I now live,
I never got to feel comfortable with it and people can call me what they will.
Canada needs to take measures about extremism on all fronts, ideologies,
actions and merging with its remarkably balanced society.
Jason
Kenney Defends Niqab Ban At Citizenship Ceremonies
---------------
Political
separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did not come until the
early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring
camps over the issue of Irish home rule.
Read
more: The Northern Irish Conflict: A Chronology
The
Northern Irish Conflict: A Chronology
A
history of the conflict and the slow progress towards peace
by Ann
Marie Imbornoni, Borgna Brunner, and Beth Rowen
Click
here for recent news on the Irish peace process.
HISTORY
OF THE PROBLEM: BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Outline Map of Ireland and Northen Ireland
Full
size map: Ireland
Political
separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did not come until the
early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring
camps over the issue of Irish home rule.
The
history of Northern Ireland can be traced back to the 17th century, when the
English finally succeeded in subduing the island after successfully putting
down a number of rebellions. (See Oliver Cromwell; Battle of the Boyne.) Much
land, especially in the north, was subsequently colonized by Scottish and
English Protestants, setting Ulster somewhat apart from the rest of Ireland,
which was predominantly Catholic.
The
Nineteenth Century
During
the 1800s the north and south grew further apart due to economic differences.
In the north the standard of living rose as industry and manufacturing
flourished, while in the south the unequal distribution of land and
resources—Anglican Protestants owned most of the land—resulted in a low standard
of living for the large Catholic population.
The
Twentieth Century
Political
separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of Ireland did not come until the
early 20th century, when Protestants and Catholics divided into two warring
camps over the issue of Irish home rule. Most Irish Catholics desired complete
independence from Britain, but Irish Protestants feared living in a country
ruled by a Catholic majority.
Government
of Ireland Act
In an
attempt to pacify both factions, the British passed in 1920 the Government of
Ireland Act, which divided Ireland into two separate political entities, each
with some powers of self-government. The Act was accepted by Ulster Protestants
and rejected by southern Catholics, who continued to demand total independence for
a unified Ireland.
The
Irish Free State and Northern Ireland
Following
a period of guerrilla warfare between the nationalist Irish Republican Army
(IRA) and British forces, a treaty was signed in 1921 creating the Irish Free
State from 23 southern counties and 3 counties in Ulster. The other 6 counties
of Ulster made up Northern Ireland, which remained part of the United Kingdom.
In 1949 the Irish Free State became an independent republic.
"The
Troubles"
Although
armed hostilities between Catholics and Protestants largely subsided after the
1921 agreement, violence erupted again in the late 1960s; bloody riots broke
out in Londonderry in 1968 and in Londonderry and Belfast in 1969. British
troops were brought in to restore order, but the conflict intensified as the
IRA and Protestant paramilitary groups carried out bombings and other acts of
terrorism. This continuing conflict, which lingered into the 1990s, became
known as "the Troubles."
Despite
efforts to bring about a resolution to the conflict during the 1970s and 80s,
terrorist violence was still a problem in the early 90s and British troops
remained in full force. More than 3,000 people have died as a result of the
strife in Northern Ireland.
THE
PEACE PROCESS
An
Early Attempt
A
serious attempt to bring about a resolution to the conflict was made in 1985
when British and Irish prime ministers Margaret Thatcher and Garrett Fitzgerald
signed the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which recognized for the first time the
Republic of Ireland's right to have a consultative role in the affairs of
Northern Ireland. However, Protestant politicians who opposed the Agreement
were able to block its implementation.
The
IRA Declares a Cease-fire
Further
talks between rival Catholic and Protestant officials and the British and Irish
governments occurred during the early 1990s. Then, in late Aug. 1994 the peace
process received a big boost when the pro-Catholic IRA announced a cease-fire.
This made it possible for Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, to
participate in multiparty peace talks; hitherto Sinn Fein had been barred from
such talks because of its association with the IRA and its terrorist tactics.
On
Dec. 9, 1994, the first officially sanctioned, publicly announced talks took
place between Sinn Fein and British officials. Negotiators for Sinn Fein pushed
for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; Great Britain countered that
the IRA must give up its weapons
Sinn
Fein Participates in Official Talks
On
Dec. 9, 1994, the first officially sanctioned, publicly announced talks took
place between Sinn Fein and British officials. Negotiators for Sinn Fein pushed
for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland; Great Britain countered that the
IRA must give up its weapons before Sinn Fein would be allowed to negotiate on
the same basis as other parties. The issue of IRA disarmament would continue to
be a sticking point throughout the negotiations.
An
Anglo-Irish Proposal for Peace
In
late Feb. 1995, the British and Irish governments released their joint proposal
for talks on the future of Northern Ireland. The talks were to be held in three
phases involving the political parties of Northern Ireland, the Irish
government, and the British government. The talks would focus on the
establishment of a form of self-government for Northern Ireland and the
formation of Irish-Northern Irish "cross-border" bodies that would be
set up to oversee such domestic concerns as agriculture, tourism, and health. Results
of the talks would be put to referendums in Northern Ireland and the Republic
of Ireland.
The
U.S. Gets Involved
In
Dec. 1995, former US senator George Mitchell was brought in to serve as
mediator for the peace talks. His report issued in Jan. 1996 recommended the
gradual disarmament of the IRA during the course of the talks, thus breaking
the deadlock caused by the IRA's refusal to disarm.
Multiparty
Talks Open in Belfast
On
June 10, 1996, multiparty peace talks opened in Belfast. However, because of
the breakdown of the IRA cease-fire the preceding Feb., Sinn Fein was turned
away. Following the resumption of the cease-fire in July 1997, full-scale peace
negotiations began in Belfast on Oct. 7, 1997. Great Britain attended as well
as most of Northern Ireland's feuding political parties, including Sinn Fein
and the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), the largest Protestant political party in
Northern Ireland. The more extreme Democratic Unionist Party and the tiny
United Kingdom Unionist Party refused to join.
Click
here for who's who in the Good Friday Agreement.
Good
Friday Agreement
The
historic talks finally resulted in the landmark Good Friday Agreement, which
was signed by the main political parties on both sides on Apr. 10, 1998. The
accord called for an elected assembly for Northern Ireland, a cross-party
cabinet with devolved powers, and cross-border bodies to handle issues common
to both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Thus minority Catholics
gained a share of the political power in Northern Ireland, and the Republic of
Ireland a voice in Northern Irish affairs. In return Catholics were to
relinquish the goal of a united Ireland unless the largely Protestant North
voted in favor of it.
Real
Hope for Peace
With
the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, hope ran high that lasting peace was
about to become a reality in Northern Ireland. In a dual referendum held on May
22, 1998, Northern Ireland approved the accord by a vote of 71% to 29%, and the
Irish Republic by a vote of 94%. In June 1998, voters chose the 108 members of
the Northern Ireland Assembly, the locally elected government.
International
recognition and support for peace in Northern Ireland came on Oct. 16, 1998,
when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to John Hume and David Trimble,
the leaders of the largest Catholic and Protestant political parties,
respectively, in Northern Ireland.
Hope
Proves False
In
June 1999, the peace process stalled when the IRA refused to disarm prior to
the formation of Northern Ireland's new provincial cabinet. Sinn Fein insisted
that the IRA would only give up weapons after the new government assembled; the
Ulster Unionists, Northern Ireland's largest Protestant party, demanded
disarmament first. Consequently the new government failed to form on schedule
in July 1999, bring the entire process to a complete halt.
Sinn
Fein, Over to You
At the
end of Nov. 1999, David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists, relented on
the "no guns, no government" position and agreed to form a government
before the IRA's disarmament. If the IRA did not begin to disarm by Jan. 31,
2000, however, the Ulster Unionists would withdraw from the parliament of
Northern Ireland, shutting down the new government.
New
Parliament Is Suspended
With
this compromise in place, the new government was quickly formed, and on Dec. 2
the British government formally transferred governing powers over to the
Northern Irish parliament. But by the deadline Sinn Fein had made little
progress toward disarmament, and so on Feb. 12, 2000, the British government
suspended the Northern Irish parliament and once again imposed direct rule.
A New
Beginning
Throughout
the spring, Irish, British, and American leaders continued to hold discussions
to try to end the impasse. Then on May 6 the IRA announced that it would agree
to put its arms "beyond use" under the supervision of international
inspectors. Britain returned home rule powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly
on May 30, just three days after the Ulster Unionist Party, Northern Ireland's
largest Protestant Party, again voted in favor of a power-sharing arrangement
with Sinn Fein.
On
June 26, 2000, international monitors Martti Ahtisaari of Finland and Cyril
Ramaphosa of South Africa announced that they were satisfied that a substantial
amount of IRA arms was safely stored and could not be used without detection.
However,
while the IRA did allow for the inspection of some of its arms dumps, the
months limped by without any real progress on disarmament. Caught in the middle
was David Trimble, who was accused by his fellow Protestants of making too many
concessions to the Republicans. On Oct. 28, 2000, he was nearly ousted by his
own party, a move that surely would have spelled the end for the Good Friday
Agreement. But Trimble survived, pledging to get tough by imposing sanctions on
Sinn Fein.
STALEMATE
Into
2001, Still No Major Progress
Through
the first months of 2001, Catholics and Protestants remained at odds,
especially over the establishment of a neutral police force in Northern Ireland
and IRA disarmament. In early March 2001, the IRA unexpectedly initiated a new
round of talks with Northern Ireland's disarmament commission, but no real
progress was made.
Trimble
Resigns
Shortly
before Britain's general election on June 7, Northern Ireland's first minister
David Trimble announced that he would resign on July 1 if the IRA did not start
disarming. The announcement helped bolster his position among his constituents,
and Trimble managed to hold on to his seat in the British Parliament. However,
his pro-British Ulster Unionist Party fared badly overall. In the weeks that
followed, the IRA took no steps to dismantle its arsenal, and Trimble resigned
as planned.
Violence
Renewed as Marching Season Begins
The
fragile peace process faced another crisis in mid-June when sectarian violence
broke out again in Belfast. The clashes began after a group of schoolgirls and
their parents were stoned by Protestant youths as they left a Catholic primary
school. In what was deemed the worst rioting in several years, rival mobs
hurled gasoline bombs, stones, and bottles and set fire to cars. The violence
coincided with the start of the annual "marching season" when
Protestant groups commemorate past victories on the battlefield against the
Catholics.
IRA's
Offer to Disarm Rejected
On
Aug. 6, 2001, the commission responsible for the disarming of paramilitary
forces in Northern Ireland announced that the IRA had agreed to a method of
permanently placing its weapons arsenal beyond use. Although the commission did
not disclose any details or indicate when disarmament might begin, Britain and
the Republic of Ireland hailed the plan as a historic breakthrough. Protestant
leaders in Northern Ireland were less enthusiastic and rejected the proposal as
falling too short of action.
On
Aug. 11, Britain's secretary of state for Northern Ireland, John Reid,
suspended the power-sharing government for one day, a move that allowed
Protestant and Catholic politicians six more weeks to negotiate before British
authorities would be required to call for new elections to the assembly. (In
the event of new elections, moderate David Trimble stood little chance of being
reelected, since Protestants as well as Catholics have become increasingly
opposed to the Good Friday Agreement.)
The
IRA withdrew its offer to disarm on Aug. 14, but veterans of the process were
confident that the matter remained on the negotiating table.
Northern
Ireland Government Suspended Again
With
some small progress having been made on policing and arms decommissioning, Britain
suspended the devolved government again on Sept. 22, creating another six-week
window for the parties to resolve their differences. The move was criticized by
UUP leader David Trimble, and on Oct. 18, the three remaining Ulster Unionist
cabinet ministers resigned, in an attempt to force Britain to impose direct
rule again indefinitely.
However,
on Oct. 23, the IRA announced that it had begun to disarm, and it appeared that
the peace process had once again been rescued from the point of collapse. Guns and
explosives at two arms dumps were put beyond use.
Trimble
regained his position as first minister in the power-sharing government in a
vote rerun on Nov. 6, after narrowly losing his reelection bid in the initial
vote a few days earlier. Mark Durkan, who succeeded John Hume as leader of the
largely Catholic SDLP (Nov. 10), was elected deputy first minister.
IRA
Scraps More Weapons
On
April 8, 2002, international weapons inspectors announced that the IRA had put
more stockpiled munitions beyond use. The move was welcomed by British and
Irish leaders alike, who expressed the hope that Protestant guerilla groups
would also begin to surrender their weapons.
However,
in mid-June British and Irish political leaders called for emergency talks to
try to stem the rising tide of violence that had been ongoing in Belfast for
several weeks. Police believed that the nightly outbreaks of firebombing and
rioting were being organized by Protestant and Catholic paramilitary groups in
direct violation of standing cease-fire agreements. The street disturbances
continued into July, and a 19-year-old Catholic man was shot—the first death
caused by sectarian violence since January.
IRA
Members Arrested in Colombia
The
call for talks also came hard on the heels of a BBC report concerning three IRA
members who had been arrested in Aug. 2001, in Bogota, Colombia. According to
the BBC, one of the men involved in the weapons activity was Brian Keenan, the
IRA representative charged with disarming the guerilla group in Ireland. The
three Irish guerillas were accused of testing new weaponry and teaching
bomb-making techniques to Colombian rebels. They were scheduled to go on trial
in Colombia in July.
Also
in July, during the annual Orange Order parade through Portadown, Northern Ireland,
Protestant supporters of the Orangemen hurled stones and bricks to protest the
ban on marching down Garvaghy Road, past a Catholic enclave in the town.
Throughout Northern Ireland, members of the Orange Order march to celebrate the
military victory of Protestant King William of Orange over the Catholics in
1690. Two dozen police officers were injured and several people were arrested.
IRA
Apologizes for Deaths
On
July 16, 2002, the IRA issued its first apology to the families of the 650
civilians killed by the IRA since the late 1960s. The apology was released
several days before the 30th anniversary of the IRA's Bloody Friday attack on
July 21, 1972, which left 9 people dead and some 130 injured. During the attack
in Belfast, 22 bombs exploded during a period of only 75 minutes.
Trimble
Threatens to Resign Again
In
late Sept. 2002, First Minister David Trimble announced that he and other
Unionist leaders would force the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly by
resigning unless the IRA disbanded by Jan. 18, 2003. The ultimatum came under
pressure from hard-line constituents within the Unionist Party, following a
number of incidents (including the trial of IRA guerillas in Colombia on
weapons-related charges) that pointed to continued IRA military activity.
Britain
Suspends Home-Rule Government Again
By
early October, the situation had deteriorated, with Trimble threatening
immediate mass resignation unless the British threw Sinn Fein, the IRA's
political wing, out of the Assembly. The discovery of an alleged I.R.A. spy
operation within the Northern Ireland Assembly was the last straw. Britain's
Northern Ireland secretary, John Reid, suspended the power-sharing government
on Oct. 14, 2002. It was the fourth time the British government had had to take
back political control of Northern Ireland since the Northern Ireland Assembly
came into being in Dec. 1999.
On
Oct. 30, in response to the British move to impose direct rule again, the IRA
suspended contact with the arms inspectors who were overseeing the disarmament
of Northern Ireland's guerilla and paramilitary groups. The Council on Foreign
relations has estimated that Protestant paramilitary groups have been
responsible for 30% of the civilian deaths in the Northern Irish conflict. The
two main Protestant vigilante groups are the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and
the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Strongest during the 1970s, their ranks
have diminished since then. While Protestant paramilitaries have observed a
cease-fire since the IRA declared one, none of these groups has made any moves
toward surrendering their weapons as stipulated by the Good Friday Accord.
Showdown
in 2003
In
March and April 2003, negotiations were again underway to reinstate the
Northern Ireland assembly. But Sinn Fein's vague language, weakly pledging that
its "strategies and disciplines will not be inconsistent with the Good
Friday Agreement caused Tony Blair to challenge Sinn Fein to once and for all
make a clear, unambiguous pledge to renounce paramilitary for political
means." According to the New York Times (April 24, 2003), "virtually
every newspaper in Britain and Ireland has editorialized in favor of full
disarmament, and the Irish government, traditionally sympathetic to Sinn Fein,
is almost as adamant about the matter as London is."
In
Nov. 2003 legislative elections, the Ulster Unionists and other moderates lost
out to Northern Ireland's extremist parties: Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionists
and Sinn Fein. The prospect of power-sharing between these antithetical parties
looked dim.
Deadlocked
in 2004
An
effort to revive the deadlocked powersharing negotiations was broached in March
2004 by Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern, who announced, "The
elections were in November, this is March, we must move on." In Sept.
2004, another round of talks, aimed at ending the impasse, broke up with no
significant progress. A $50 million bank robbery in Dec. 2004 was linked to the
IRA, although Sinn Fein has denied the connection. Sinn Fein's growing
acceptance as a political organization suffered a severe setback as a result,
putting power-sharing negotiations on hold indefinitely. Evidence of the IRA's
criminality as well as its continual refusal to give up its weapons has
strained its relations not only in Northern Ireland and Britain but in the
Republic of Ireland as well.
Violence
and Vigilantism in 2005
The
brutal murder on Jan. 31, 2005, of Belfast Catholic Robert McCartney by the
IRA, and the campaign by his five sisters to hold the IRA accountable, further
diminished the IRA's standing, even in Catholic communities that had once been
IRA strongholds. The IRA's subsequent offer to kill the men responsible
generated further outrage. Instead of inviting Northern Irish political parties
to the White House—the custom for the past several years—the U.S. invited the
McCartney sisters instead.
Real
Hope in July 2005
On
July 28, the IRA stated that it was entering a new era in which it would
unequivocally renounce violence: The statement said that IRA members have been
"instructed to assist the development of purely political and democratic
programs through exclusively political means," and that "all I.R.A.
units have been ordered to dump arms" and "to complete the process to
verifiably put its arms beyond use."
Delays
in 2006
In
Feb. 2006, the Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC), a watchdog agency
monitoring Northern Irish paramilitary groups, reported that although the IRA
"seems to be moving in the right direction," dissident republican
paramilitaries are still engaged in violence and crime.
On May
15th, Northern Ireland's political parties were given six months (to Nov. 24)
to come up with a power-sharing government or else sovereignty will be revert
indefinitely to the British government.
In
October, a report by the Independent Monitoring Commission in Northern Ireland
indicated that the IRA had definitively ceased all paramilitary activity and
declared that "the IRA's campaign is over."
Milestone
Meeting in 2007
Shortly
after parliamentary elections in March 2007, Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn
Fein, and Rev. Ian Paisley, the head of the Democratic Unionist Party, met face
to face for the first time and hashed out an agreement for a power-sharing
government.
Former
Enemies Resume Power-Sharing Government
Local
government was restored to Northern Ireland in May 2007 as Rev. Ian Paisley,
leader of the Democratic Unionists, and Martin McGuinness, of Sinn Fein, were
sworn in as leader and deputy leader, respectively, of the Northern Ireland
executive government, thus ending direct rule from London. "I believe we
are starting on a road to bring us back to peace and prosperity," said
Paisley. British prime minister Tony Blair praised the historic deal.
"Look back, and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred
among the people of these islands," he said. "Look forward, and we
see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history.”
On
Feb. 5, 2010, with the signing of the Hillsborough Castle Agreement, Gordon
Brown of Britain and Brian Cowen, prime ministers of England and Ireland,
respectively, created a breakthrough in the Northern Ireland peace process.
According to the terms of the accord, Britain will hand over control of the six
counties' police and justice system to Northern Ireland. The shift to local
control of the courts, prosecution system, and police has been the most
important and contentious of the issues plaguing the tenuous power-sharing
government. The agreement passed its first test on March 9, when the Northern
Ireland Assembly voted its support 88–17, setting the stage for the April 12
power transfer deadline. "For the first time, we can look forward to
policing and justice powers being exercised by democratic institutions on a
cross-community basis in Northern Ireland," Cowen said.
--------------
IRELAND- CATHOLIC - PROTESTANT IRELAND
Geography
Ireland
lies in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Great Britain, from which it is separated
in the north-east by the North Channel, in the east by the Irish Sea, and in
the south-east by St. George's Channel. Situated between the fifty-first and
fifty-sixth degrees of latitude, and between the fifth and eleventh parallels
of longitude (Greenwich), its greatest length is 302 miles, its greatest
breadth 174 miles, its area 32,535 square miles. It is divided into four
provinces, these being subdivided into thirty-two counties. In the centre the
country is a level plain; towards the coast there are several detached mountain
chains. Its rivers and bays are numerous, also its bogs; its climate is mild,
though unduly moist. In minerals it is not wealthy like Great Britain, but is
soil is generally more fertile, and is specially suitable for agriculture and
pasturage.
Early
history
In
ancient times it was known by the various names of Ierna, Juverna, Hibernia,
Ogygia, and Inisfail or the Isle of Destiny. It was also called Banba and Erin,
and lastly Scotia, or the country of the Scots. From the eleventh century,
however, the name Scotia was exclusively applied to Caledonia, the latter
country having been peopled in the sixth century by a Scottish colony from
Ireland. Henceforth Ireland was often called Scotia Major and sometimes
Ireland, until, after the eleventh century, the name Scotia was dropped and
Ireland alone remained. Even yet it is sometimes called Erin—chiefly by orators
and poets. Situated in the far west, out of the beaten paths of commercial
activity, it was little known to the ancients. Festus Avienus wrote that it was
two days' sail from Britain. Pliny thought that it was part of Britain and not
an island at all; Strabo that it was near Britain, and that its inhabitants
were cannibals; and all that Caesar knew was that it was west of Britain, and
about half its size. Agricola beheld its coastline from the opposite shores of
Caledonia, and had thought of accepting the invitation of an Irish chief to
come and conquer it, believing he could do so with a single legion. But he left
Ireland unvisited and unconquered, and Tacitus could only record that in soil
and climate it resembled Britain, and that its harbours were then well known to
foreign merchants.
But if
we have not any detailed description from his lively pen, the native chroniclers
have furnished us with abundant materials, and, if all they say be true, we can
understand the remark of Camden that Ireland was rightly called Ogygia, or the
Ancient Island, because in comparison, the antiquity of all other nations is in
its infancy. Passing by the absurd story that it was peopled before the Deluge,
we are told that, beginning with the time of Abraham, several successive waves
of colonization rolled westward to its shores. First came Parthalon with 1000
followers; after which came the Nemedians, the Firbolgs, and the
Tuatha-de-Dananns, and lastly the Milesians or Scots. In addition, there were
the Fomorians, a people of uncertain origin, whose chief occupation was piracy
and war, and whose attacks on the various settlers were incessant. These and
the Milesians excepted, the different colonists came from Greece, and all were
of the same race. The Milesians came from Scythia; and from that country to
Egypt, from Egypt to Spain, from Spain to Ireland their adventures are recorded
in detail. The name Scot which they bore was derived from Scota, daughter of
Pharaoh of Egypt, the wife of one of their chiefs; from their chief Miledh they
got the name Milesians, and from another chief Goidel they were sometimes
called Gadelians, or Gaels. The wars and battles of these colonists are largely
fabulous, and the Partholanians, Nemedians, and Fomorians belong rather to
mythology than to history. So also do the Dananns, though sometimes they are
taken as a real people, of superior knowledge and skill, the builders of those
prehistoric sepulchral mounds by the Boyne, at Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange.
The Firbolgs however most probably existed, and were kindred perhaps to those
warlike Belgae of Gaul whom Caesar encountered in battle. And the Milesians certainly
belong to history, though the date of their arrival in Ireland is unknown. They
were Celts, and probably came from Gaul to Britain, and from Britain to
Ireland, rather than direct from Spain. Under the leadership of Heremon and
Heber they soon became masters of the island. Some of the Firbolgs, it is said,
crossed the seas to the Isles of Arran, where they built the fort of Dun Engus,
which still stands and which tradition still associates with their name. Heber
and Heremon soon quarrelled, and, Heber falling in battle, Heremon became sole
ruler, the first in a long line of kings. This list of kings, however, is not
reliable, and we are warned by Tighearnach, the most trustworthy of Irish
chroniclers, that all events before the reign of Cimbaeth (300 B.C.) are
uncertain. Even after the dawn of the Christian Era fact and fiction are
interwoven and events are often shrouded in shadows and mists. Such, for
instance, are the exploits of Cuchullain and Finn Macumhael. Nor have many of
these early kinds been remarkable, if we except Conn of the Hundred Battles,
who lived in the first century after Christ; Cormac, who lived a century later;
Tuathal, who established the Feis of Tara; Niall, who invaded Britain; and
Dathi, who in the fifth century lost his life at the foot of the Alps.
The
Irish were then pagans, but not barbarians. Their roads were indeed
ill-constructed, their wooden dwellings rude, the dress of their lower orders
scanty, their implements of agriculture and war primitive, and so were their
land vehicles, and the boats in which they traversed the sea. On the other
hand, some of their swords and shields showed some skill in metal-working, and
their war-like and commercial voyages to Britain and Gaul argue some
proficiency in shipbuilding and navigation. They certainly loved music; and,
besides their inscribed Ogham writing, they had a knowledge of letters. There
was a high-king of Ireland (ardri), and subject to him were the provincial
kings and chiefs of tribes. Each of these received tribute from his immediate
inferior, and even in a sept the political and legal administration was
complete. There was the druid who explained religion, the brehon who dispensed
justice, the brughaid or public hospitaller, the bard who sang the praises of
his chief or urged his kinsman to battle; and each was an official and had his
appointed allotment of land. Kings, though taken from one family, were
elective, the tanist or heir-apparent being frequently not the nearest relation
of him who reigned. This peculiarity, together with gavelkind by which the
lands were periodically redistributed, impeded industry and settled government.
Nor was there any legislative assembly, and the Brehon law under which Ireland
lived was judge-made law. Sometimes the ardri's tribute remained unpaid and his
authority nominal; but if he was a strong man he exacted obedience and tribute.
The Boru tribute levied on the King of Leinster was excessive and unjust, and
led to many evils. The pagan Irish believed in Druidism, resembling somewhat the
Druidism Caesar saw in Gaul; but the pagan creed of the Irish was indefinite
and their gods do not stand out clear. They held the immortality and the
transmigration of souls, worshipped the sun and moon, and, with an inferior
worship, mountains, rivers, and wells. And they sacrificed to idols, one of
which, Crom Cruach, they are said to have propitiated with human sacrifices.
They also believed in fairies, holding that the Tuatha-de-Dananns, when
defeated by the Milesians, retired into the bosom of the mountains, where they
held their fairy revels. One of the women fairies (the banshee) watched the
fortunes of great families, and when some great misfortune was impending, the
doomed family was warned at night by her mournful wail.
Early
Christian period
Intercourse
with Britain and the Continent through commerce and war sufficiently accounts
for the introduction of Christianity before the fifth century. There must have
been then a considerable number of Christians in Ireland; for in 430 Palladius,
a bishop and native of Britain, was sent by Pope Celestine "to the Scots
believing in Christ". Palladius, however, did little, and almost
immediately returned to Britain, and in 432 the same pope sent St. Patrick. He
is the Apostle of Ireland, but this does not imply that he found Ireland
altogether pagan and left it altogether Christian. It is however quite true
that when St. Patrick did come paganism was the predominant belief, and that at
his death it had been supplanted as such by Christianity. The extraordinary
work which St. Patrick did, as well as his own attractive personal character,
has furnished him with many biographers; and even in recent years his life and
works have engaged erudite and able pens. But in spite of all that has been
written many things in his life are still doubtful and obscure. It is doubtful
when and where he was born, how he spent his life between his first leaving
Ireland and his return, and in what year he died. It has been maintained that
he never existed; that he and Palladius were the same man; that there were two
St. Patricks; again, some, like Jocelin, have multiplied his miracles beyond
belief. These contradictions and exaggerations have encouraged the scoffer to
sneer; and Gibbon was sure that in the sixty-six lives of St. Patrick there
must have been sixty-six thousand lies. In reality there seems no solid reason
for rejecting the traditional account, viz., that St. Patrick was born at
Dumbarton in Scotland about 372; that he was captured and brought to Ireland by
the Irish king, Nial; that he was sold as a slave to an Ulster chief Milcho,
whom he served for six years; that he then escaped and went back to his own
people; that in repeated visions he, a pious Christian, heard the plaintive cry
of the pagan Irish inviting him to come amongst them; that, believing he was
called by God to do so, he went first to the monastery of St. Martin of Tours,
then to that of St. Germanus of Auxerre, after which he went to Lérins and to
Rome; and then, being consecrated bishop, he was sent by Pope Celestine to
Ireland, where he arrived in 432.
From
Wicklow, where he landed, his course is traced to Antrim; back by Downpatrick,
near which he converted Dichu and got from him a grant of land for his first
church at Saul; then by Dundalk, where Benignus was converted; and to Slane,
where in sight of Tara itself he lighted the paschal fire. The enraged druids
pointed out to the ardri the heinousness of the offence, for during the great
pagan festival then being celebrated it was death to light any fire except at
Tara. But St. Patrick came to Tara itself, baptized the chief poet, and even
the ardri; then marched north and destroyed at Leitrim the idol, Crom Cruach,
after which he entered Connaught, and remained there for seven years. Passing
through Connaught to Ulster, he went through Donegal, Tyrone, and Antrim,
consecrated Macarten Bishop of Monaghan, and Fiace Bishop of Sletty; after
which he entered Munster. Finally he returned to Ulster, and died at Saul in
493. His early captivity in Ireland interfered seriously with his education,
and in his Confession and in his Epistle to Caroticus, both of which have
survived the wreck of ages, we can discover no graces of style. But we see his
great familiarity with the Scripture. And the man himself stands revealed; his
piety, his spirit of prayer, his confidence in God, his zeal, his invincible
courage. But while putting his entire trust in God, and giving Him all the
glory, he rejected no human aid. Entering into a pagan territory he first
preached to the chief men, knowing that when they were converted the people
would follow. Wonderful indeed was his labour, and wonderful its results. He
preached in almost every district in Ireland, confounded in argument the druids
and won the people from their side; he built, it is said, 365 churches and
consecrated an equal number of bishops, established schools and convents, and
held synods; and when he died the whole machinery of a powerful Church was in
operation, fully equal to the task of confirming in the faith those already
converted and of bringing those yet in darkness into the Christian fold.
One of
the apostle's first anxieties was to provide a native ministry. For this
purpose he selected the leading men—chiefs, brehons, bards—men likely to
attract the respect of the people, and these, after little training, and often
with little education, he had ordained. Thus equipped the priest went among the
people, with his catechism, missal, and ritual, the bishop in addition his
crosier and bell. In a short time, however, these primitive conditions ceased.
Abut 450 a college was established at Armagh under Benignus; other schools
arose at Kildare, Noendrum, and Louth; and by the end of the fifth century
these colleges sent forth a sufficient supply of trained priests. Supported by
a grant of land from the chief of the clan or sept and by voluntary offerings,
bishop and priests lived together, preached to the people, administered the
sacraments, settled their disputes, sat in their banquet halls. To many ardent
natures this state of things was abhorrent. Fleeing from men, they sought for
solitude and silence, by the banks of a river, in the recesses of a wood, and,
with the scantiest allowance of food, the water for their drink, a few wattles
covered with sods for their houses, they spent their time in mortification and
prayer. Literally they were monks, for they were alone with God. But their
retreats were soon invaded by others anxious to share their penances and their
vigils, and to learn wisdom at their feet. Each newcomer built his little hut,
a church was erected, a grant of land obtained, their master became abbot, and
perhaps bishop; and thus arose monastic establishments the fame of which soon
spread throughout Europe. Noted examples in the sixth century were Clonard,
founded by St. Finian, Clonfert by St. Brendan, Bangor by St. Comgall,
Clonmacnoise by St. Kieran, Arran by St. Enda; and, in the seventh century,
Lismore by St. Carthage and Glendalough by St. Kevin.
There
were still bardic schools, as there was still paganism, but in the seventh
century paganism had all but disappeared, and the bardic were overshadowed by
the monastic schools. Frequented by the best of the Irish, and by students from
abroad, these latter diffused knowledge over western Europe, and Ireland
received and merited the title of Island of Saints and Scholars. The holy men
who laboured with St. Patrick and immediately succeeded him were mostly bishops
and founders of churches; those of the sixth century were of the monastic
order; those of the seventh century were mostly anchorites who loved solitude,
silence, continued prayer, and the most rigid austerities. Nor were the women
behindhand in this contest for holiness. St. Brigid is a name still dear to
Ireland, and she, as well as St. Ita, St. Fanchea and others, founded many
convents tenanted by pious women, whose sanctity and sacrifices it would be
indeed difficult to surpass. Nor was the Irish Church, as has been sometimes
asserted, out of communion with the See of Rome. The Roman and Irish tonsures
differed, it is true, and the methods of computing Easter, and it may be that
Pelagianism found some few adherents, though Arianism did not, nor the errors
as to the natures and wills of Christ. In the number of its sacraments, in its
veneration for the Blessed Virgin, in its belief in the Mass and in Purgatory,
in its obedience to the See of Rome, the creed of the early Irish Church was
the Catholic creed of today (see CELTIC RITE). Abroad as well as at home Irish Christian
zeal was displayed. In 563 St. Columba, a native of Donegal, accompanied by a
few companions, crossed the sea to Caledonia and founded a monastery on the
desolate island of Iona.
Fresh
arrivals came from Ireland; the monastery with Columba as its abbot was soon a
flourishing institution, from which the Dalriadian Scots in the south and the
Piets beyond the Grampians were evangelized; and when Columba died in 597,
Christianity had been preached and received in every district in Caledonia, and
in every island along its west coast. In the next century Iona had so prospered
that its abbot, St. Adamnan, wrote in excellent Latin the "Life of St.
Columba", the best biography of which the Middle Ages can boast. From Iona
had gone south the Irish Aidan and his Irish companions to compete with and
even exceed in zeal the Roman missionaries under St. Augustine, and to
evangelize Northumbria, Mercia, and Essex; and if Irish zeal had already been
displayed in Iona, equal zeal was now displayed on the desolate isle of
Lindisfarne. Nor was this all. In 590 St. Columbanus, a student of Bangor,
accompanied by twelve companions, arrived in France and established the
monastery of Luxeuil, the parent of many monasteries, then laboured at Bregenz,
and finally founded the monastery of Bobbio, which as a centre of knowledge and
piety was long the light of northern Italy. And meantime his friend and
fellow-student St. Gall laboured with conspicuous success in Switzerland, St.
Fridolin along the Rhine, St. Fiacre near Meaux, St. Kilian at Wurzburg, St.
Livinus in Brabant, St. Fursey on the Marne, St. Cataldus in southern Italy.
And when Charlemagne reigned (771-814), Irishmen were at his court, "men
incomparably skilled in human learning".
In the
civil history of the period only a few facts stand out prominently. About 560,
in consequence of a quarrel with the ardri Diarmuid about the right of
sanctuary, St. Columba and Rhodanus (Reudan) of Lorrha publicly cursed Tara, an
unpatriotic act which dealt a fatal blow at the prospect of a strong central
government by blighting with maledictions its acknowledged seat. Nearly thirty
years later the National Convention of Drumceat restrained the insolence and
curtailed the privileges of the bards. In 684 Ireland was invaded by the King of
Northumbria, though no permanent conquest followed. And in 697 the last Feis of
Tara was held, at which, through the influence of Adamnan, women were
interdicted from taking part in actual battle. At the same time the ardri
Finactha, at the instance of St. Moling, renounced for himself and his
successors the Boru tribute. As the eighth century neared its close, religion
and learning still flourished; but unexpected dangers approached and a new
enemy came, before whose assaults monk and monastery and saint and scholar
disappeared.
These
invaders were the Danes from the coasts of Scandinavia. Pagans and pirates,
they loved plunder and war, and both on land and sea were formidable foes. Like
the fabled Fomorians of earlier times they had a genius for devastation.
Descending from their ships along the coast of western Europe, they murdered
the inhabitants or made them captives and slaves.
In
Ireland as elsewhere they attacked the monasteries and churches, desecrated the
altars, carried away the gold and silver vessels, and smoking ruins and
murdered monks attested the fury of their assaults. Armagh and Bangor, Kildare
and Clonmacnoise, Iona and Lindisfarne thus fell before their fury. Favoured by
disunion among the Irish chiefs, they crept inland, effected permanent
settlements at Waterford and Limerick and established a powerful kingdom at
Dublin; and, had their able chief Turgesius lived much longer, they might
perhaps have subdued the whole island. For a century after his death in 845
victory and defeat alternated in their wars; but they clung tenaciously to
their seaport possessions, and kept the neighbouring Irish in cruel bondage.
They were, however, signally defeated by the Ardri Malachy in 980, and Dublin
was compelled to pay him tribute. But, able as Malachy was, an abler man soon
supplanted him in the supreme position. Step by step Brian Boru had risen from
being chief of Thomond to be undisputed ruler of Munster. Its chiefs were his
tributaries and his allies; the Danes he had repeatedly chastised, and in 1002
he compelled Malachy to abdicate in his favour.
It was
a bitter humiliation for Malachy thus to lay down the sceptre which for 600
years had been in the hands of his family. It gave Ireland, however, the
greatest of her high-kings and unbroken peace for some years. War came when the
elements of discontent coalesced. Brian had irritated Leinster by reviving the
Boru tribute; he had crushed the Danes; and these, with the Danes of the Isle
of Man and those of Sweden and the Scottish Isles, joined together, and on Good
Friday, 1014, the united strength of Danes and Leinstermen faced Brian's army
at Clontarf. The victory gained by the latter was great; but it was dearly
bought by the loss of Brian as well as his son and grandson. The century and a
half which followed was a weary waste of turbulence and war. Brian's usurpation
encouraged others to ignore the claims of descent. O'Loughlin and O'Neill in
the North, O'Brien in the South, and O'Connor beyond the Shannon fought for the
national throne with equal energy and persistence; and as one set of disputants
disappeared, others replaced them, equally determined to prevail. The lesser
chiefs were similarly engaged. This ceaseless strife completed the work begun
by the Danes. Under native and Christian chiefs churches were destroyed, church
lands appropriated by laymen, monastic schools deserted, lay abbots ruled at
Armagh and elsewhere. Bishops were consecrated without sees and conferred
orders for money, there was chaos in church government and corruption everywhere.
In a series of synods beginning with Rathbreasail (1118) and including Kells,
at which the pope's legate presided, many salutary enactments were passed, and
for the first time diocesan episcopacy was established. Meanwhile, St. Malachy,
Archbishop of Armagh, had done very remarkable work in his own diocese and
elsewhere. His early death in 1148 was a heavy blow to the cause of church
reform. Nor could so many evils be cured in a single life, or by the labours of
a single man; and in spite of his efforts and the efforts of others the decrees
of synods were often flouted, and the new diocesan boundaries ignored.
The
Anglo-Normans
In
Henry II of England an unexpected reformer appeared. The murderer of Thomas a'
Becket seemed ill-fitted for the role, but he undertook it, and in the first
year of his reign (1154) he procured a Bull from the English-born Pope Adrian
IV authorizing him to proceed to Ireland "to check the torrent of
wickedness to reform evil manners, to sow the seeds of virtue." The many
troubles of his extensive kingdom thwarted his plans for years. But in 1168
Macmurrogh, King of Leinster, driven from his kingdom sought Henry's aid, and
then Adrian's Bull was remembered. a first contingent of Anglo-Normans came to
Ireland in 1169 under Fitzgerald, a stronger force under Strongbow (de Clare,
Earl of Pembroke) in 1170, and in 1171 Henry himself landed at Waterford and
proceeded to Dublin, where he spent the winter, and received the submission of
all the Irish chiefs, except those of Tyrconnell and Tyrowen. These
submissions, however, aggravated rather than lessened existing ills. The Irish
chiefs submitted to Henry as to a powerful ardri, still preserving their
privileges and rights under Brehon law. Henry, on his side, regarded them as vassals
holding the lands of their tribes by military service and in accordance with
feudal law. Thus a conflict between the clan system and feudalism arose.
Exercising his supposed rights, Henry divided the country into so many great
fiefs, giving Meath to be Lacy, Leinster to Strongbow, while de Courcy was
encouraged to conquer Ulster, and de Cogan Connaught. At a later date the de
Burgos settled in Galway, the Fitzgeralds in Kildare and Desmond, the Butlers
in Ossory. Discord enfeebled the capacity of the Irish chiefs for resistance;
nor were kernes and gallowglasses equal to mail-clad knights, nor the
battle-axe to the Norman lance, and in a short time large tracts had passed
from native to foreign hands.
The
new Anglo-Irish lords soon outgrew the position of English subjects, and to the
natives became tyrannical and overbearing. Ignoring the many evidences of
culture in Ireland, her Romanesque architecture, her high crosses, her
illuminated manuscripts, her shrines and crosiers, the scholars that had shed lustre
on her schools, the saints that had hallowed her fame throughout Europe —
ignoring all these, they despised the Irish as rude and barbarous, despised
their language, their laws their dress, their arms; and, while not recognizing
the Brehon law, they refused Irishmen the status of English subjects or the
protection of English law. At last, despairing of union among their own chiefs,
or of justice from Irish viceroy or English king, the oppressed Irish invited
Edward Bruce from Scotland. In 1315 he landed in Ireland and was crowned king.
Successful at first, his allies beyond the Shannon were almost annihilated in
the battle of Athenry (1316); and two years later he was himself defeated and
slain at Faughart. His ruin had been effected by a combination of the
Anglo-Irish lords, and this still further inflated their pride. Titles rewarded
them. Birmingham became Lord of Athenry and Earl of Louth, Fitzgerald Earl of
Kildare, his kinsman Earl of Desmond, de Burgo Earl of Ulster, Butler Earl of
Ormond. But these titles only increased their insolence and disloyalty.
Favoured by the weakness of the viceroy's government the native chiefs
recovered most of the ground they had lost.
Meanwhile
the De Burgos in Connaught changed their name to Burke, and became Irish
chiefs; many others followed their example; even the ennobled Butlers and
Fitzgeralds used the Irish language, dress, and customs, and were as turbulent
as the worst of the native chiefs. To recall these colonists to their
allegiance the Statute of Kilkenny made it penal to use Irish customs,
language, or law, forbade intermarriage with the mere Irish, or the conferring
of benefices on the native-born. But the barriers of race could not be
maintained, and the intermarrying of Irish with Anglo-Irish went on. The long
war with France, followed by the Wars of the Roses, diverted the attention of
England from Irish affairs; and the viceroy, feebly supported from England, was
too weak to chastise these powerful lords or put penal laws in force. The
hostility of native chiefs was bought off by the payment of "black
rents". The loyal colonists confined to a small district near Dublin,
called "the Pale", shivered behind its encircling rampart; and when
the sixteenth century dawned, English power in Ireland had almost disappeared.
Those within the Pale were impoverished by grasping officials and by the
payment of "black rents". Outside the Pale the country was held by
sixty chiefs of Irish descent and thirty of English descent, each making peace
or war as he pleased. Lawlessness and irreligion were everywhere. The clergy of
Irish quarrelled with those of English descent; the religious houses were
corrupt, their priors and abbots great landholders with seats in Parliament,
and more attached to secular than to religious concerns; the great monastic
schools had disappeared, the greatest of them all, Clonmacnoise, being in
ruins; preaching was neglected except by the mendicant orders, and these were
utterly unable to cope with the disorders which prevailed.
The
Tudor period
Occupied
with English and Continental affairs, Henry VIII, in the beginning of his
reign, bestowed but little attention on Ireland, and not until he was a quarter
of a century on the throne were Irish affairs taken seriously in hand. The king
was then in middle age, no longer the defender of the Faith against Luther,
but, like Luther, a rebel against Rome; no longer generous or attractive in
character, but rather a cruel capricious tyrant whom it was dangerous to
provoke and fatal to disobey. In England his hands were reddened with the best
blood of the land; and in Ireland the fate of the Fitzgeralds, following the
rebellion of Silken Thomas, struck Irish and Anglo-Irish alike with such terror
that all hastened to make peace. O'Neill, renouncing the inheritance of his
ancestors, became Earl of Tyrone; Burke became Earl of Clanrickard, O'Brien
Earl of Thomond, Fitzpatrick Lord of Ossory; the Earl of Desmond and the other
Anglo-Irish nobles were pardoned all their offences, and at a Parliament in
Dublin (1541) Anglo-Irish and Irish attended. And Henry, who like his
predecessors had been hitherto but Lord of Ireland (Dominus Hiberniae), was now
unanimously given the higher title of king. This Parliament also passed the Act
of Supremacy by which Henry was invested with spiritual jurisdiction, and, in
substitution for the pope, proclaimed head of the Church. As the proctors of
the clergy refused to agree to this measure, the irate monarch deprived them of
the right of voting, and in revenge confiscated church lands and suppressed
monasteries, in some cases shed the blood of their inmates, in the remaining
cases sent them forth homeless and poor. These severities, however, did not win
the people from their faith. The apostate friar Browne, whom Henry made Archbishop
of Dublin, the apostate Staples, Bishop of Meath, and Henry himself, stained
with so many adulteries and murders, had but poor credentials as preachers of
reform; whatever time-serving chiefs might do, the clergy and people were
unwilling to make Henry pope, or to subscribe to the varying tenets of his
creed. His successor, an ardent Protestant, tried hard to make Ireland
Protestant, but the sickly plant which he sowed was uprooted by the Catholic
Mary, and at Elizabeth's accession all Ireland was Catholic.
Like
her father Henry, the young queen was a cruel and capricious tyrant, and in her
war with Shane O'Neill, the ablest of the Irish chiefs, she did not scruple to
employ assassins. She was neither a sincere Protestant nor a willing persecutor
of the Catholics; and though she re-enacted the Act of Supremacy and passed the
Act of Uniformity, making Protestantism the state creed, she refused to have
these acts rigorously enforced. But when the pope and the Spanish king declared
against her, and the Irish Catholics were found in alliance with both, she
yielded to her ministers and concluded, with them, that a Catholic was
necessarily a disloyal subject. Henceforth toleration gave way to persecution.
The tortures inflicted on O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, and O'Hely, Bishop of
Mayo, the Spaniards murdered in cold blood at Smerwick, the desolation of
Munster during Desmond's rebellion, showed how cruel her rule could be. Far
more formidable than the rebellion of Desmond, or even than that of Shane
O'Neill, was the rebellion of Hugh O'Neill, Early of Tyrone. No such able Irish
chief had appeared since Brian Boru. Cool, cautious, vigilant, he laid his
plans with care and knew how to wait patiently for results. Never impulsive,
never boastful, wise in council and wary in speech, from his long residence in
London in his youth he learned dissimulation, and was as crafty as the
craftiest English minister. Repeatedly he foiled the queen's diplomatists in
council as he did her generals in the field, and at the Yellow Ford (1598)
gained the greatest victory ever won in Ireland over English arms. What he
might have done had he been loyally supported it is hard to say. For nearly ten
years he continued the war; he continued it after his Spanish allies had
brought upon him the disaster of Kinsale; after his chief assistant, O'Donnell,
had been struck down by an assassin's hand; after Carew had subdued Munster,
and Mountjoy had turned Ulster into a desert; after the Irish chiefs had gone
over to the enemy. And when he submitted it was only on condition of being
guaranteed his titles and lands; and by that time Elizabeth, who hated him so
much and so longed for his destruction, had breathed her last.
Under
the Stuarts
James
I (1603-25) was the first of the Stuart line, and from the son of Mary Stuart
the Irish Catholics expected much. They were doomed, however, to an early
disappointment. The cities which rejoiced that "Jezabel was dead",
and that now they could practise their religion openly, were warned by Mountjoy
that James was a good Protestant and as such would have no toleration of
popery. Salisbury, who had poisoned the mind of the queen against the
Catholics, was equally successful with her successor, with the result that
persecution continued. Proclamations were issued ordering the clergy to quit
the kingdom; those who remained were hunted down; O'Devany, Bishop of Down, and
others were done to death. The Acts of Supremacy and uniformity were rigorously
enforced. The Act of Oblivion, under which participants in the late rebellion
were pardoned, was often forgotten or ignored. English law, which for the first
time was extended to all Ireland, was used by corrupt officials to oppress
rather than to protect the people. The Earl of Tyrone and the Early of
Tyroconnell (Rory O'Donnell) was so spied upon and worried by false charges of
disloyalty that they fled the country, believing that their lives were in
danger; and to all their pleas for justice the king's response was to slander
their characters and confiscate their lands. It is indeed true that Irish
juries found the earls guilty of high treason, and an Irish Parliament,
representing all Ireland, attained them. But these results were obtained by
carefully packing the juries, and by the creation of small boroughs which sent
creatures of the king to represent them in Parliament. And the Catholic members
acquiesced under threat of having enacted a fresh batch of penal laws. Thus,
aided by corrupt juries and a complaisant Parliament, James I was enabled to
plant the confiscated lands of Ulster with English Protestants and Scotch
Presbyterians. Other plantations had fared badly. That of King's and Queen's
County in Mary's reign had decayed; and the plantation of Munster after the
Desmond war had been swept away in the tide of O'Neill's victories. The
plantation of Ulster was more thorough and effective than either of these.
Whole districts were given to the settlers, and these, supported by a
Protestant Government, soon grew into a powerful and prosperous colony, while
the despoiled Catholics, driven from the richer to the poorer lands, looked
helplessly on, hating those colonists for whose sake they had been despoiled.
Under
the new king, Charles I (1625-49), the policy of persecution and plantation was
continued. Under pretence of advancing the public interest and increasing the
king's revenue, a crowd of hungry adventurers spread themselves over the land,
inquiring into the title by which lands were held. With venal judges, venal
juries, and sympathetic officials to aid them, good titles were declared bad,
and lands seized, and the adventurers were made sharers in the spoil. The
O'Byrnes were thus deprived of their lands in Wicklow, and similar
confiscations and plantations took place in Wexford, King's County, Leitrim,
Westmeath, and Longford. Hoping to protect themselves against such robbery, the
Catholics offered the king a subsidy of £120,000 in exchange for certain
privileges called "graces", which among other things would give them
indefeasible titles to their estates. These "graces" granted by the
king, were to have the sanction of Parliament to make them good. The money was
paid, but the "graces" were withheld, and the viceroy, Strafford,
proceeded to Connaught to confiscate and plant the whole province. The
projected plantation was ultimately abandoned; but the sense of injustice
remained. All over the country were insecurity, anxiety, unrest, and
disaffection; Irish and Anglo-Irish were equally menaced. Seeing the futility
of appealing to a helpless Parliament, a despotic viceroy, or a perfidious
king, the nation took up arms.
To
describe the rebellion as the "massacre of 1641" is unjust. The
details of cruel murders committed and horrible tortures inflicted by the rebels
are mischievously untrue. On the other hand, it is true that the Protestants
suffered grievous wrong, and that many of them lost their lives, exclusive of
those who fell in war. The Catholics wanted the planters' lands; when driven
away in wintry weather, without money, or food, or sufficient clothes, many
planters perished of hunger and cold. Others fell by the avenging hand of some
infuriated Catholic whom they might have wronged in the days of their power.
Many fell defending their property or the property and lives of their friends.
The plan of the rebel leaders, of whom Roger Moore was chief, was to capture
the garrison towns by a simultaneous attack. But they failed to capture Dublin
Castle, containing large stores of arms, owing to the imprudence of Colonel
MacMahon. He imparted the secret to a disreputable Irishman named O'Connolly,
who at once informed the Castle authorities, with the result that the Castle
defences were strengthened, and MacMahon and others arrested and subsequently
executed. In Ulster, however, the whole open country and many towns fell into
the rebels' hands, and Munster and Connaught soon joined the rebellion, as did
the Catholics of the Pale, unable to obtain any toleration of their religion,
or security of their property, or even of their lives. Before the new year was
far advanced the Catholic Bishops declared the rebellion just, and the
Catholics formed a confederation which, from its meeting place, was called the
"Confederation of Kilkenny". Composed of clergy and laity its members
swore to be loyal to the king, to strive for the free exercise of their
religion, and to defend the lives, liberties, and possessions of all who took
the Confederate oath. Supreme executive authority was vested in a supreme
council; there were provincial councils also, all these bodies deriving their
powers from an elective body called the "General Assembly".
The
Supreme Council exercised all the powers of government, administered justice,
raised taxes, formed armies, appointed generals. One of the best-known of these
officers was General Preston, who commanded in Leinster, having come from
abroad with a good supply of arms and ammunition, and with 500 trained
officers. A more remarkable man still was General Owen Roe O'Neill, nephew of
the great Earl of Tyrone, who took command in Ulster, and whose defence of
Arras against the French caused him to be recognized as one of the first
soldiers in Europe. He also, like Preston, brought officers, arms, and
ammunition to Ireland. At a later state came Rinuccini, the pope's nuncio,
bringing with him a supply of money. Meanwhile, civil war raged in England
between king and Parliament; the Government at Dublin, ill supplied from across
the Channel, was ill fitted to crush a powerful rebellion, and, in 1646,
O'Neill won the great victory of Benburb. But the strength of which this
victory was the outcome was counterbalanced by elements of weakness. The
Catholics of Ulster and those of the Pale did not agree; neither did Generals
O'Neill and Preston. The Supreme Council, with a feeble old man, Lord
Mountgarret, at its head, and four provincial generals instead of a
commander-in-chief, was ill-suited for the vigorous prosecution of a war.
Moreover, the influence of the Marquis of Ormond was a fatal cause of discord.
A personal friend of the king, and charged by him with the command of his army
and with the conduct of negotiations, a Protestant with Catholic friends on the
Supreme Council, his desire ought to have been to bring Catholic and Royalist
together. But his hatred of the Catholics was such that he would grant them no
terms, even when ordered to do so by His Majesty. The Catholics' professions of
loyalty he despised, and his great diplomatic abilities were used to sow
dissensions in their councils and to thwart their plans. Yet the Supreme
Council, dominated by an Ormondist faction, continued fruitless negotiations
with him, agreed to a cessation when they themselves were strong and their
opponents weak, and agreed to a peace with him in spite of the victory of
Benburb, and in spite of the remonstrances of the nuncio and of General
O'Neill. Nor did they cease these relations with him even after he had
treacherously surrendered Dublin to the Parliament (1647), and left the
country. On the contrary, they still put faith in him, entered into a fresh
peace with him in 1648, and when he returned to Ireland as the Royalist viceroy
they received him in state at Kilkenny. In disgust, General O'Neill came to a
temporary agreement with the Parliamentary general, and Rinuccini, despairing
of Ireland, returned to Rome.
The
Civil War in England was then over. The Royalists had been vanquished, the king
executed, the monarchy replaced by a commonwealth; and in August, 1649, Oliver
Cromwell came to Ireland with 10,000 men. Ormond meanwhile had rallied his
supporters, and, with the greater part of the Catholics of Leinster, Munster,
and Connaught, the Protestants of the Pale and of Munster, and great part of
the Ulster Presbyterians, his strength was considerable. His obstinate bigotry
would not allow him to make terms with the Ulster army, and he thus lost the
support of General O'Neill at a critical time. Early in August he had been
disastrously beaten by the Puritan general Jones, at Rathmines; in consequence
he offered no opposition to Cromwell's landing and made no attempt to relieve
Drogheda. It was soon captured by Cromwell and its garrison put to the sword. A
month later the same fate befell Wexford. Waterford repelled Cromwell's attack,
and Clonmel and Kilkenny offered him a stout resistance; but other towns were
easily captured, or voluntarily surrendered; and when he left Ireland, in May,
1650, Munster and Leinster were in his hands. His successors, Ireton and
Ludlow, within two years reduced the remaining provinces. Meanwhile Owen Roe
O'Neill had died after making terms with Ormond, but before meeting with
Cromwell. The Catholic Bishops, however, repudiated Ormond, who then left
Ireland. Some negotiations subsequently between Lord Clanricarde and the Duke
of Lorraine came to nothing, and the long war was ended in which more than half
the inhabitants of the country had lost their lives.
In the
beginning of the rebellion many Englishmen subscribed money to put it down,
stipulating in return for a share of the lands to be forfeited, and thus hatred
of the Catholics was mingled with hope of gain. The English Parliament accepted
the money on the terms proposed, and the subscribers became known as
"adventurers", because they adventured their money on Irish land. When
the rebellion was over, the problem was to provide the lands promised, and also
to provide lands for the soldiers who were in arrears of pay. It was a
difficult problem. There was an Act for Settling Ireland, and Act for the
Satisfaction of Adventurers in Lands and Arrears due to the soldiers and other
public Debts; there was a High Court of Justice to determine who were guilty of
rebellion; there were soldiers who had got special terms when laying down their
arms; and there were those who had never had a share in the rebellion, but had
merely lived in the rebel quarters during the war. The best of the lands east
of the Shannon were for the adventurers and soldiers, the dispossessed being
driven to Connaught. To determine where the planters were to be settled and where
the transplanted, and what amount they were to get, there were commissions, and
committees, and surveys, and court of claims. Nor was it till 1658 that the
Cromwellian Settlement was complete, and even then many of the transplanted
protested their innocence of any share in the rebellion, and many of the
adventurers and soldiers complained that they had been defrauded of their due.
In the amount of suffering it entailed and wrong inflicted the whole scheme far
exceeded the plantation of Ulster. But it failed to make Ireland either English
or Protestant, and in setting up a system of alien landlords and native tenants
it proved the curse of Ireland and the fruitful parent of many ills.
To the
Irish Cromwell's death in 1658 was welcome news, all the more so because
Charles II (1660-85) was restored. For their attachment to the cause of the
latter they had suffered much; and now the Catholic landlord in his Connaught
cabin and the Irish soldier abroad felt equally assured that the recovery of
their lands and homes was at hand. They soon learned that Stuart gratitude
meant little and that Stuart promises were written on sand. Had Charles been
free to act, the Cromwellian Settlement would not have endured; for he loved
the Catholics much more than he loved the Puritans. But the planters were a
dangerous body to provoke, sustained as they were by the English Parliament and
by the king's chief adviser, Ormond, who indeed hated the Cromwellians, but
hated the Catholics much more. Some attempt, however, was made to right the
wrong that had been done, and by the Act of Settlement, six hundred innocent
Catholics were restored to their lands. Many more would have been restored had
the court of claims been allowed to continue its sittings. The irate planters
wanted to know what was to become of them if the despoiled papist thus back
their lands; utterings threats and even breaking out into rebellion they
alarmed the king. Under Ormond's advice the Act of Explanation was then passed
(1665) and the court of claims set up by the Act of Settlement closed its
doors, though three thousand cases remained untried. Thus the Cromwellians who
had murdered the king's father were, with few exceptions, left unmolested while
the Catholics were abandoned to their fate. Before the rebellion two-thirds of
the lands of the country were in the hands of the latter; after the Act of
Explanation scarcely one-third was left them, a sweeping confiscation
especially in the case of men who were denied even the justice of a trial.
After this the toleration of the Catholics was but a small concession. Not,
however, during the whole of Charles's reign; for Ormond, now a duke, filled
the office of viceroy for many years; he at least would maintain Protestant
ascendancy, and exclude the Catholics from the bench and the corporations. In
the English Council and in Parliament he bitterly attacked and defeated the
proposed revision of the Act of Settlement. He does not appear to have had any
sympathy with the lying tales of Oates and Bedloe, or with the storm of
persecution which followed, and he disapproved of the judicial murder of Oliver
Plunket. But his aversion from the Catholics continued, and was in no way
chilled by advancing age. One of the last acts of Charles was to dismiss him
from office as an enemy to toleration. The king himself soon after died in the
Catholic Faith, and James II, an avowed Catholic, succeeded, the first Catholic
sovereign since the death of Mary Tudor.
Religious
toleration had then made little progress throughout Europe, and England,
aggressively Protestant, looked with special disfavour on Catholicism. In these
circumstances James II should have moved with caution. He should have taken
account of national prejudices and the temper of the times, and respected
established institutions; while conscientiously practising his own religion, he
should have sought for no favour for it, at least until the nation was in a
more tolerant and yielding mood. Instead of this, and in defiance of English
bigotry and English law, he appointed Catholics to high civil and military
offices, opened the corporations and the universities to them, had a papal
nuncio at his court, and issued a declaration of Indulgence suspending the
penal laws. When the Protestant bishops refused to have this declaration read
from their pulpits he prosecuted them. Their acquittal was the signal for
revolt, and James, deserted by all classes, fled to France leaving the English
throne to William of Orange, whom the Protestants invited from Holland.
Meanwhile sweeping changes had been effected in Ireland by the viceroy, the
Duke of Tyreconnell, a militant Catholic and a special favourite of King James.
Protestant magistrates, sheriffs, and judges had been displaced to make room
for Catholics; the army and corporations underwent similar changes; and the Act
of Settlement was to be repealed. Timid Protestants trembling for their lives
fled to England; others formed centres of resistance to the viceroy in Munster
and Connaught, and, in Ulster, Derry and Enniskillen expelled the Catholics and
closed their gates against the viceroy's troops. This was rebellion, for James,
though repudiated in England, was still King of Ireland. In March, 1689, he
arrived at Kinsale from France to subdue these rebels. But the task was beyond
his strength. Derry and Enniskillen defied all his attacks, and a Wiliamite
force, issuing from the latter town, almost annihilated a Jacobite army at
Newton-Butler.
Disaffection
became general among the Protestants when the Irish Parliament repealed the Act
of Settlement and attained eighteen hundred persons who had fled to England
through fear; and when, in August, a Williamite force of twenty thousand landed
at Carrickfergus, the Protestants everywhere welcomed it. This great force,
however, effected nothing, and in June, 1690, William himself came and
encountered James on the banks of the Boyne. The battle was fought on 1 July,
and resulted in the defeat of James. Hastening to Dublin he told the Duchess of
Tyrconnell that the Irish soldiers had shamefully run away, to which the lady
is said to have replied; "But your Majesty won the race." The retort
was just. The Irish cavalry behaved with conspicuous gallantry, as did the
greater part of the infantry. Some of the latter did run away, but not so fast
as James himself, who fled taking the ablest of the Irish generals, Sarsfield,
with him. That the Irish were no cowards was soon shown by their defence of
Athlone and the still more glorious defence of Limerick. After being compelled
to raise the siege of the latter city, King Williams left for England,
committing the civil authority to lords justices and the military command to
General Ginkel. In the following year Ginkel captured Athlone, owing to the
carelessness of the Jacobite general, St-Ruth; and on 12 July, 1691, the last
great battle of the war was fought at Aughrim. The Irish were not inferior to
their opponents in numbers, discipline, or valour, and though overmatched in
heavy guns they had the advantage of position. Nor was St-Ruth inferior to
Ginkel in military capacity. His dispositions were excellent, and after several
hours' desperate fighting Ginkel was driven back at every point. Just then
St-Ruth was struck down by a cannon ball. Panic-stricken, the Irish fell back,
allowing their opponents to advance and inflict on them a crushing defeat. The
surrender of Galway and Sligo followed, and in a short time Ginkel and his
whole army were before the walls of Limerick. When he had effectually
surrounded it and made a breach in the walls, further resistance was seen to be
hopeless, and Sarsfield and his friends made terms. By the end of the year the
war was over, King William had triumphed, and Protestant ascendancy was secure.
The
eighteenth century
By the
Treaty of Limerick the Catholic soldiers of King James were pardoned, protected
against forfeiture of their estates, and were free to go abroad if they chose.
All Catholics might substitute an oath of allegiance for the oath of supremacy,
and were to have such privileges "as were consistent with the laws of Ireland,
or as they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II". King William also
promised to have the Irish Parliament grant a further relaxation of the penal
laws in force. This treaty, however, was soon torn to shreds, and in spite of
William's appeals the Irish Parliament refused to ratify it, and embarked on
fresh penal legislation. Under these new laws Catholics were excluded from
Parliament, from the bench and bar, from the army and navy, from all civil
offices, from the corporations, and even from the corporate towns. They could
not have Catholic schools at home or attend foreign schools, or inherit landed
property, or hold land under lease, or act as executors or administrators, or
have arms or ammunition, or a horse worth £5. Neither could they bury their dead
in Catholic ruins, or make pilgrimages to holy wells, or observe Catholic
holidays. They could not intermarry with the Protestants, the clergyman
assisting at such marriages being liable to death. The wife of a Catholic
landlord turning Protestant got separate maintenance; the son turning
Protestant got the whole estate; and the Catholic landlord having only Catholic
children was obliged at death to divide his estate among his children in equal
shares. All the regular clergy, as well as bishops and vicars-general should
quit the kingdom. The secular clergy might remain, but must be registered, nor
could they have on their churches either steeple or bell. This was the Penal
Code, elaborated through nearly half a century with patience, and care, and
ingenuity, perhaps the most infamous code ever elaborated by civilized man.
Such
legislation does not generate conviction, and, in spite of all, the Catholics
clung to their Faith. Deprived of schools at home, the young clerical student
sought the halls of Continental colleges, and being ordained returned to
Ireland, disguised perhaps as a sailor and carried in a smuggler's craft. And
in secrecy and obscurity he preached, taught, lived, and died, leaving another
generation equally persecuted to carry on the good fight. Poverty was his
portion, and frequently the prison and the scaffold; and yet, while
Protestantism made no progress, Catholicism more than held its own. In 1728 the
Catholics were to the Protestants as five to one, and half a century later
Young calculated that to make Ireland Protestant would take 4000 years. Indeed
the Protestant clergy made no serious effort to convert the Catholics; nor was
this the object of the Penal Code. Passed by Protestants possessing confiscated
Catholic lands, it object was to impoverish, to debase, to degrade, to leave
the despoiled Catholics incapable of rebellion and ignorant of their wrongs. In
this respect it succeeded. A few Catholics, with the connivance of some
friendly Protestants, managed to hold their estates; the remainder gradually
sank to the level of cottiers and day-labourers, living in cabins, clothed in
rags, always on the verge of famine. Shut out from every position of influence,
rackrented by absentee landlords, insulted by grasping agents and drunken squireens,
paying tithes to a Church they abhorred, hating the Government which oppressed
them and the law which made them slaves, their condition was the worst of any
peasantry in Europe. From a land blighted by such laws the enterprising and
ambitious fled, seeking an outlet for their enterprise and ambition in happier
lands. In the time of Elizabeth and James, and still more in Cromwell's time,
thousands joined the army of Spain. But in the latter half of the seventeenth
century the stream was diverted to France, then the greatest military power in
Europe. Thither Sarsfield and his men went after the fall of Limerick, and in
the fifty years which followed 450,000 Irish died in the service of France.
They fought and fell in Spain and Italy, in the passes of the Alps, in the
streets of Cremona, at Ramillies and Malplaquet, at Blenheim and Fontenoy.
Irishmen were marshals of France; an Irishman commanded the armies of Maria
Theresa; another the army of Russia; and there were Irish statesmen, generals,
and ambassadors all over Europe. Beyond the Atlantic, Irish had settled in
Pennsylvania and Maryland, in Kentucky and Carolina and the New England states;
Irish names were appended to the Declaration of Independence; and Irish
soldiers fought throughout the War of Independence.
Now
were soldiers and statesmen the only Irish exiles whom penal laws had sent
abroad. The decay of schools and colleges continued from the eleventh to the
sixteenth century; nor did Ireland in that period produce a single great
scholar, except Duns Scotus, who was partly educated broad. Any hope of a
revival of learning in the sixteenth century was blasted by the suppression of
monasteries and the penal laws; early in the seventeenth century, however,
Irish colleges were already established at Louvain, Salamanca, and Seville, at
Lisbon, Paris, and Rome. In these colleges the brightest Irish intellects
learned and taught, and Colgan and O'Clery, Lynch and Rothe, Wadding and
Keating recalled the greatest glories of their country's past. At home Trinity
College had been established (1593) to wean the Irish from "Popery and
other ill qualities"' but the Catholics held aloof, and either went abroad
or frequented the few Catholic schools left. The children of the poor, avoiding
the Protestant schools, met in the open air, with only some friendly hedge to
protect them from the blast; but they met in fear and trembling, for the
hedge-school and its master were proscribed. Thus was the lamp of learning kept
burning during the long night of the penal times.
In the
Irish Parliament meanwhile a spirit of independence appeared. As the Parliament
of the Pale it had been so often used for factious purposes that in 1496
Poyning's Law was passed, providing that henceforth no Irish Parliament could
meet, and no law could be proposed, without the previous consent of both the
Irish and English Privy Councils. Further, the English Parliament claimed the
right to legislate for Ireland; and in the laws prohibiting the importation of
Irish cattle (1665), and Irish woollen manufactures (1698), and that dealing
with the Irish forfeited estates (1700), it asserted its supposed right. The
Irish Parliament, dominated by bigotry and self-interest, had not the courage
to protest, and when one member, Molyneux, did, the English Parliament
condemned him, and ordered his book to be burned by the common hangman.
Moreover, it passed an Act in 1719 expressly declaring that it had power to
legislate for Ireland, taking away also the appellate jurisdiction of the Irish
House of Lords. The fight made by Swift against Wood's halfpence showed that,
though Molyneux was dead, his spirit lived; Lucas continued the fight, and
Grattan in 1782 obtained legislative independence. England was then beaten by
the American colonies; an Irish volunteer force had been raised to defend
Ireland against a possible invasion, and it seems certain that legislative
independence was won less by Grattan's eloquence than by the swords of the
Volunteers. These events favoured the growth of toleration. The Catholics, in
sympathizing with Grattan and in subscribing money to equip the Protestant
Volunteers, earned the goodwill of the Protestant Nationalists; in consequence
the penal laws were less rigorously enforced, and from the middle of the
century penal legislation ceased. In 1771 came the turn of the tide, when
Catholics were allowed to hold reclaimed bog under lease. The grudging
concession was followed in 1774 by an Act substituting an oath of allegiance
for the oath of supremacy; in 1778 by an Act enabling Catholics to hold all
lands under lease; and in 1782 by a further Act allowing them to erect Catholic
schools, with the permission of the Protestant bishop of the diocese, to own a
horse worth more than £5, and to assist at Mass without being compelled to accuse
the officiating priest. Nor were Catholic bishops any longer compelled to quit
the kingdom, nor Catholic children specially rewarded if they turned
Protestant. Not for ten years was there any further concession, and then an Act
was passed allowing Catholics to erect schools without seeking Protestant
permission, admitting Catholics to the Bar, and legalizing marriages between
Protestants and Catholics. Much more important was the Act of 1793 giving the
Catholics the Parliamentary and municipal franchise, admitting them to the
universities and to military and civil offices, and removing all restrictions
in regard to the tenure of land. They were still excluded from Parliament, from
the inner Bar, and from a few of the higher civil and military offices.
Always
in favour of religious liberty, Grattan would have swept away every vestige of
the Penal code. But, in 1782, he mistakenly thought that his work was done when
legislative independence was conceded. He forgot that the executive was still
left independent of Parliament, answerable only to the English ministry; and
that, with rotten boroughs controlled by a few great families, with an
extremely limited franchise in the counties, and with pensioners and placement
filling so many seats, the Irish Parliament was but a mockery of
representation. Like Grattan, Flood and Charlemont favoured Parliamentary
reform, but, unlike him, they were opposed to Catholic concessions. As for
Foster and Fitzgibbon, who led the forces of corruption and bigotry, they
opposed every attempt at reform, and consented to the Act of 1793 only under
strong pressure from Pitt and Dundas. These English ministers, alarmed at the
progress of French revolutionary principles in Ireland, fearing a foreign
invasion, wished to have the Catholics contented. In 1795 further concessions
seemed imminent. In that year an illiberal viceroy, Lord Westmoreland, was
replaced by the liberal-minded Lord Fitzwilliam, who came understanding it to
be the wish of Pitt that the Catholic claims were to be conceded. He at once
dismissed from office a rapacious office-holder named Beresford, so powerful
that he was called the "King of Ireland"; he refused to consult Lord
Chancellor Fitzgibbon or Foster, the Speaker; he took Grattan and Ponsonby into
his confidence, and declared his intention to support Grattan's bill admitting
Catholics to Parliament. The high hopes raised by these events were dashed to
the earth when Fitzwilliam was suddenly recalled, after having been allowed to
go so far without any protest from Portland, the home secretary, or from the
premier, Pitt. The latter, disliking the Irish Parliament because it had
rejected his commercial propositions in 1785, and disagreed with him on the
regency in 1789, already mediated a legislative union, and felt that the
admission of Catholics to Parliament would thwart his plans. He was probably
also influenced by Beresford, who had powerful friends in England, and by the
king, whom Fitzgibbon had mischievously convinced that to admit Catholics to
Parliament would be to violate his coronation oath. Possibly, other causes
concurred with these to bring about the sudden and disastrous change which
filled Catholic Ireland with grief, and the whole nation with dismay.
The
new viceroy, Lord Camden, was instructed to conciliate the Catholic bishops by
setting up a Catholic college for the training of Irish priests; this was done
by the establishment of Maynooth College. But he was to set his face against
all Parliamentary reform and all Catholic concessions. These things he did with
a will. He at once restored Beresford to office and Foster and Fitzgibbon to
favour, the latter being made Earl of Clare. And he stirred up but too
successfully the dying embers of sectarian hate, with the result that the
Ulster factions, the Protestant "Peep-of-Day Boys" and the Catholic
"Defenders", became embittered with a change of names. The latter,
turning to republican and revolutionary ways, joined the United Irish Society;
the former became merged in the recently formed Orange Society, taking its name
from William of Orange and having Protestant ascendancy and hatred of
Catholicism as its battle cries. Extending from Ulster, these rival societies
brought into the other provinces the curse of sectarian strife. Instead of
putting down both, the Government took sides with the Orangemen; and, while
their lawless acts were condoned, the Catholics were hunted down. An Arms' Act,
an Insurrection Act, an Indemnity Act, a suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act
placed them outside the pale of law. An undisciplined soldiery, recruited from
the Orange lodges, were than let loose among them. Martial law, free quarters,
flogging, picketing, half-hanging, destruction of Catholic property and life,
outrages on women followed, until at last Catholic blood was turned into flame.
Then Wexford rose. Looking back, it now seems certain that, had Hoche landed at
Bantry in 1796, had even a small force landed at Wexford in 1798, or a few
other counties displayed the heroism of Wexford, English power in Ireland
would, temporarily at least, have been destroyed. But one county could not
fight the British Empire, and the rebellion was soon quenched in blood.
Camden's
place was then given to Lord Cornwallis, who came to Ireland for the express
purpose of carrying a Legislative Union. Foster refused to support him and
joined the opposition. Fitzgibbon, however, aided Cornwallis, and so did
Castlereagh, who for some time had discharged the duties of chief secretary in
the absence of Mr. Pelham, and who was now formally appointed to the office.
And then began one of the most shameful chapters in Irish history. Even the
corrupt Irish Parliament was reluctant to vote away its existence, and in 1799
the opposition was too strong for Castlereagh. But Pitt directed him to
persevere, and the great struggle went on. On one side were eloquence and
debating power, patriotism, and public virtue, Grattan, Plunket, and Bushe,
Foster, Fitzgerald, Ponsonby, and Moore, a truly formidable combination. On the
other side were the baser elements of in Parliament, the needy, the
spendthrift, the meanly ambitious, operated upon by Castlereagh, with the whole
resources of the British Empire at his command. The pensioners and placemen who
voted against him at once lost their places and pensions, the military officer
was refused promotion, the magistrate was turned off the bench. And while
anti-Unionists were unsparingly punished, the Unionists got lavish rewards. The
impecunious got well-paid sinecures; the briefless barrister was made a judge
or a commissioner; the rich man, ambitious of social distinction, got a
peerage, and places and pensions for his friends; and the owners of rotten
boroughs to large sums for their interests. The Catholics were promised
emancipation in a united Parliament, and in consequence many bishops, some
clergy, and a few of the laity supported the Union, not grudging to end an
assembly so bigoted and corrupt as the Irish Parliament. By these means
Castlereagh triumphed, and in 1801 the United Parliament of Great Britain and
Ireland opened its doors.
Since
the Union
The
next quarter of a century was a period of baffled hopes. Anxious to stand well
with the Government, Dr. Troy, the Archbishop of Dublin, had been a strong
advocate of the Union, and had induced nine of his brother bishops to concede
to the king a veto on episcopal appointments. In return, he wanted emancipation
linked with the Union, and Castlereagh was not averse; but Pitt was
non-committal and vague, though the Catholic Unionists had no doubt that he
favoured immediate concession. Disappointment came when nothing was done in the
first session of the United Parliament, and it was increased when Pitt resigned
office and was succeeded by Addington, a narrow-minded bigot. Cornwallis,
however, assured Dr. Troy that Pitt had resigned, unable to overcome the
prejudices of the king, and that he would never again take office if
emancipation were not conceded. Yet, in spite of this, he became premier in
1804, no longer an advocate of emancipation but an opponent, pledged never again
to raise the question in Parliament, during the lifetime of the king. To this
pledge he was as faithful as he had been false to his former assurances; and
when Fox presented the Catholic petition in 1805, Pitt opposed it. After 1806,
when both Pitt and Fox died, the Catholic champion was Grattan, who had entered
the British Parliament in 1805. In the vain hope of conciliating opponents he
was willing, in 1808, to concede the veto. Dr. Troy and the higher Catholics
acquiesced; but the other bishops were unwilling, and neither they nor the
clergy, still less the people, wanted a state-paid clergy or state-appointed
bishops. The agitation of the question, however, did not cease, and for many
years it distracted Catholic plans and weakened Catholic effort. Further
complications arose when, in 1814, the prefect of the Propaganda, Quarantotti,
issued a rescript favouring the veto. He acted, however, beyond his powers in
the absence of Pius VII, who was in France, and when the pope returned to Rome,
after the fall of Napoleon, the rescript was disavowed.
In
these years the Catholics badly needed a leader. John Keogh, the able leader of
1793, was then old, and Lords Fingall and Gormanstone, Mr. Scully and Dr.
Dromgoole, were not the men to grapple with great difficulties and powerful
opponents. An abler and more vigorous leader was required, one with less faith
in petitions and protestations of loyalty. Such a leader was found in Daniel
O'Connell, a Catholic barrister whose first public appearance in 1800 was on an
anti-Unionist platform. A great lawyer and orator, a great debater, of
boundless courage and resources, he took a prominent part on Catholic
committees, and from 1810 he held the first place in Catholic esteem. Yet the
Catholic cause advanced slowly, and, when Grattan died in 1820, emancipation
had not come. Nor would the House of Lords accept Plunket's Bill of 1821, even
though it passed the House of Commons and conceded the veto. At last O'Connell
determined to rouse the masses, and in 1823, with the help of Richard Lalor
Sheil, he founded the Catholic Association. Its progress at first was slow, but
gradually it gathered strength. Dr. Murray, the new Catholic Archbishop of
Dublin, joined it, and Dr. Doyle, the great Bishop of Kildare; other bishops followed;
the clergy and people also came in; and thus rose a great national
organization, supervising from its central office in Dublin subsidiary
associations in every parish; maintained by a Catholic rent; watching over
local and national affairs, discharging, as Mr. Canning described it, "all
the functions of a regular government, and having obtained a complete mastery
and control over the masses of the Irish people". The Association was
suppressed in 1825 by Act of Parliament; but O'Connell merely changed the name;
and the New Catholic Association with its New Catholic rent continued the work
of agitation as of old. Nor was this all. By the Catholic Relief Act of 1793
the forty-shilling freeholders obtained the franchise. These freeholders, being
so poor, were necessarily in the power of the landlords and were wont to be
driven to the pools like so many sheep. But now, protected by a powerful
association, and encouraged by the priests and by O'Connell, the freeholders
broke their chains, and in Waterford, Louth, Meath, and elsewhere they voted
for the nominees of the Catholic Association at elections, and in placing them
at the head of the pool humbled the landlords. When they returned O'Connell
himself for Clare in 1828, the crisis had come. The Tory ministers, Wellington
and Peel, would have still resisted; but the people were not to be restrained:
it must be concession or civil war, and rather than have the latter the
ministers hauled down the flag of no surrender, and passed the Catholic Relief
Bill of 1829. The forty-shilling freeholders were disfranchised, and there were
some vexations provisions excluding Catholics from a few of the higher civil
and military offices, prohibiting priests from wearing vestments outside their
churches, bishops from assuming the titles of their sees, regulars form
obtaining charitable bequests. In other respects Catholics were placed on a
level with other denominations, and at last were admitted within the pale of
the constitution.
From
that hour O'Connell was the uncrowned king of Ireland. Where he led the people
followed. They cheered him when he praised Lord Anglesey and when he attacked
him; when he supported the Whigs and when he described them as "base,
brutal and bloody"; when he advocated the Repeal of the Union and when he
abandoned the Repeal agitation; and when, after long years of waiting for
concessions that never came, he again unfurled the flag of Repeal, they flocked
to hear him, and laughed or wept with him, responsive to his every mood.
Finally, to leave him free to devoted his whole time to public affairs they
subscribed yearly to the O'Connell tribute, given him thus an income which
never fell below £16,000 and often went far beyond that figure. And yet the
legislative results of nearly twenty years of such devotion and sacrifice were
poor. The National Education system, established in 1831, required much
amendment before it worked smoothly, and even now is far from being an ideal
system. The Commutation of Tithes Act only transferred the odium of collection from
the parson to the landlord, but gave little relief to the people. The Poor Law
system, though it often relieved destitution, too often encouraged idleness and
immorality. And the Corporation Act, while reforming a few of the corporations,
abolished many. Nor could anything be more complete than the failure of the
Repeal agitation. The explanation is not far to seek. O'Connell had a wretched
party, men without capacity or patriotism. His acceptance of offices for his
friends and his alliances with the Whigs was surely not a sound policy. And
when he took up Repeal in earnest he was already old, with the shadow of death
upon him. Lastly, as he neared the end, he lost the support of the Young
Irelanders, the most vigorous and capable section of his followers. These
things embittered his last days and hastened his death in 1847.
Meantime
the shadow of famine had fallen upon the land. The potato blight first appeared
in Wexford, in 1845, whence it marched with stealthy tread all over the
country, poisoning the potato fields as it passed. The stalks withered and
died, the potatoes beneath the soil became putrid, and when they were dug and
the sound ones separated from the unsound ones and put into pits, it was soon
discovered that disease had entered the pits. The reckless creation of
forty-shilling freeholders by the landlords for political purposes, the
reckless subdivision of holdings by the tenants, had so augmented the
population that in 1845 the inhabitants of Ireland were well beyond 8,000,000,
most of them living in abject poverty with the potato as their only food. And
now, with half the crop of 1845 gone and with the loss of the whole crop in the
two succeeding years, millions were face to face with hunger. To cope with such
a calamity required heroic measures, and O'Connell urged that distilleries
should be closed, the export of provisions prohibited, public granaries set up,
and reproductive works set on foot. But the premier, Peer, minimized the extent
of the famine, and Lord John Russell, who succeeded him in 1846 was equally
sceptical. He would neither stop distilling nor the export of provisions, nor
build railways; and when he set up public works they were not reproductive, and
the money expended on them, largely levied on the rates, was squandered by
corrupt officials. Ultimately indeed he set up government stores, and in many
cases food was distributed free. Charity supplemented the efforts of
Government, and with no niggard hand. There were Quaker, Evangelical, and
Baptist relief committees, and subscriptions from Great Britain and from
Continental Europe, from Australia and from the West Indies. But America was
generous most of all. In every city from Boston to New Orleans meetings were
held and subscriptions given. Philadelphia sent eight vessels loaded with
provisions; Mississippi and Alabama large consignments of Indian corn;
railroads and shipping companies carried relief parcels free; and the
Government turned some of the war vessels into transports to carry food to the
starving millions beyond the Atlantic. Yet were the sufferings of the people
great, and the number of deaths from famine and famine-fever appalling.
Thousands lived for weeks on cabbage and a little meal, on cabbage and seaweed,
on turnips, on diseased horse and ass flesh; and one case is recorded where a
woman ate her dead child. Men died from cold as well as from hunger. They died
on the roads and in the fields, at the relief works and on their way to them,
at the workhouses and at the workhouse doors. They died in their cabins
unattended, often surrounded by the dying and frequently by the dead. Flying
from the country they died in the hospitals of Liverpool or Glasgow, or on
board the sailing vessels to America. And thousands who crossed the ocean
reached America only to die. In 1848 and in 1849 the famine was only partial,
but in the latter year cholera appeared. In 1851 the famine was over, and such
was the havoc wrought that a population, which at the previous rate of increase
should have been 9,000,000, was reduced to 6,500,000.
The
conduct of the landlords during this terrible time was selfish and cruel. With
few exceptions they gave no employment and no subscriptions to the relief
funds. Unable to get rents from tenants unable to pay, they used their right to
evict, and in thousands of cases the horrors of eviction were added to the
horrors of famine. Retribution soon followed. The evictors, without rents and
crushed by poor-rates, became hopelessly insolvent. The British Parliament
considered them a nuisance and a curse, and in 1849 passed the Encumbered
Estates Act, under which a creditor might petition to have the estate sold and
his debt paid. Insolvent landlords were thus sent adrift, and solvent men took
their places, and to such an extent that in a few years land to the value of
£20,000,000 changed hands. But the new landlords were no better than the old.
They raised rents, confiscated the tenant's improvements, worried him with
vexatious estate rules, evicted him cruelly; and from 1850 to 1870 was the
period of the great clearances. The necessary result was a constant and
ever-increasing stream of emigration from Ireland, chiefly to America. Nor
would British statesmen do anything to stem the tide, Lord John Russell would
not interfere with the rights of property by passing a Land Act. Lord Derby was
a landlord with a landlord's strong prejudices. Lord Palmerston declared that
tenant right was landlord wrong. Nothing could be expected from the Irish
members. Sadleir and Keogh broke up the Tenant Right party; Lucas was dead;
Duffy in despair went to Australia; Moore was out of Parliament; and from 1855
to 1870 the Irish members were but placehunters and traitors. In these
circumstances the Irish peasant joined the Ribbon Society, which was secret and
oath-bound, and specially charged to defend the tenants' interests. Agrarian
outrages naturally followed. The landlord evicted, the Ribbonman shot him down,
and the evictor fell unpitied by the people, who refused to condemn the
assassin. After 1860 the Robbonmen were gradually merged in the Fenian Society,
which extended to America and England, and had national rather than agrarian
objects in view. The Irish are not good conspirators, and the attempted Fenian
insurrection in 1867 came to nothing. But the mediated assault on Chester
Castle, the Clerkenwell explosion, and the Fenian raids into Canada showed the
extent and intrepidity of Irish disaffection. An increasing number of
Englishmen began to think that the non possumus attitude of Lord Palmerston was
no longer wise; and with the advent to power of Mr. Gladstone in 1868, at the
head of a large Liberal majority, the case of Ireland was taken up.
The
Catholic masses had a threefold grievance calling urgently for redress: the
state Church, landlordism, and educational inequality. Mr. Gladstone called
them the three branches of the Irish ascendancy upas tree. Commencing with the
Church, he introduced a Bill disendowing and disestablishing it. Commissioners
were appointed to wind it up, taking charge of its enormous property, computed
at more than £15,000,000 ($75,000,000). Of this sum, £10,000,000, ultimately
raised to £11,000,000, was given to the disestablished Church, part to the
holders of existing offices, part to enable the Church to continue its work. A
further sum of nearly £1,000,000 was distributed between Maynooth College,
deprived of its annual grant, and the Presbyterian Church deprived of the
Regium Donum, the latter getting twice as much as the former. The surplus was
to be disposed of by Parliament for such public objects as it might determine.
This was generous treatment for the state Church which had been so conspicuous
a failure. Supported with an ample revenue, and by the whole power of the
State, its business was to make Ireland Protestant and English. It succeeded
only in intensifying their attachment to Catholicity and their hatred of
Protestantism and England. In 1861, after the havoc wrought by the famine, the
Catholics were seven times as numerous as the members of the state Church.
There were many parishes without a single Protestant; and in a poor country a
Church numbering but 600,000 persons had an income of nearly £700,000, mostly
drawn from people of a different creed, who at the same time had their own
Church to support. Yet there were members of Parliament who described Mr.
Gladstone's Bill as robbery and sacrilege. The House of Lords, afraid to reject
it altogether, emasculated it in committee. And Ulster Protestants declared
that if it became law they would kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne.
Ignoring these threats, Mr. Gladstone rejected the Lord.' amendments, though on
some minor points he gave way, and in spite of all opposition the Bill became
law. And thus one branch of the upas tree came crashing to the earth. The Land
Act of 1870 was well-meant, but in reality gave the tenants no protection
against rackrenting or eviction. Two years later the Ballot Act freed the Irish
tenant from the terrors of open voting.
In
1873 the education question was reached. And first as to the primary schools.
What the Catholic primary schools were in the early years of the nineteenth century
we learn from Carleton. The teacher, the product of a local hedge-school and of
a Munster classical school, or perhaps an ex-student of Maynooth, had first
been employed as a tutor in some farmer's family. Then he became a
hedge-schoolmaster, and the manner in which he attained to this position was
peculiar. Challenging the schoolmaster already in possession to a public
disputation, they met at the church gates on Sunday in presence of the
congregation. The intellectual swordplay between the combatants was keenly
relished, and, if the younger man won the applause of the audience by his depth
of learning and readiness of reply, his opponent left the district and the
victor was installed in his place. His school, built by the roadside by the
people's voluntary efforts, was of earthen sods, with an earthen floor, a hole
in the roof for a chimney, and stones for the pupils' seats. In many districts
the teacher received little fees, but the people supplied him liberally with
potatoes, meal, bacon, and turf, and entertained him at their houses. A century
before Carleton's time the Charter schools were established, and endowed to
educate the children of the destitute poor. They were to give industrial as
well as literary training, and took religion and learning as their motto. But
they became dens of infamy, with incompetent and immoral teachers, who taught
the pupils nothing except to hate Catholicism. As such the schools were shunned
by the Catholics, and were manifest failures, and yet till 1832 they received
government grants. Such societies as the Society for Discountenancing Vice, the
London Hibernian Association, and the Baptist Society were proselytizing
institutions. The Kildare Street Society founded in 1811, though Protestant in
its origin, was on different lines. The design was to have Catholics and
Protestants educated together in secular subjects, leaving their religious
training to the ministers of their religion outside of school hours. O'Connell
favoured the scheme and joined the governing board, grants were obtained from
Parliament, and for some years all went well. But again the bread of knowledge
given to Catholics was steeped in the poison of proselytism. The bigots
insisted on having the Bible read in the schools "without note or comment";
the Society was then vigorously assailed by John MacHale, at the time a young
professor at Maynooth, and O'Connell retired from the board.
Recognizing
the failure of such a system, Lord Stanley; the Irish chief secretary, passed
through Parliament in 1831 a bill empowering the lord lieutenant to constitute
a National Board of Education with an annual grant for building schools, and
for payment of teachers and inspectors. Religious instruction was to be given
on one day of the week by ministers of the different religions to children of
their own Faith. The schools were open to all denominations, and even "the
suspicion of proselytism" was to be excluded. But the Catholics were
treated unfairly. In spite of their numbers they were given but two of the
seven members of the Board. Mr. Carlisle, a Presbyterian, was made resident
commissioner, and as chief executive officer appointed non-Catholics to the
principal offices; and he and his fellow-commissioner, Dr. Whately, the
Protestant Archbishop of Dublin, compiled lesson-books, in which the history of
Ireland and the Catholic religion were treated with injustice. In a few years
the original rules of the Board were so changed that Catholic priests were
entirely excluded from all Ulster schools under Presbyterian management.
Outside of Ulster, a bigoted Protestant clergyman, named Stopford, was able in
1847 to abrogate the rule compelling Catholic child in Protestant schools to
leave when the hour for religious instruction arrived. This left it optional
with the children to remain, and brought much suffering on poor Catholics at
the hands of tyrannical and bigoted landlords.
Among
the Catholic bishops there was toleration rather than approval of the National
system. But Dr. MacHale, who had become Archbishop of Tuam in 1834, opposed the
system from the first, believing that education not founded on religion was a
curse. He preferred to have in his diocese the Christian Brothers' schools in
which religious instruction was given the premier place. Dr. Murray of Dublin and
Dr. Crolly of Armagh were not so hostile, and, when the matter was referred to
Rome in 1841, the reply was that the National system might be given a further
trial. The "Stopford Rule" strengthened MacHale's hands, as did a
board rule in 1845 providing that all schools even partially erected by a board
grant should be vested in the Board itself, and not as hitherto in the local
manager, who in Catholic schools was usually the priest. MacHale also objected
to the disproportionately small representation of Catholics on the Board, to
the character of the lesson-books, to the large number of non-Catholics in the
higher positions. These attacks told. In 1850 the Synod of Thurles condemned
the National schools as then conducted. In 1852 Dr. Murray of Dublin died, and
was succeeded by Dr. Cullen, who shared MacHale's views. The following year
Whately's lesson-books were withdrawn from the Board's lists, and Whately in
consequence resigned his seat. In 1860 the board was enlarged from seven to
twenty, and thenceforth half of these were to be Catholics. The "Stopford
Rule" and the rule regarding the vesting of schools were abrogated, and,
with the resident commissioner a Catholic, the system became more acceptable to
Catholics. For the training of teachers however there was only one Training
College under non-Catholic control, but the Catholics established the Training
College at Drumcondra, and in 1883 that at Baggot Street, Dublin, and since
then they have established others at Belfast, Limerick, and Waterford. But even
as the National system stood in 1873, Mr. Gladstone thought that the Catholics
had no substantial grievance, and did nothing.
Nor
did he interfere with the state of things in intermediate education, though the
inequality which existed was glaring. The diocesan free schools of Elizabeth,
maintained by county contributions, and the free schools of James I and those
of Erasmus Smith, maintained by confiscated Catholic lands, were under
Protestant management and as such generally shunned by Catholics. Further, the
Protestants were the richer classes, and, though their Church had been
disestablished, it had been but partially disendowed. The Dissenters also had
wealth and had well-equipped schools. But the Catholics, long prohibited from
having any schools, got no help from the state even when the pressure of penal
legislation had been removed. They had, however, set manfully to work, and,
partly by private donations, principally by collections, had established
colleges all over the land. Carlow College was founded in 1793, Navan College
in 1802, St. Jarlath's College, Tuam, in 1817, Clongowes by the Jesuits in
1814, and others in the years that followed. but they could get no state
assistance till 1879, when the Intermediate Education Act was passed. The yearly
interest on £1,000,000 was then appropriated for prizes and exhibitions to
pupils, and for result fees to colleges, and without distinction of creed,
following competitive examinations to be annually held. The system, depending
so much on examination and encouraging cramming, is certainly not ideal, but is
has been of enormous assistance to struggling Catholic schools.
It was
in the field of higher education that Catholics suffered most. In 1795 Maynooth
College had been founded for the education of the clergy. Its annual
Parliamentary grant had been lost in 1869, but it nevertheless continued to
flourish, and flourishes still as one of the first ecclesiastical colleges in
the world. There were other ecclesiastical colleges at Carlow, Thurles,
Waterford, and Drumcondra. But the laity had only Trinity College or the
Queen's Colleges. The former had first opened its doors to Catholics in 1793,
but would give them no share in its emoluments, nor did it abolish religious
tests till 1873. The Queen's Colleges, three in number, one at Galway, one at
Cork, and one at Belfast, were constituent colleges of the Queen's University,
and were meant by Peel to do for higher education what Stanley had done for the
primary schools. But the Catholic bishops' demand to have some adequate
provision made for religious teaching, some voice in the appointment and
dismissal of professors, and separate chairs in history and philosophy, not
been acceded to, the Queen's Colleges were denounced by Dr. MacHale as godless
colleges, and condemned by Rome as intrinsically dangerous to faith and morals;
and at the Synod of Thurles, in 1850, it was resolved on the advice of Rome to
set up a Catholic University. The model given was the University of Louvain. A
committee was then appointed, subscriptions received both from Ireland and from
abroad, a site was purchased in Stephen's Green, Dublin, Dr. Newman was made
first rector, professors and lecturers were appointed, and in 1854 work was
begun.
But
there were difficulties from the first. The nation still felt the effects of
the famine, the secondary schools were but imperfectly organized and unable to
furnish sufficient students, and Dr. MacHale and Dr. Cullen did not agree. Dr.
MacHale complained that the administration was too centralized, that he could
get no details of the expenditure, that there were too many Englishmen among
the professors. He objected also to Dr. Newman. Though the great Oratorian
loved Ireland, he was an Englishman with English ideas, and wanted Oxford and
Cambridge men as his colleagues. MacHale, on the contrary, would have the whole
atmosphere of the University Irish, and thus, trained by Irish teachers, Irish
students would go forth to exhibit the highest capabilities of the Irish
character. Dr. Cullen did not fully share these views, and generally agreed
with Newman. Not always, however, for he objected to have Newman appointed an
Irish bishop, and he disliked Newman's excessive partiality for professors
trained in the English universities. This want of harmony was not conducive to
enthusiasm or efficiency, and the pecuniary contributions obtained left the
various faculties woefully undermanned. Nor could nay provision be made for
students' residence or for tutorial superintendence. Most fatal of all, the
Government refused to give a charter, and students could not be expected to
frequent a university where they could get no degree. Unable to succeed where
the elements of failure were so many, Newman resigned in 1857. In 1866 the
Government of Earl Russell granted a supplemental charter making the Catholic
University a constituent college of the queen's University, a sort of fourth
Queen's College, but the charter was found to be illegal. Nor did Lord Mayo's
attempt to settle the university question in 1868 succeed, and thus the
Catholic University struggled painfully on.
Nor
was Mr. Gladstone's Bill of 1873 satisfying. He proposed to abolish the Queen's
University and the Queen's College, Galway, and to have Dublin University
separated from Trinity College, but with Trinity College, the Queen's Colleges
at Belfast and Cork, Magee College and the Catholic University as constituent
colleges. From Trinity College £12,000 a year would be taken and given to the
Dublin University, which would have in all an income of £50,000, for the
payment of examiners and professors and the founding of fellowships,
scholarships, and prizes to be competed for by students of all the constituent
colleges. There was to be a senate, at first wholly nominated by the Crown and
subsequently half and half by the Crown and Senate. The endowment of the
Queen's Colleges would remain, though the Catholic University would get
nothing; nor would there be in any of the colleges any endowment for chairs of
history, theology, or philosophy. This was perpetuating the inferior position
of the Catholic University, as it was perpetuating the endowment of the godless
colleges, and it would be almost impossible for the Catholics ever to have
their proper share of representation in the Senate. Finally, men asked what
sort of university that was which had no chairs of history or philosophy. The
Bill in fact satisfied nobody, and Mr. Gladstone being defeated resigned
office.
It
will be convenient here to anticipate. In 1879 the Queen's University was
abolished and the Royal University took its place, empowered to give degrees to
all comers who passed its examinations. The Queen's Colleges were left. In 1882
the Catholic University passed under Jesuit control, and of the twenty-eight
fellowships of £400 a year founded by the Royal University fourteen were given
to the Catholic University staff. With this slender indirect endowment it
entered the lists with the Queen's Colleges and beat them all. Subsequently
there were two University commissions, one dealing with the Royal University,
the other with Trinity College, but nothing was done. Finally, in 1908, Mr.
Birrell passed his Irish Universities Act leaving Trinity College untouched.
Abolishing the Royal University, the Act sets up two new universities, the
Queen's University with the Queen's College at Belfast, and the National
University at Dublin, with the Queen's Colleges at Cork and Galway and a new
college at Dublin as constituent colleges. In these colleges there are new
governing bodies, largely Catholic and National, but religious services of any
kind are prohibited within the precincts, and there are no religious tests.
This change has resulted in the Jesuits severing their connection with the
Catholic University, the buildings of which have been taken over by the new
Dublin college.
To go
back, when Mr. Gladstone was replaced by the Tories, in 1874, a new Irish party
had been already formed demanding an Irish Parliament, with full power to deal
with purely domestic matters. It was called the Home Rule party, Mr. Butt, a
Protestant lawyer of great ability, being its chief. At the general election in
1874, sixty Home Rulers were returned. But Mr. Butt accomplished nothing. His
own methods of conciliation and argument were not the most effective. His
party, nominal Home Rulers, were mostly place-hunters, and except the
Intermediate Education Act of 1878 there were no legislative results. Mr. Butts
died in 1879, and for a brief period the Home Rule leader was Mr. Shaw; but
after the general election of 1880 Mr. Shaw was deposed, and a younger and more
vigorous leader was appointed in the person of Charles Stewart Parnell. There
had been a serious failure of the potato crop in 1877 and 1878, but in 1879
there was only half the average yield. The landlords unable to get their rents
began to evict, and it seemed as if the horrors of 1847 were to be renewed.
Large relief funds were collected and disbursed by the Duchess of Marlborough,
the viceroy's wife, and by the Lord Mayor of Dublin; and Mr. Parnell went to
America in the last days of 1879 and appealed in person to the friends of
Ireland. He was accompanied by Mr. John Dillon, son of Mr. Dillon, the rebel of
1848. Within two months they addressed meetings in sixty-two cities, bringing
back with them to Ireland £40,000 ($200,000). Nor would Mr. Parnell have come
back in March but that the Tory premier, Lord Beaconsfield, had dissolved
Parliament. Appealing to the county on an anti-Irish cry, his answer came in a
crushing defeat, and in the return of Mr. Gladstone to power with a strong
Liberal majority. Of the Home Rulers returned many were mere Whigs, but a
sufficient number favoured an active policy to depose Mr. Shaw and put Mr.
Parnell in his place.
In
1879 the Torries had followed up the Intermediate Act by the Royal University
Act, which left the Queen's Colleges and Trinity College untouched, but set up
the Royal University, a mere examining board. But they would do nothing to
restrain the landlords and nothing effective to relieve Irish distress. Better
was expected from the new Liberal Government which included, besides Mr.
Gladstone, such men as Bright, Chamberlain, and Forster, the latter appointed
chief secretary for Ireland. Yet the Liberals were slow to move, and not until
evictions had swelled to thousands did they introduce the Compensation for
Disturbance Bill. It was thrown out in the Lords and not reintroduced. But the
Irish peasants were in no humour to acquiesce in their own destruction and
already a great land agitation was shaking Ireland from sea to sea. Begun in
Mayor by Mr. Michael Davitt, the son of a Mayo peasant, and favoured by the
prevailing distress and by the heartlessness of the landlords, it rapidly
spread. Mr. Parnell soon joined it, and in October, 1979, the Land League was
formed, its declared object being to protect tenants from eviction and to
substitute peasant proprietary for the existing system of landlordism.
Extending to America, many branches were formed there and large subscriptions
sent home. In November, 1879, an abortive prosecution of Mr. Davitt and others
only strengthened the League. In the new year a Mayo land agent, Captain
Boycott, roused the ire of his tenants by issuing processes and threatening
evictions; in consequence no servant would remain with him, no labourer would work
for him, no shopkeeper would deal with him, no neighbour would speak to him.
This system of ostracism became known as boycotting, and was freely used by the
League against landlords, agents, and grabbers, with the result that they were
compelled to make terms with the people. Government was unable to aid the
boycotted, and before the end of 1880 the law of the League had supplanted the
law of the land.
These
events changed Mr. Forster in a coercionist. He prosecuted Mr. Parnell and
thirteen others in November, 1880, but failed to convict them. Then he asked
for the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act. Mr. Gladstone reluctantly
acquiesced, and early in 1881, after a fierce struggle with the Irish members,
the measure passed. In a short time nearly two hundred persons were in jail
without trial. Mr. Gladstone next passed a comprehensive Land Act, setting up
courts to fix rents, and giving increased facilities to tenants to purchase
their holdings. But the Irish members, angered because of the Coercion Act,
received the Land Act without gratitude; and Mr. Parnell advised the tenants
not to rush to the land courts, but rather go there with a limited number of
test cases. Mr. Gladstone retorted by imprisoning Mr. Parnell and his principal
lieutenants. For the next few months terror reigned supreme. Mr. Forster filled
the jails, broke up meetings, suppressed newspapers, and yet succeeded so ill
in pacifying the country that he felt compelled to ask for more drastic
coercion. Mr. Gladstone, however, had had enough of coercion, and in May, 1882,
Lord Cowper, the viceroy, and Mr. Forster were relieved of office, and Mr.
Parnell and his colleagues were set free; and by an arrangement often called
the Kilmainham Treaty an Arrears' Bill was to be introduced, while Parnell on
his side, was to curb the agitation and gradually re-establish the reign of
law.
On the
evening of 6 May these happy changes were fatally marred by the murder in the
Phoenix Park, Dublin, of the under-secretary, Mr. Burke, and of the new chief
secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish. The assassins, entirely unconnected with
the Land League, belonged to a secret society called the Invincibles. Mr.
Parnell was stunned, the Irish cause grievously injured, and in England there
was a cry of rage. A new Coercion Act was passed and vigorously enforced, and
during the remainder of Gladstone's parliament between the Irish and the
Liberals there was bitter enmity. But meanwhile Parnell's power increased. In
place of the suppressed land League the National League was established, and
spread over the United Kingdom and America. Mr. Parnell, while opposing Mr.
Dillon's project of a renewed land agitation and Mr. Davitt's scheme of land
nationalization, was aided by the Fenians; and though English intrigue
succeeded in obtaining a papal rescript condemning a testimonial that was being
raised for him, its only effect was to increase the subscriptions. Being
friendly with the Tories, he joined with them to defeat Mr. Gladstone in 1885,
and for a brief period Lord Salisbury was premier. He governed without
coercion, and passed the Ashbourne Act, which advanced £5,000,000 to Irish
tenants for the purchase of their holdings. In return, Mr. Parnell advised the
Irish electors in Great Britain to vote for the Tories at the general election
in October, 1885. But the Liberals were given a majority over the Tories,
though not sufficient to form a government without the Irish. On the
understanding that Home Rule was to be conceded, Liberals and Irish coalesced,
the Tories were turned out, and Gladstone because premier and brought in his
Home Rule Bill of 1886, setting up an Irish Parliament with an executive
dependent on it. Deserted by a large section of his followers under Bright,
Chamberlain, and Hartington, he was defeated, and going to the country was
seriously defeated at the polls. In August Lord Salisbury was again in office
at the head of the Tories and Liberal Unionists, and in overwhelming strength.
The
rejection of Mr. Parnell's Bill of 1886 providing for the admission of leaseholders
to the benefits of the Land Act of 1881, and for a revision of judicial rents
to meet the recent heavy fall in prices, led to the starting of the Plan of
Campaign by Messers. Dillon and O'Brien. The tenant was to offer his landlord a
fair rent; and if it was refused he banked the money and fought the landlord,
and was assisted by his fellow tenants throughout the land. The Plan was not
approved or by Mr. Parnell, and it had the unfortunate effect of placing the
perpetual Coercion Act of 1887 on the Statute Book. But it caused the
Government to pass the very measure they had so lately rejected, and it
compelled many of the poorer landlords to make terms with the tenants. While on
the one hand the Plan was thus put in operation in Ireland, and on the other
hand the Coercion Act, the Liberals and Irish worked well together in
Parliament and on British platforms, the London "Times", always the
bitter enemy of Ireland, became enraged, and in its anxiety to do harm
published a series of articles on Parnellism and Crime. It relied, as it
pretended, on authentic documents which connected Parnell and his colleagues
with crime, and showed that Parnell himself condoned the Phoenix Park murders.
A Special Commission appointed by Parliament discovered that the chief letters
were forgeries and that the "Times" had been fooled by a disreputable
Irishman named Richard Pigott. The forger confessed his crime and then
committed suicide, and Parnell became the hero of the hour. When the Special
Commission issued its report, early in 1890, the tide had turned with a
vengeance against the Tories. Their majority was then seriously diminished, and
when the general election came it was certain that nothing could prevent the
triumph of Home Rule. In the midst of these bright hopes for Ireland there came
the mournful wail of the banshee, and, even before the Special Commission
report was issued, Captain O'Shea had filed a petition for divorce on the
ground of his wife's adultery with Mr. Parnell. There was no defence, and could
be none, and the decree was issued, Mr. Gladstone evidently expected that Mr.
Parnell would have retired from the leadership, and, finding that he did not,
intimated that his continuance in that position would wreck Home Rule. The
Irish party which had re-elected Mr. Parnell were not prepared to go so far,
and, as he would not retire even for a day, they deposed him. A minority still
supported him, and at the head of these he appealed to the Irish people. Week
after week he attended meetings and made speeches. But his health, already bad,
could not stand the strain; the stubborn and reckless fight ended in his
collapse, and at Brighton, on the 6th of October, 1891, the greatest Irish
leader since O'Connell breathed his last.
In the
years that followed faction was lord of all. At the general election in 1892
the Parnellite members were reduced to nine, while the anti-Parnellites were
seventy-two, and at the election in 1895 there was no material change. To
argument and entreaty the minority refused to listen, and though the
anti-Parnellite leaders, Mr. MacCarthy and Mr. Dillon, were ready to make any
sacrifice for unity and peace, their opponents rejected all overtures; and
under the shelter of Parnell's name they continued to shout Parnell's
battle-cries. At last patriotism triumphed over faction, and in 1900 Mr. John
Redmond, the Parnellite leader, was elected chairman of the reunited Irish
party. Much had been lost during these years of discord in unity and strength,
in national dignity and self-reliance. To faction it was due that the Liberal
victory of 1892 was not more sweeping; that, in consequence, the Home Rule Bill
of 1893 was rejected by the Lords; and that, in 1894, Mr. Gladstone retired,
baffled and beaten, from the struggle. At the elections of 1895 and 1900 the
Tories were victorious, and during their long term of power the Coercion Act
was frequently enforced. But there were concessions also. In 1890, Mr.
Balfour's Land Act provided £33,000,000 for Irish land purchase, and in 1891
the Congested Districts Board was established. In 1896, there was an amending
Land Act; and in 1898, the Local Government Act transferred the government of
counties and rural districts from the non-representative Grand Juries to
popularly elected bodies. A further important Act was that of Mr. Wyndham, in
1903, providing more than £100,000,000 for the buying out of the whole landlord
class. Mr. Wyndham also favoured a policy of devolution, that is a delegation
to local bodies of larger powers. But nothing was done till the Liberals came
into office in 1906, and they had nothing more generous to offer than Mr.
Birrell's National Councils Bill, a measure so halting and meagre, that an
Irish National Convention rejected it with scorn. Mr. Birrell has been more
fortunate in his University Bill, which, though not establishing a purely
Catholic University, provides one in which Catholic influences will
predominate. In recent years also the programmes both in the national and
secondary schools have been made more practical, facilities have been given for
agricultural and technical education, and the great ecclesiastical college of
Maynooth continues to maintain its reputation as the first ecclesiastical
college in the world.
Relations
between Church and state
By the
Catholic Relief Act of 1829 legal proscription ceased for the Catholic Church,
as did legal ascendancy for the Protestant Church by Mr. Gladstone's Act of
1869. In practice, however, Protestant ascendancy largely remains still. Only
within living memory was the first Catholic lord chancellor appointed in the
person of Lord O'Hagan; Catholics are still excluded, except in rare instances,
from the higher civil and military offices; and from the lord-lieutenancy they
continue to be excluded by law.
Ecclesiastical
organization
The
Catholic Church, divided into four provinces, not, however, corresponding with
the civil divisions, is ruled by four archbishops and twenty-three bishops. But
the number of dioceses is more than twenty-seven, for there have been
amalgamations and absorptions. Cashel, for instance, has been joined with Emly,
Waterford with Lismore, Kildare with Leighlin, Down with Connor, Ardagh with
Clonmacnoise, Kilmacduagh with Galway, the bishop of Galway being also
Apostolic Administrator of Kilfenora. In many dioceses there are chapters, in
others none. The number of parishes is 1087. A few are governed by
administrators, the remainder by parish priests, while the total number of the
secular clergy — parish priests, administrators, curates, chaplains, and
professors in colleges — amounts to 2967. There are also many houses of the
regular clergy: Augustinians, Capuchins, Carmelites, Fathers of the Holy Ghost,
Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, Marists, Order of Charity, Oblates, Passionists,
Redemptorists, and Vincentians. The total number of the regular clergy is 666.
They are engaged either in teaching or in giving missions, but not charged with
the government of parishes. There is, however, one exception—that of the
Passionists of Belfast, who have charge of the parish of Holy Cross in the
city. There are the two Cistercian abbeys of Mount Melleray and Roscrea, each
ruled by a mitred abbot, and having forty-three professed priests.
Statistic
The
population of Ireland has been steadily diminishing. In 1861, it was 5,798,564;
in 1871, 5,412,377; in 1881, 5,174,836; in 1891, 4,704,751; in 1901, 4,458,775.
The decrease is due to emigration, and as the great majority of the emigrants
are Catholics, the Catholic population has suffered most. In 1861, it numbered
4,505,265; in 1871, 4,150,867; in 1881, 3,960,891; in 1891, 3,547,307; in 1901,
3,310,028. In the period from 1851 to 1901 the total number of emigrants, being
natives of Ireland, who left Irish ports was 3,846,393. No less than 89 per cent
went to the United States, the remainder going to Great Britain, Australia,
Canada, and New Zealand. The saddest feature of this exodus is that 82 per cent
of the emigrants were between 15 and 35 years of age. The healthy and
enterprising have gone, leaving the weaker in mind and body at home, one result
being that the number of lunatics increased from 16,505 in 1871 to 21,188 in
1891. In the latter year the total number of primary schools was 9157, of which
8569 were under the National Board, 97 under the Christian Brothers and other
communities, and 471 other primary schools. In 1908 the total number of
National Board schools was 8538 under 3057 managers, of whom 2455 were clerical
and 602 laymen. Of the clerical managers 1307 were Catholics, 713 were Protestant
Episcopalians, 379 Presbyterians, 52 Methodists, and 4 unclassed. In 1901 the
number of pupils in all the primary schools was 636,777, of whom 471,910 were
Catholics. There has been a steady improvement in the matter of illiteracy. In
1841 the percentage of those above five years who could neither read not write
was 53; in 1901 it had fallen to 14. Of the whole population 14 per cent could
speak Irish. In 1901 there were 35,373 pupils in the Intermediate schools, the
number of Catholics being 78 per cent of the total Catholic population. The
Catholic girls in these schools were for the most part educated in the various
convents. The boys were educated in the diocesan colleges, or in the colleges
of the religious orders, and a proportion also in the Christian Brothers'
schools. "In Colleges of Universities and other Colleges", in 1901,
there were 3192 students, of whom 91 were females. The highest form of
ecclesiastical education is obtained at Maynooth, other such colleges being All
Hallows and Clonliffe in Dublin, Thurles, Waterford, and Carlow colleges.
Church
property, churches, schools, cemeteries
Church
property is usually held in trust by the parish priest for the parish, the
bishop for the diocese, the religious superior for his order, and often
associated with other trustees. In many cases the title-deeds have been lost,
but undisputed possession is considered sufficient, and the parish-priest or
other superior for the time being is recognized as the legal owner of the
church, church grounds, and cemetery, if there be such. New churches are built
on land purchase out, or acquired free of rent or under very long lease, and
church and ground are exempt from taxation. New cemeteries belong to the
District Council, and many of the older cemeteries have been taken over by the
same authority. Schools under the National Board are either vested or
non-vested. If vested, they are held by trustees—usually the priest, who is
manager, and two others—and in this case only two-thirds of the cost of building
is granted by Government. In the case of non-vested schools, which are the
property of the National Board itself, the full amount for building is granted
by Government, and the school is also kept in repair, while in vested schools
repairs have to be made by the manager. Both in vested and non-vested schools
the National Board regulates the programme, selects the school books, and
provides for the cost of examination and inspection. The appointment and
dismissal of teachers rests with the manager, from whom in the Catholic schools
there is an appeal to the bishop. All these are exempted from taxation.
Clergymen of all denominations get loans from Government on easy terms to build
residences. These houses, however, are not exempt from taxation, and belong to
the clergyman and his successors, not to himself personally.
Public
institutions
Prisons
are under government management, and always have a Catholic chaplain, when
there are Catholic inmates. So also have workhouses, asylums, and county
hospital, which are under the local authority. Reformatories and industrial
schools in the great majority of cases are under Catholic management, but they
must be certified as suitable by a government official and are subject to
government inspection from time to time. In 1900 there were in Ireland six
reformatories and seventy industrial schools; the number of both sexes in the
former being 624 and in the latter 8221. Both reformatories and industrial
schools are maintained partly by a government grant and partly by the local
rates.
Legal
status of the clergy
The
clergy have, with some few exceptions, the usual rights of citizens. They can
receive and dispose of property by will as all others, and they can vote at
elections. But they are excluded by law from the House of Commons, though not
from the House of Lords; and they are excluded from the County and District
Councils, though not from the various committees appointed by these bodies.
They are exempt from military service and from serving on juries. Public
worship is free; but priests may not celebrate the Mass outside the churches or
private houses, nor appear publicly in their vestments, nor have religious
processions through the streets; nor many the regular clergy go abroad in the
distinctive dress of their order. These laws however, are not enforced and not
infrequently processions do take place through the streets, and the regular
clergy do go abroad in their distinctive dress. Similarly, it is illegal for
religious orders of men to admit new members; but this provision of the
Catholic Relief Act of 1829 has never been enforced.
Laws
relating to charitable bequests, marriage, divorce
Generally
speaking, all bequests for the advancement of public worship are valid; but
bequests for superstitious uses are void. A bequest, for instance, to maintain
a light before an image for the good of one's soul is void; but the bequests
for Masses are good, unless left to a member of a religious order as such, the
reason being that religious orders are still technically illegal. For the
validity of a will nothing is required but that the testator be of sound mind
at the time, and free from undue influence, and that the document be signed by
two witnesses. As to marriage, it is necessary that the contracting parties
should be free, and that the mutual consent be given in the presence of two
witnesses and a clergyman, or registrar duly appointed for the purpose. In the
Irish courts no marriage can be dissolved; only a judicial separation can be
obtained. When such a separation is obtained there is no difficulty in having a
Bill passed through Parliament dissolving the marriage.
The
press
There
is no purely Catholic newspaper acting as the mouthpiece either of an
individual diocese or of the Irish Church. There are, however, in most of the
provincial towns weekly newspapers, often owned by Catholics, and always ready
to voice Catholic opinion. In Cork and Belfast there are daily papers animated
with the same spirit, and in Dublin the "Freeman's Journal" and the
"Daily Independent". In Dublin also is the "Irish
Catholic", which is a powerful champion of Catholicity; and there is the
"Leader", not professedly Catholic, but with a vigorous and manly
Catholic tone. These two are weeklies. Published monthly are the "Irish
Monthly" under the Jesuits, the "Irish Rosary" under the
Dominicans, the "Irish Educational Review", dealing with Catholic
educational matters, and the "Irish Ecclesiastical Record", edited by
Dr. Hogan of Maynooth, under episcopal supervision. There is also the
"Irish Theological Quarterly", which, as its name implies, is
published quarterly, and conducted by the professors of Maynooth College with
an ability, an extent of knowledge, a grasp of the subjects treated, and a
vigour and freshness of style worthy of Maynooth College in its palmiest days.
Sources
Annals
of the Four Masters (Dublin, 1856); Annals of Ulster (Dublin, 1887); Annals of
Loch Ce (London, 1871); Annals of Clonmacnoise (Dublin, 1896); LELAND, History
of Ireland (London, 1773); JOYCE, Short History of Ireland (London, 1893);
KEATING, History of Ireland (Dublin, 1859); HAVERTY, History of Ireland
(Dublin, 1860); FERGUSON, The Irish before the Conquest (London, 1868); RICHEY,
Lectures on Irish History (London, 1860); HYDE, Literary History of Ireland
(London, 1899); D'ALTON, History of Ireland (London, 1906).
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THE PAGAN AND EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIODS:—Senchus Mor (Dublin, 1865-1901);
O'CURRY, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish (Dublin, 1873); IDEM, MSS.
Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861); JOYCE, Social History of
Ancient Ireland (London, 1903); JUBAINVILLE, The Irish Mythological Cycle
(Dublin, 1903); WARE, Works, ed. HARRIS (Dublin, 1739-64); O'DONOVAN, Book of
Rights (Dublin, 1847); WALKER, History of the Irish Bards (Dublin, 1786);
STOKES, Tripartite Life of St. Patrick (London, 1887); LANIGAN, Ecclesiastical
Hist. of Ireland (Dublin, 1822); HEALY, Ancient Schools and Scholars (Dublin,
1896); IDEM, Life and Writings of St. Patrick (Dublin, 1905); BURY, St. Patrick
and his Place in History (London, 1905); MORRIS, St. Patrick, Apostle of
Ireland (London, 1890); ZIMMER, Celtic Church (London, 1902); MORAN, Essays on
the Early Irish Church (Dublin, 1864); W. STOKES, Ireland and the Celtic Church
(London, 1892); IDEM, Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore (London,
1890); IDEM, The Felire of Aengus (Dublin, 1880); USHER, Works (Dublin, 1847);
OLDEN, Church of Ireland (London, 1892); ADAMNAN, Life of St. Columba (Dublin,
1857); ARCHDALL, Monasticon Hibernicum (Dublin, 1873); REEVES, The Culdees
(Dublin, 1864); PETRIE, Round Towers (Dublin, 1845); O'FLAHERTY, Ogygia
(Dublin, 1793); HALLIDAY, Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin (Dublin, 1882);
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of the Gael and Gall (London, 1867); DASENT, Burnt Njal (Edinburgh, 1861);
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DUNGAL, ST. GALL, MARIANUS, SCOTUS, SCOTUS ERIUGENA; and for incidental
references in the earlier part, the works of HERODOTUS, PLINY, STRABO, CAESAR,
TACITUS, CLAUDIAN, and GIBBON.
FOR
THE PLANTAGENET AND TUDOR PERIODS:—SWEETMAN, Calendars of State Papers;
GIRALDUS CAMBRENSIS, Work (London, 1861-91); LYNCH, Cambrensis Eversus (Dublin,
1855); MISS STOKES, Early Christian Art in Ireland (London, 1887); ORPEN, The
Lay of Dermot and the Earl (London, 1892); THIERRY, Norman Conquest (Bohn
Series); MALONE, Adian IV and Ireland (Dublin, 1899); GINNELL, The Doubtful
Grant of Ireland (Dublin, 1899); GOSSELIN, Power of the Popes in the Middle
Ages (London, 1853); KING, Church History of Ireland (Dublin, 1898); GILBERT,
Viceroys of Ireland (Dublin, 1865); O'CONNOR DON, The O'Connors of Connaught
(Dublin, 1891); WARE, Annals (Dublin, 1704); GILBERT, Historic and Municipal
Documents (Dublin, 1870); COX, Hibernia Anglicana (London, 1689); Ancient Irish
Histories (Dublin, 1809); LINGARD, History of England; O'FLAHERTY, Iar
Connaught (Dublin, 1846); ORDERICUS VITALIS, History of England and Normandy
(Bohn); STOKES, Ireland and the Anglo-Norman Church (London, 1897); MANT,
History of the Church of Ireland (London, 1841); CLYNN AND DOWLING, Annals
(Dublin, 1849); COLTON, Visitation Statute of Kilkenny (Dublin, 1843); DAVIES,
Historical Tracts (London, 1786); MEEHAN, History of the Geraldines (Dublin,
1878); HARRIS, Hibernica (Dublin, 1770); FROISSART, Chronicle (London, 1895);
Correspondence relating to Ireland (reign of Henry VIII), Hamilton's Calendars
of State Papers (1509-1600); Carew Papers (1509-1624); BAGWELL, Ireland under
the Tudors (London, 1885-90); GREEN, Short History of the English People
(London, 1878); GASQUET, Edward VI and the Book of Common Prayer (London,
1891); IDEM, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (London, 1899); Harleian
Miscellany (London, 1808-13); D'ALTON, Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin, 1838);
MORAN, Archbishops of Dublin (Dublin, 1864); MORRIN, Calendar of the Patent
Rolls (Dublin, 1861); CAMDEN, Annals (London, 1635); FROUDE, History of England
(London, 1898); O'SULLIVAN, Catholic History of Ireland (Eng. tr. Dublin,
1903); CARTE, Life of Ormond (London, 1736); HOLINSHED, Chronicle (London,
1574); O'CLERY, Life of Red Hugh O'Donnell (Dublin, 1893); FYNES MORYSON, Irish
Wars (London, 1617); CUELLAR, Narrative (London, 1897); MACGEOGHEGAN, History
of Ireland (Dublin, 1844); HOGAN, Ireland in 1598 (Dublin, 1878); Pacata
Hibernia (London, 1896).
FOR
THE STUART PERIOD:—RUSSELL AND PRENDERGAST, Calendars (1603-25); GARDINER,
History of England (1844); Stuart Tracts (London, 1903); MEEHAN, Earls of
Tyrone and Tyroconnell (Dublin, date uncertain); HILL, Plantation of Ulster
(Belfast, 1877); STRAFFORD, Letters (London, 1739); "cenotes">FOR
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY:—FROUDE, English in Ireland (London, 1895); LECKY,
History of Ireland in the 18th Century (London, 1902); YOUNG, Tour in Ireland
(London, 1892); SWIFT, Prose Works (London, 1905); BERKELEY, Works (Clarendon
Press, 1871); O'CALLAGHAN, Irish Brigade in the Service of France; D'ALTON,
King James's Army List (Dublin, 1855); SWIFT MACNEILL, The Irish Parliament
(London, 1888); MOLYNEUX, Ireland's Case Stated (Dublin, 1698); LECKY, Leaders
of Public Opinion in Ireland; DELANEY, Autobiography (London, 1861); Charlemont
Papers and HARDY, Lord Charlemont (London, 1810); BARRINGTON, Rise and Fall of
the Irish Nation (Dublin, 1853); IDEM, Personal Sketches (London, 1827);
GRATTAN, Speeches (London, 1822); Journals of the Irish House of Commons; Irish
Parliamentary Debates (1781-97); BALL, Irish Legislative Systems (London,
1888); PLOWDEN, Historical Review (London, 1803); MOORE, Lord Edward Fitzgerald
(London, 1897); WOLFE TONE, Autobiography (London, 1893); MADDEN, United
Irishmen (Dublin, 1857); Secret Service under Pitt (London, 1892); HAY, History
of the Rebellion, also the Histories of TELLING, CLONEY, GORDON, KAVANAGH, and
MAXWELL; FITZPATRICK, Sham Squire (Dublin, 1895); IDEM, Ireland before the
Union (Dublin, 1880); SEWARD, Collectanea Hibernica (Dublin, 1812); GRATTAN,
Life and Times of Henry Grattan (London, 1839); MACNEVIN, Pieces of Irish
History (New York, 1807); HOUT, Memoirs (London, 1838); Cornwallis
Correspondence (London, 1859); GUILLON, La France et l'Irlande (Paris, 1888);
STANHOPE, Pitt (London, 1861); ASHBOURNE, Pitt (London, 1898); COOTE, History
of the Union (London, 1802); Castlereagh Correspondence (London, 1848).
PERIOD
SINCE THE UNION:—MITCHELL, History of Ireland (Glasgow, 1869); MACDONAGH, The
Viceroy's Postbag (London, 1904); Lord Sidmouth's Life (London, 1847);
COLCHESTER, Diary (London, 1861); CANNING, Correspondence (London, 1887);
PLOWDEN, History, 1800-10 (Dublin, 1811); DUNLOP, Daniel O'Connell (London,
1900); MACDONAGH, Daniel O'Connell London, 1903); O'Connell's Correspondence
(London, 1888); FITZPARTICK, Dr. Doyle (Dublin, 1880); DOYLE, Letters on the
State of Ireland (Dublin, 1826); PEEL, Memoirs (London, 1856); CLONCURRY,
Recollections (London, 1849); WYSE, History of the Catholic Association
(London, 1829); SHEIL, Speeches (London, 1845); IDEM, Sketches (London, 1855);
The Annual Register; O'BRIEN, Life of Drummond (London, 1889); JOHN O'CONNELL,
Recollections (London, 1849); Halliday Pamphlets; O'RORKE, Irish Famine
(Dublin, 1902); O'BRIEN, Fifty Years of Concessions to Ireland (London, 1885);
O'CONNOR, The Parnell Movement (London, 1887); A. M. SULLIVAN, New Ireland;
GREVILLE, Memoirs (London, 1888); Hansard's Parliamentary Reports; LUCAS, Life
of F. Lucas (London, 1886); DUFFY, The League of North and South (London,
1886); IDEM, Four Years of Irish History (London, 1883); IDEM, Young Ireland
(London, 1880); Devon Commission Report (Dublin, 1847); CARLISLE, Speeches
(Dublin, 1865); O'LEARY, Fenians and Fenianism (London, 1896); BUTT, Land
Tenure in Ireland (Dublin, 1866); MORLEY, Life of Gladstone (London, 1905);
BARRY O'BRIEN, Life of Parnell (London, 1899); REID, Life of Foster (London,
1888); DAVITT, Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (London, 1904); PLUNKETT, Ireland
in the New Century (London, 1904); O'RIORDAN, Catholicity and Progress in
Ireland (London, 1905); MACCAFFREY, History of the Church in the Nineteenth Century
(2 vols., Dublin, 1909); O'DEA, Maynooth and the University Question (Dublin,
1903). For Statistics see Thom's Directories and The Irish Catholic Directory.
About
this page
APA
citation. D'Alton, E. (1910). Ireland. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York:
Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved March 20, 2015 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08098b.htm
MLA
citation. D'Alton, Edward. "Ireland." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol.
8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 20 Mar. 2015 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08098b.htm>.
Transcription.
This article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett. Dedicated to
all people of Irish ancestry.
Ecclesiastical
approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.
Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact
information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is
webmaster at newadvent.org. Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I
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Aug 27, 2014 · ... despite the presence of anti-Catholic Orange ... to Canada’s fallen leader. Thomas D’Arcy McGee ... D’Arcy McGee, http://www.cbc.ca/history ...
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How
Ireland Became Catholic and How Ireland Has Remained Catholic
SEP 29
Posted
by shane
Catholic
Ireland;
how
Ireland became Catholic AND how Ireland has remained Catholic
by
Rev. P.J. Kirwan
Published
in 1908
In the
Pastoral Letter of His Eminence Cardinal Logue for Lent, we find the following-
“A great work is being done by the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland for
furnishing the people with such reading as will deprive them of all excuse for
resorting to the poisoned sources from which so many were wont to imbibe an
irreligious sensual, and often corrupting draught. Their efforts must and
should receive every support. Whenever I see in a church the well known box
destined for the distribution of their publications, I take it as a clear proof
of the pastor’s zeal for the best interests of his people”
“It is
well known”, writes His Grace the Archbishop of Tuam, “that various printing
presses in Great Britain daily pour out a flood of infidel and immoral
publications, some of which overflows to this country. We have a confident hope
that the Society’s (C.T.S.I.) publications will remove the temptation of having
recourse to such filthy garbage, will create a taste for pure and wholesome
literature, and will also serve as an antidote against the poisons of dangerous
or immoral writings”.
“Allow
me, dearly beloved,” writes Dr. Fennelly, Archbishop of Cashel, in his Lenten
Pastoral, 1903, “before concluding, to say something in favour of the Catholic Truth
Society, which has been got up for the purposes of counter-acting a growing
taste amongst our people for an overflow of filthy literature from England, and
other countries. Its publications are racy of the soil, and very varied in
point of subject: and, as far as I can
judge, are, in many instances, of high literary merit. I ask priests and people
to support the Catholic Truth Society, by taking and reading its publications.”
St.
Patrick was born around the year 397, and when he was but 16 years of age he
was seized upon and sold as a slave to a man in the County Antrim. It is
believed he spent his six years in slavery, as he was taken captive more than
once. Who can conceive his sufferings and privations during those six long
years? A noble youth, who had been brought up with the tenderest care, and who
had been accustomed from his earliest infancy to the enjoyment of all that
could render life pleasant and happy – for we must remember that St. Patrick
was of distinguished birth – is suddenly torn away from his parents and
friends, and is sent into slavery to tend cattle in the far north of Ireland,
There he has no one to help or to pity him, and he has to bear the greatest
trials and sufferings; but patiently and bravely did he endure all.
At the
end of the Six years when he had learned the language and customs of the people
amongst whom he served, when he had exercised himself in the practice of
humility and every virtue, and the designs of Providence had been fully
accomplished in his regard; when at length he happily escaped from captivity
and returned to his home, what did he do?
Did he
remain with his friends amidst comforts and joys, rendered all the more dear
since they had once been lost? No! A voice which comes from afar on the Western
breeze – the voice, as it were, of many united in one holy strain – says to
him: We entreat thee, O holy youth, to come and walk amongst us. “It was the
voice of the Irish,” says the Saint, in the Book of his Confessions, “and I was
greatly affected in my heart”. He arose, and once more leaving home, went forth
to prepare himself for his great mission.
Once
completing many years of study, he went to Rome to receive his grade, or
ordination, and to visit the Shrines of the Apostles and the successor of St.
Peter – Christ’s Vicar on earth. Having been ordained Priest and afterwards
consecrated Bishop, Saint Patrick set out at once for the scene of his labours.
He came to Ireland once more, no longer captive, but free, and destined to
break the nation’s chains. No longer dragged thither the unwilling slave of
men, but borne by irresistible love, the willing slave of Christ. And soon he
gives proof of his great bravery, for he had not been in Ireland before he
resolved, by one bold and decisive act, to effect the overthrow of paganism in
the country.
As
Easter approached he prepared to celebrate it near Tara, which was the royal
residence and the chief seat of paganism and druidism.
King
Leaghaire, who was monarch of all Ireland, was holding his court at Tara. The
druids and magicians were with him, and they were keeping a great pagan
festival which required that the fire of every hearth in Erin should have been
extinguished on the previous night, and it was forbidden, under pain of death,
that it should be rekindled before the great fire was lit of Tara. This pagan
festival corresponded, as regards the time of its celebration, with the great
festival of the Pasch or Easter, which St. Patrick was about to celebrate.
The
Saint kindled his paschal fire of the hill of Slane, within sight of Tara. The
king and his chiefs saw the light flashing over the plain. The druids answer
that if the light was not extinguished that very night, it would be never be
extinguished in Erin, and the man who had kindled it, they said, “would surpass
kings and princes.”
Alarmed
at this answer, the king instantly dispatched messengers to summon St. Patrick
into his presence. The chiefs seated themselves in a circle on the grass to
receive him, and on his arrive, one alone stood amongst them, struck by his
venerable appearance, stood up to salute him. The others, however, listened
attentively while the king asked the Saint many questions. The druids contended
with him and insolently denounced the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, which
St. Patrick earnestly defended.
The
king is said to have asked the Saint for an example to explain to him how there
could be Three Persons in the One God. It was then, according to an ancient
tradition, St. Patrick picked up the shamrock and pointed to three leaves with
the one stalk or stem. This is why the shamrock is worn on the National
Festival and is held in such veneration. Though Leaghaire refused to believe he
gave St. Patrick full liberty to preach, and to receive all who might be
willing to become Christians.
St.
Patrick by his miracles silenced the druids and put an end to their power.
Great numbers presented themselves to be instructed and baptized, amongst
others the chief druid. Their example was followed by more men, and soon St.
Patrick’s converts might be counted by thousands – all remarkable for their
great faith and fidelity.
As an
example, an incident that took place at the baptism of a young prince may be
related. St. Patrick carried in his hand, according to his custom, his great
staff or crosier. At the end of this crosier there was a sharp iron spike by
means of which he could fix the staff in the ground while he preached or
exercised his episcopal functions. On this occasion, however, he struck it
through the prince’s foot, which he nailed to the earth, without perceiving his
mistake until the ceremony was over, and then as he was about to lift his
staff, as he thought, out of the ground, he discovered it buried in the foot of
the prince. The brave young man had borne the torture in silence, and when the
Saint expressed his deep regret and asked why he had not complained and made
known to him what had happened, he simply replied that he thought it was part of
the ceremony and did not regard it as of much consequence. He must have thought
since Our Lord’s hands and feet had been pierced for us, his feet should have
to be pierced in turn.
We
have another example of the fidelity of the people in St. Patrick’s coachman or
charioteer, who lost his own life in saving the life of the Saint. The coachman
having heard that a certain chief was lying in wait to kill his master, he
without telling St. Patrick anything about it, got him to change places with
him in the chariot, by saying: “I am now a long time driving for you, my good
master, Patrick: will you take my place today and let me sit to rest myself in
your place?” St. Patrick readily consented and his faithful servant was killed
in mistake for himself.
We
cannot be surprised that the faith should spread rapidly amongst such a brave
and noble people, and that soon the whole country was converted, and this was
accomplished in the lifetime of St. Patrick. He found Ireland pagan; he had the
happiness to see it wholly Christian before his death but it was not without
the greatest labour that he effected this wonderful change. The Saint gave
himself little rest. The day he spent in preaching; the greater part of the
night he devoted to prayer. Like St. Paul, he even found time for manual
labour. Everywhere he went he destroyed the pagan altars and temples, and
founded churches, and ordained priests and bishops. He worked the greatest
miracles by healing the sick, curing the blind, and even raising the dead. He
is said to have raised nine dead persons to life.
When
after a long and glorious career, St. Patrick reached the end of his labours
and went to his reward, his care for his people did not cease, nor their
devotion for him. While on earth he prayed that the faith of those whom he had
converted should never fail, and he begged of God that he might appointed the
Judge and Protector of the Irish people. Well has his prayer been heard, and
faithfully has he continued to watch over his people, and true have his people
been to the faith which he preached to them. Space would not permit to recount
all that St. Patrick’s people have done and suffered for the faith, since his
coming to the present day.
Book
of Kells
For
three hundreds after St. Patrick,
Ireland was famous for her sanctity and learning, and was known as the “Island
of Saints and Scholars”. During that time the youth of France, Germany and
Switzerland flocked to Ireland, and a French writers tells us that they were
all received with the greatest hospitality; but “to the English students”, says
Ven. Bede, “Ireland showed her greatest generosity”. The whole country was
covered with schools and monasteries and all was peaceful and happy; but during
the next three hundred years there was a sad change. The Danes invaded the
country, destroyed the churches and monasteries, put the monks to death, and
continued to lay the country waste, ‘till the famous Brian Boru succeeded in
defeating them, and in driving them out of Ireland.
What
an example do we not find in him of a true Christian hero? On the day of the
Battle of Clontarf, when he was about 80 years of age, he upheld the crucifix
before his army in the morning and he died in its embraces before the sunset!
The
Danish invasion was soon followed by another invasion and three hundred years
more of war and bloodshed and that was again followed by nearly three hundred
years of persecution.
During
all that time Ireland continued to give the grandest proofs of her faith and
bravery. She has clung to the old religion with unexampled fidelity, and what
she has suffered for the faith can scarcely be imagined or described; but those
unhappy days of persecution (thank God), have passed away, and now if Catholics
fail to practice their religion, the fault is altogether their own. What excuse
can the Catholics of the present time have when they consider the sacrifices
our forefathers had to make and the sufferings and privations they had to
endure?
We
have seen how Ireland became Catholic, through our glorious St. Patrick. We
shall see in the pages that follow how Ireland has remained Catholic throughout
the terrible days of persecution.
HOW
IRELAND HAS REMAINED CATHOLIC
“Never
has a whole nation”, says Cardinal Moran, “suffered more for the faith than
Ireland; and nowhere has fidelity to God and loyalty to the Holy See, amid
unparalleled sufferings and national humiliations, achieved more glorious
victories or has been crowned with happier results
“For
poor Ireland the day of trial came, and came with a vengeance; the foe, the
stranger, the heretic, covered the land; the schools and monasteries, from
which on hill and dale prayer and sacrifice ascended like sweet incense before
the Almighty, were razed to the ground, and the holy inmates either put to the
sword or exiled, to see no more the shores of their beloved Erin. The holy
altars were desecrated, the churches were demolished, and the sword, the rack,
and the gibbet reeked in the blood of Ireland’s Bishops and Priests. Driven
from every home, the mountain fastnesses, the bog and the forest protected the
priest and his faithful from the axe and the halter; here each cave became a
sanctuary, and each rude rock an altar, on which was offered, with the wide
heavens as a canopy, the infinite Sacrifice of Redemption. And many a time
surprised to this lonely retreat, the good shepherd was torn from his loving
and faithful flock, and martyred on the very rock on which before he immolated
the Lamb of God!
“Nor
was the storm a passing one; for several centuries it swept over the land in
unabated fury, and when the tempest appeared to lull the danger became the
greater; when the sword was blunted, when the scaffold appeared loath to shed
more innocent blood, when brute force could not shake the Irish heart, now
flowers were strewed along the road to apostasy, tempting rewards were held
out, and the fatal poison was covered in the honeyed cup of learning; but
infinite thanks to the Almighty and thanks to the ‘army’ of Irish Saints, with
St. Patrick at their head, who before the throne of God prayed for fidelity and
perseverance for their suffering and dying countrymen, the sons of St. Patrick
were true to the faith; they disliked and rejected the proffered boon of
apostasy, and with holy indignation cast from their lips the poisoned draughts
of the heretic”(1)
“During
the centuries of persecution by the Danes, later on by the Saxons, and
especially the fierce wars of Elizabeth and Cromwell, nothing sacred escaped
the hands of the spoilers, Hence, libraries contained priceless treasures of
books and manuscripts, recording toe history of centuries, shared the fate of
the monasteries, and were reduced to ashes. Every ingenuity was resorted to
destroy the records of past and present, and obliterate or sully the memory of
the illustrious dead. Hence, during these many years of persecution, thousands
of Irish shed their blood for the Faith. Their names will never be known on
earth. Their glorious martyrdom is registered only in the book of Eternal Life”
(2)
O’Sullivan
Beare, in his work published in Lisbon in 1618, writes: “Notwithstanding the
trials beset him the holy Prelate, Dr. O’ Hurley, administered the Sacraments
with incredible zeal and labour to the flock entrusted to his care, and
continued to preach the Gospel with great success. For two whole years English
spies sought every opportunity to seize his person, but their plans were
frustrated by the fidelity of the Irish Catholics. In order to escape notice,
he wore generally a secular dress, as, indeed, all bishops and priests were
obliged to do in England, Ireland, and Scotland, ever since this persecution
first broke out …….Dr O’Hurley was arrested at Carrick-on-Suir in September,
1583. Thomas Butler, surnamed the “Black Earl of Ormonde”, protested against
this injustice and used every exertion afterwards to obtain the Archbishop’s
release, but all to no purpose……The Archbishop was hurried off to Dublin, and
kept bound there in chains in a dark and loathsome prison up to Holy Thursday
of the following year, when he was brought before the Lords Justices Loftus and
Wallop. At first they received him kindly, and promised a free pardon and
promotion in the Church if he denied the Spiritual power of the Pope, and
acknowledge the Queen’s supremacy. ‘He had resolved’, he replied, ‘never to
abandon, for any temporal reward the Catholic Church, Vicar of Christ, and the
true faith’. Loftus and Wallop, seeing that promises would not avail, had
recourse to arguments……If arguments failed to convince him, they said, other
means must be tried to change his purpose. The holy Prelate was then bound to
the trunk of a large tree, with his hands and feet chained, and his legs forced
into long leather boots reaching up to his knees, as they used to be worn then.
The boots were filled with salt, butter, oil, hemp, and pitch, and the martyr’s
body stretched on an iron grate over a fire, and cruelly tortured for more than
an hour. The pitch, oil, and other materials boiled over; the skin was torn off
the feet, and even large pieces of flesh, so as to leave the bones quite bare.
The muscles and veins contracted gradually, and when the boots were pulled off,
no one could bear to look at the mangled body. Still, the holy martyr,
notwithstanding these tortures, kept his mind fixed on God and holy things,
never uttered a word of complaint but quietly submitted to all these trials
with the same serene countenance to the very end.
“The
soldiers were instructed to take him to the place of execution before daylight,
and to hang him at an early hour, when the people could have no notice. These
orders were carried out strictly. Only two of the citizens followed their
pastor, and a friend who had watched over him with the greatest anxiety from
his first arrest. The rope with which they hanged him was made of twigs, cut on
Stephen’s Green, which was then an osiery, in order to prolong his sufferings
on the scaffold.”
On the
3rd of May, 1681, Dr. Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh, and Primate of
all Ireland, was arraigned at the King’s Bench Bar (London) “for high treason:
for endeavoring and compassing the King’s death, to levy war in Ireland, and to
alter the religion there, and to raise an army of 70,000 men to support the
French invasion, and kept in house 100 priests to take charge of the French
landing.” His reply was that his house was a thatched cabin of two rooms: the
total number of priests in his whole diocese was only sixty-two, and his own
annual stipend was from £25 to £40. “It is well known,” says the Archbishop,
“that in all the province, take men, women, and children of the Roman
Catholics, they could not make up 70,000…….As I am a dying man and hope for
salvation by my Lord and Saviour, I am not guilty of one point of treason they
have sworn against me, no more than the child that was born yesterday”.
The
Lord Chief Justice pronounced the following sentence……”Therefore, you must go
from hence toe the place from whence you came, that is to Newgate, and from
thence you shall be drawn through the City of London to Tyburn, there you shall
be hanged by the neck, but cut down before you are dead, your bowels shall be
take out, and burnt before your face, your body be divided into four quarters,
and be disposed of as His Majesty pleases”. After hearing this fearful sentence
our holy martyr cried out, “God Almighty bless your lordship. And now, my lord,
as I am a dead man to this world, I was never guilty of any of the reasons laid
to my charge, as you will hear in time”. In his dying speech he again asserted
his innocence of any treasonable plot, and declared that he freely forgave his
false accusers, after which he prayed aloud for the king, etc. “Having
concluded his discourse,” continues his biographer, “the sentence was carried
into execution and his happy soul sped its flight to enjoy eternal repose”.
During
his last days he wrote some beautiful farewell letters to his relations, in one
of which he speaks with the great gratitude of the English Catholics, “who
spared”, says he, “neither money nor gold to relieve me and did for me on my
trial all that even my brothers could do” . He was the last of the long train
of martyrs who suffered in England.
We are
not able to record the martyrdom of more than one who suffered later in Ireland
– Father Nicholas Sheehy, P.P., of Clogheen, Co. Tipperary. He was born in
Fethard in 1728, educated in France, and led to scaffold at Clonmel in 1766,
under the accusation, indeed, of various crimes, but in reality through hatred
of the Catholic Church, of which he was a devoted priest. He had some time
before been arrested and indicted for saying Mass, and exercising the other
duties of his holy office, but for want of sufficient evidence had been
acquitted. He was now accused of high treason and a reward of £300 was offered
by the Government for his arrest. Conscious of innocence, he addressed a letter
to the Government offering to place himself in their hands for trial on such a
charge, on condition that his trial should not take place in Clonmel, where his
enemies had sworn to take away his life, but in the Court of the King’s Bench,
Dublin.
This
condition was accepted, and he was according tried in Dublin, and honourably
acquitted, the witnesses who were produced against him being persons of no
credit, whose testimony no jury could receive. He was no sooner declared “not
guilty” than his enemies had him arrested on a new accusation. An informer
named Bridges had disappeared, and was supposed to have been murdered, and
Father Sheehy was now accused of having murdered him. It is difficult to free
the Government from complicity with his accusers when they permitted this case
to be sent for trial to Clonmel.
There
were none to accuse him but the same infamous witnesses whose testimony had
been discredited in the King’s Bench. Moreover, on the night of the supposed
murder, Father Sheehy had been far away from the place assigned for the crime,
with Mr. Keating, a gentleman of property and unimpeached integrity. This
gentleman no sooner appeared in court to attest this fact, than a Protestant
minister named Hewetson stood up and accused him of a murder which had taken
place in Newmarket. Mr. Keating was himself immediately arrested and hurried
off to Kilkenny Gaol. In due course he was tried and acquitted, there not being
a shadow of evidence against him; but the enemies of Father Sheehy had gained
their purpose, for in the meantime sentence had passed upon him, and he had
suffered the extreme penalty of the law. By many Protestants of his own
district Father Sheehy was held in the greatest esteem. His last place of
refuge was in the house of a Protestant farmer named Griffiths, whose house
adjoined the churchyard of Shandraham, where Father Sheehy’s remains now
repose. During the day time Father Sheehy used to be concealed in a vault of
the churchyard, and at night he entered the house, where a large fire had to be
kindled, so benumbed was he from the hardships of what might be justly styled
his living tomb.
On
March 15th, 1766, the second day after the sentence, he was hanged and
quartered at Clonmel. A few weeks later, three culprits, under sentence of
death in Clonmel Gaol, attested that pardon was offered them if only they would
accuse Father Sheehy of being guilty of the crime imputed to him. Father Sheehy
made no secret of his sympathy with the people in their impoverished and
oppressed conditions, but he was wholly innocent of the crime with which he was
charged, so that he was a true patriot as well as a Martyr-Priest.
“Space
will not permit to set forth in detail the long series of enactments which were
sanctioned in successive Parliament to oppress and to degrade the Irish
Catholics. It will suffice to sketch briefly some of the distinctive features
of the Penal Code, and to glean from official record and other authentic
sources a few facts which may serve to illustrate at the same time the
bitterness of the persecution and the true heroism of the sufferers”.
“The
Penal Code was a complete system,” says Burke, “well digested and well composed
in all its parts. It was a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as
well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a feeble
people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded
from the perverted ingenuity of man”. (3)
“It
would be difficult,” says Mr. Lecky, “in the whole compass of history to find
another instance in which various and such powerful agencies concurred to
degrade the character and to blast the prosperity of a nation”.
Dean
Swift, Godwin Smith and MacKnight give the same testimony, and (Lord) John
Morley adds: “Protestants love to dwell upon the horrors of the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes, of the proscriptions of Philip the Second, and of the
Inquisition. Let them turn candidly to the history of Ireland, from 1691 down
to 1798, and they will perceive that the diabolical proscriptions of the Penal
Laws, and the frenzied atrocities with which the Protestants suppressed the
Catholic rising at the close of the century, are absolutely unsurpassed in
history. The Penal Code has often been transcribed. In a country where the
toleration of Protestantism is constantly overvaunted, it can scarcely be
transcribed too often”. (4)
During
the whole of the eighteenth century the Penal Laws may be said to have been in
full force throughout the length and breadth of the lands. By the Treaty of
Limerick was practically placed on a footing of perfect equality with the
English settlers in the island. They were granted freedom of religious worship
and the use of arms, and were confirmed in their proprietorial rights and
privileges. They were entitled to sit in Parliament, to vote at elections, to
practice law and medicine, and to engage in trade commerce.
This
treaty was shamefully violated: Catholics were excluded from both Houses of
Parliament, an oath of abjuration being required. All “Popish” holidays were
abrogated and all “Popish” citizens were ordered to be disarmed. It was enacted
that no Catholic should be allowed to keep a horse of the value of more than
£5, and the Act provided that no matter how valuable might be the horse owned
by a Papist, any Protestant might seize it on the payment of £5 5s. A special
Act was passed banishing the Catholic bishops and the regular clergy; should
they return from banishment they incurred the penalty of treason. 454 of the
regular clergy were sent into exile in 1698. By further Acts the sending of
Catholic children to the Continent was indicted; Catholics were disqualified
from the legal profession, and marriage of Protestants with Catholic wives was
required. By a special provision in this last enactment, any Protestant
marrying a Catholic wife was to be deemed a Papist and was disabled from
sitting in either House of Parliament, “unless such person so marrying shall
within a year after such marriage procure such wife to be converted to the
Protestant religion.” Some years later a Committee of the [colonial] Irish
House of Commons decided that under this Act Protestants married to Catholic
wives were disqualified even to vote for members of Parliament. On the accession
of Queen Anne other penal Laws followed in quick succession. In 1703 an Act was
passed that practically abolished the Catholic landlords of Ireland.
“The
whole power and property of (Ireland) has been conferred by successive monarchs
of England upon an English colony, composed of three sets of English
adventurers who poured into this country at the termination of three successive
rebellions. Confiscation is their common title; and from their first settlement
they have been hemmed in on every side by the old inhabitants of the island,
brooding over their discontents in sullen indignation.” John Fitzgibbon, Earl
of Clare, urging adoption of the Act of Union, 10th February 1800.
The
whole landed property of the kingdom was transferred to men filled with bitter
hatred of the Catholic Faith; the natives who remained true to their creed were
mercilessly tramped on. Dean Swift, who was eye-witness of what he describes,
thus writes in 1727: “A great cause of this nation’s misery is that Egyptian
bondage of cruel, oppressing, covetous landlords, expecting that all who live
under them should make bricks without straw, who grieve and envy when they see
a tenant of their own in a cart or able to afford one comfortable meal in a
month; by which the spirits of the people are broken and made fit for slavery”.
A few
years earlier (1718) Dr. Nicholson, Protestant Bishop of Derry, was warned by
the Castle not to proceed to his diocese without a military escort. He
accordingly set out from Dublin, accompanied by a troop of dragoons. The
description of his journey to Derry is from his own pen. “The Executive,” he
says, “were pleased to grant me a guard of dragoons, with whom I travelled in
great security through the country said to be infested with a set of barbarous
and pilfering tories (robbers). I saw no danger of losing the little money I
had, but was under some apprehension of being starved, having never beheld such
dismal marks of hunger and want as appeared in the countenances of most of the
poor creatures that I met with on the road.
“The
poor wretches lie in rocky sod-hovels, and have generally no more than a rag of
coarse blanket to cover a small part of their nakedness. Upon the strictest
inquiry I could not find that they are better clad or lodged in the winter
season. These sorry slaves plough the ground to the very tops of their
mountains for the service of their lords, who spend truly rack-rents in
London”.
The
Protestant gentry who held in their hands the whole administration of the laws,
had no sympathy with the Catholic farmers, and, being practically
irresponsible, threw them into prison at will, or ground them down with the
greatest tyranny, and subjected them to indescribable hardships. The tenant was
allowed no security in his holding. Should his industry have reclaimed some
marshy tract, or cultivated the barren mountain, an enemy was sure to be at
hand deeming it little less than a religious duty to deprive him of the fruits
of his toil, and to drive him forth from his home unpitied and unrequited.
Under such a system the Catholic tenants were reduced to the lowest degree of
misery. A writer of 1766 speaks of them as “naked slaves, who labour without
food, and live while they can without homes or covering, under the lash of
merciless and relentless taskmasters.”
By a
mockery of legislation grass lands were by Act of the [colonial] Irish
Parliament exempted from the payment of the tithes. Thus, the rich Protestant
proprietors became practically freed from contributing to the support of their
own clergy, and the small Catholic farmers were left to the tender mercy of the
tithe-proctors, who, “with all the hands of all the harpies,” plundered them to
secure a rich maintenance for the alien ministers of an alien creed. The
determination to crush out every Irish industry extended even to the humbles trades
– on land and water. From Folkestone and Aldborough petitions were presented to
Government complaining that Irishmen were allowed to catch herrings at
Waterford and Wexford and to send them across the Straits for sale. Other
petitions were forwarded, praying that all fisheries might be prohibited on the
Irish coasts, except in boats built and manned by Englishmen. It was the remark
of Dean Swift that the convenience of ports and harbours which nature bestowed
so liberally on Ireland was of no more use to her people than a beautiful
prospect to a man shut up in a dungeon. If, whilst England was engaged at war
with a Catholic State, any Irish Protestant suffered loss from the enemy’s
privateers, a tax was levied on the Catholics of the district in which he lived
to restore to him the full amount of his loss. Should it happen that a
Protestant was robbed, and were it supposed that the culprit was a Papist- and
no very strict proofs were required, if, for instance, the robber had been
heard to speak with an Irish accent, it would be enough-the loss was
compensated at the expense of his Catholic neighbours. A Protestant gentleman
in the County of Kilkenny, from whom property had been stolen, was compensated
by a heavy tax then levied on the Catholics of his district. Very soon after,
however, the robber was discovered and was found to be a Protestant.
Nevertheless no restitution was made to the Catholics for the injury done to
them.
Eviction
of Catholic tenants
Mr.
Lecky, in his “History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” having at
considerable length set forth the sufferings and disabilities of the Irish
Catholics, adds the following glowing eulogy on the fidelity of the Irish
people: –
“They
clung to their old faith with a constancy that has never been surpassed, during
generations of the most galling persecution, at a time when every earthly
motive urged them to abandon it, when all the attractions and influence of
property and rank and professional eminence and education were arrayed against
it. They voluntarily supported their priesthood with an unwearying zeal when
they themselves were sunk in the most abject poverty, when the agonies of
starvation were continually before them. They had their reward. The legislator,
abandoning the hopeless task of crushing a religion that was so cherished,
contented himself with providing that those who held it should never rise to
influence or wealth, and the Penal Laws were at last applied almost exclusively
to this end” (5)
Throughout
the whole period of persecution in Ireland the succession of bishops and
priests was never broken. As was to be expected, however, many were the
sufferings of those devoted men whilst they endeavoured to minister to their
flocks. It was enacted under William III that all the Catholic archbishops,
bishops and regulars should depart the kingdom, under penalty of imprisonment
and transportation; and should they at any time return to Ireland they were to
be considered guilty of high treason, and to suffer accordingly. In 1704
another Act was passed by which only a certain number of the parochial clergy,
duly registered, were to be tolerated in each county. A particular district was
allotted to each one, but no other priests were to be tolerated on any account,
and all save those now registered were to be banished as regulars.
New
difficulties, however, soon awaited the privileged clergy. By a special clause
in this Registration Act, a registered priest who would presume to take a
curate to aid him in the work of the scared ministry was subjected to all the
penalties enacted against the regulars; and furthermore, if he administered the
Sacraments, or said Mass outside his own registered district, he incurred the
same penalties. An edict was published commanding the priests thus registered to
take an oath of abjuration; and as all with scarcely an exception refused to
stain their consciences by such an oath, all alike were thenceforward subject
to the direct penalties of the law. At any movement they were liable to be
arrested, thrown into prison and sent into exile.
To
better give effect to these enactments, the Irish [colonial] Parliament, in
1709, passed a resolution declaring that to inform against a priest was an
honorable act, deserving the nation’s gratitude. A reward of £50 was voted for
the discovery of a bishop, or vicar-general or other dignitary, and of £20 for
the arrest of any other clergyman, secular or regular. Besides these
Parliamentary grants, other rewards were offered from time to time by the grand
juries, and as late as 1743 a proclamation was issued by the Privy Council in
Dublin, offering for the conviction of a bishop or dignitary the sum of £150;
for every priest, £50, and for the discovery of persons who being in the
possession of a certain amount of property, had been guilty of entertaining,
concealing, or relieving a priest, £200. Other Acts of Parliament offered
annuities and large rewards to such of the clergy as might choose to
apostastise.
But
neither bribes nor threats could sever the pastors from their flocks. With
heroic courage the clergy braved every peril to break the bread of life to
their faithful people. Except during the short intervals of comparative peace,
they were obliged to travel from district to district in disguise; and they
joyfully endured the privations and humiliations and hardships to which they
were every day exposed. During the day they were clad in frieze like the
peasantry, and they usually carried a wallet across the shoulders, to better to
conceal their ministry. Thus they passed from cabin to cabin dispensing
blessings, instructing the young, and administering the Sacraments; they lived
with the peasantry and partook of their humble fate, which was at all times
heartily shared with them. Mr. Lecky does not fail to recognise the heroism
thus displayed by the devoted clergy: –
“Their
conduct,” he says, “in many respects was very noble. The zeal with which they
maintained the religious life of their flocks during the long period of
persecution is beyond all praise.” (6).
In the
very dawn of the Reformation in Ireland [Edmund] Spenser had contrasted the
negligence of the “idle ministers”, the creatures of a corrupt patronage, whom,
“having the livings of a country opened unto them, without pain and without
peril, will, neither for any love of God, nor for zeal for religion, nor for
all the good they may do by winning souls to God, be drawn forth of their warm
nests to look out into God’s harvest”, with the zeal of the popish priests, who
“spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and
dangerous travelling hither, where they know that peril of death awaiteth them,
and no reward or riches, only to draw the people into the church of Rome.” The
same fervid zeal was displayed by the Catholic priesthood in the days of the
Cromwellian persecution, and during all the long period of the Penal Laws.
Some
few years ago an English gentleman paid a passing visit to the house of the
venerable Bishop of Kilmore. He was very much struck by the portraits of the bishop’s
predecessors which adorned the sitting-room but could not conceal his surprise
that the place of honour between two of these portraits was allotted to a
highland piper in full costume. Still greater, however was his surprise when he
learned from the lips of the bishop that it was the portrait of one of the most
illustrious of his predecessors, who, being a skilled musician, availed himself
of such a disguise in order to visit and console his scattered flock.
Dr.
O’Gallagher, Bishop of Raphoe, when holding a visitation in the parish of
Killygarvan, in the year 1743, partook of the hospitality of its parish priest,
Father O’Hegarty, whose humble residence stood on the bank of Lough Swilly. It
soon began to be whispered about that the bishops was in the neighbourhood, and
without delay the priest-catchers were on his track. One evening a note was
handed to him from a Protestant gentleman visiting him to dinner. Whilst he
read the letter, the messenger said to him in Irish, “As you value your life,
have nothing to say to that man,” a hint of unintended treachery which the
bishop easily understood. That night Dr. O’Gallagher retired to rest at an
early hour, but as he could not sleep, he rose at midnight and resolved to
depart. The good priest, however, would not listen to his doing so, and
insisted on his retiring again to rest. “The way is dangerous and lonely,” he
said, “and it will be quite in time for your to leave at dawn of morning.” The
bishop tried again to take some rest, but sleep had fled from him, and after a
short time he again rose, and long before the morning sun had lit up the cliffs
of Bennagallah, Dr. O’Gallagher was on the bridle road to Rathmullen. At
sunrise a troop of the military was seen hastening from Milford. They
surrounded Father O’Hegarty’s house, and soon the shout was heart from them,
“Out with the Popish bishop”. A local magistrate named Buchanan was their
leader, and great was their disappointed when Father O’Hegarty assured them
that the bishop had been there, indeed, but had taken his departure. They would
have some victim, however, for they did not wish it that their nocturnal
excursion from Milford had been in vain. They accordingly seized the aged
priest, and binding his hands behind his back, carried him off as a prisoner.
The news spread along the route and the cry was echoed from hill to hill that
their loved pastor was being hurried off to prison. A crowd soon gathered, and
showed their determination to set him free; but Buchanan, raising a pistol,
shot him dead on the spot, and threw his lifeless body on the roadside!
No
less hardships and perils awaited the Catholic clergy in the rich plains of
Leinster than amid the rugged hills of Donegal. The Rev. M. Plunkett was P.P.
of Ratoath and Vicar-General of the diocese of Meath. Being connected with some
of the chief families in Meath, and being, besides, a man of solid piety and
learning, several of the Protestant gentry sought, but in vain, to secure him
some toleration in the exercise of his sacred ministry. When the agents of
persecution visited the neighbourhood his wretched mud wall thatched chapel
would be closed and the pastor would seek concealment in retired parts of the
country. There was a priest-hunter named Thompson who singled out the zealous
pastor, anticipating a rich reward for his arrest. Father Plunkett, however,
was effectively concealed in the house of a Protestant magistrate, where a room
was set aside for his use, with bed and fuel and provisions of every sort.
The room was constantly kept locked, and
it being supposed to be haunted, the servants never cared to enter. Whenever
Thompson applied for a warrant this gentleman gave the priest some timely
information, and then he came at night with his servant, and drawing forth the
ladder which was left at hand for the purpose, he entered the room prepared for
him. While the storm lasted he remained there during the day, and if there were
any sick to be attend, or any sacraments to be administered, the servant would
apply the ladder at night, give the signal, and the pastor would descend,
attend his people, and return before the break of day. In 1727, aged 75 years,
he passed to his reward. I mention his case on account of his illustrious name
and family, and to show how friendly some Protestants proved. Space will permit
me to give but another example: –
A
priest-catcher named Harrison was particularly active in the West of Ireland. A
friar named Father Cunnan was officiating in the open fields, when the
congregation was set upon by this Harrison and his band. There being no time to
take off the sacred vestments, the poor friar struck off, habited as he was, to
Cloonmore, to the house of a Protestant magistrate who had often befriended
him. The magistrate, seeing that there
was no time to be lost told him to hide as best he could and snatching
the vestment put it on himself, and pretended to be himself the runaway,
started off by the back door over hedges and fields, the priest-hunters being
quickly in pursuit. At length they captured him, and took him to town before
the resident magistrate, who laughed heartily at finding the prisoner none
other than his brother magistrate, who explained the matter by saying he
“wished to see how those fellows were able to run”.
The
conversion of Protestants in Ireland to the Catholic faith, throughout the
whole period of the Penal Laws was beset with the severest pains and penalties.
The convert at once forfeited all the rights and privileges which he had
hitherto enjoyed. He was, moreover, regarded as an enemy of the State, and
punished as such and the priest who was instrumental in his conversion became
subject to the same penalties. Nevertheless, many Protestants were led to
embrace the truth. At the Spring Assizes in Wexford in 1748 Mr. George Williams
was adjudged guilty “of being perverted from the Protestant to the Popish
religion,” and was sentence to be “out of the king’s protection; his lands and
tenements, goods and chattels, to be forfeited to the king, and his body to
remain at the king’s pleasure”. (7) Two years later a priest was indicted in
Tipperary for “perverting a dying Protestant”; and as he did not appear for
trial, he was, in usual form, presented as an outlaw by the grand jury to be
punished as “a tory, robber and rapparee of the Popish religion”. (8) Notwithstanding
these penalties many were converted, and must have made noble sacrifices for
the faith.
The
Protestant Primate, Boulter, in his letters to the Government in England,
bitterly lamented that “the descendants of many of Cromwell’s officers here
have gone off to popery”. And in 1747 we find renewed complaints from Galway to
the effect that “of late years several old Protestants, and the children of
such, have been perverted to the Popish religion…..”(9)
A
Protestant, who being married to a Catholic lady, failed within twelve months
to make her a Protestant, forfeited his civil rights, and incurred all the
risks and penalties of a reputed Papist. At the Limerick election, in the year
1760, several voters were objected to on the ground that they had Popish wives,
and in due course their votes were declared null. By another clause in the Act
of Parliament any barrister, attorney, or solicitor, presuming to marry a
Papist, became by the very fact debarred from continuing in his profession. A
Protestant lady possessed of, or heir to, any real property, or who held
personal property to the amount of £500, by marrying a Catholic forfeited her
whole property, which passed at once into the hands of the nearest Protestant
relative. If in a Catholic family, the eldest son declared himself a
Protestant, he became entitled to the whole property; the father could no
longer dispose of any portion of it, and all the claims of the other children
were set aside. As Catholics could not hold land in fee, it sometimes happened
that they purchased property under the name of some friendly Protestant on
whose honour and integrity they thought it safe to rely. To punish evasion of
the law, an Act was passed annulling all such purchases; and as an
encouragement to informers, it was decreed that whoever, not being himself a
Papist, would make the discovery of such a purchase, the property so discovered
should become his prize.
When
the child of a mixed marriage was baptized by a priest the Protestant parent
became classed among the reputed Papists, and had to suffer all the penalties
of such offenders. The father of Dr. Young, Catholic Bishop of Limerick, was a
Protestant married to a Catholic lady. The infant was baptized by a Catholic
priest. Mr. Young was immediately thrown into prison, where he was detained for
a considerable time, and he was, moreover, subjected to a heavy fine. One happy
result followed from this punishment. Mr. Young came out of prison a Catholic,
and his son in after years became one of the holiest bishops who adorned the
Irish church in those perilous times.
J.A.
Froude, and not a few other hostile writers on Irish history, in modern times
have asked in astonishment how it was that, despite, the tempest of persecution
which swept over Ireland from the dawn of the Reformation to the close of the
eighteenth century, the Irish Church preserved her unbroken line of bishops and
priests to hand on the traditions of the faith and to minister to the faithful
people.
The
reply is given by John Mitchel, and his words present an accurate picture of
the fearless devotedness and unparalleled heroism of the Catholic clergy of
Ireland in those perilous days. He thus writes: –
“The
matter which disquiets and perplexes the mind of Mr. Frounde is the fact that,
in the midst of the horrors of oppression, Catholic priests were not only
ministering all over the country, but coming in from France and Spain and
Rome; not only supply the vacuum made by
transportation and by death, but keeping up steadily the needful communication
between the Irish Church and its head;
and not coming, but going (both times incurring the risk of capital
punishment), and not in commodious steamships, which did not then exist, but in
small fishing luggers or schooners; not as first-class passengers, but as men
before the mast. Archbishops worked their passage. The whole of this strange
phenomenon belongs to an order of facts which never entered into the
‘historian’s’ theory of human nature. It is a factor in the account that he can
find no place for; he gives it up. Yet Edmund Spenser, long before his day, as
good a Protestant as Frounde, and an undertaker too, upon Irish confiscated
estates, who had at least somewhat of the poetic vision and the poetic soul, in
certain moods of his undertaking mind, could look upon such strange beings as
these priests with a species of awe, if not with full comprehension. He much
marvels at the zeal of these men “which is a greater wonder to see how they
spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Remes, by long tyle and
dangerous travaleying hither, where they know perill of death awayteth them and
no reward or richesse’. ’Reward or richesse!’ I knew the spots within my own
part of Ireland where venerable archbishops hid themselves, as it were, in the
hole of a rock. In a remote part of Louth county, near the base of the Fews
Mountains, is a retired nook called Ballymascanlon, where dwelt for years, in a
farm-house which would attract no attention, the Primate of Ireland, and
successor of St Patrick. Bernard MacMahon, a prelate accomplished in all the
learning of his time and assiduous in the government of his archdiocese; but he
moved with danger, if not with fear, and often encountered hardships travelling
by day and night. Imagine a priest ordained at Seville or Salamanca, a
gentleman of high old name, a man of eloquence and genius, who had sustained
disputations in the College halls on questions of literature or theology;
imagine him on the quays of Brest, treating with the skipper of some vessel to
let him work his passage. He wears tarry breeches and a tarpaulin hat, for
disguise was generally needful. He flings himself on board, takes his full part
in all hard work, scarce feels the cold spray and the tempest. And he knows,
too, that the end of it all for him may be a row of sugar-canes to hoe under
the blazing sun of Barbados, overlooked by a broad-hatted agent of a British
planter. Yet he goes early to meet his fate, for he carries in his hand a
sacred deposit, bears in his heart a sacred message, and must deliver it or
die. Imagine him then springing ashore and repairing to seek the bishop of the
diocese in some cave or behind some hedge, but proceeding with caution by
reason of the priest-catchers and other wolf-dogs. But Froude would say: “This
is the ideal priest you have been portraying. No, it is the real priest, as he
existed and acted at that day, and as he would act again in the like emergency.
And is there nothing admirable in all this? Nothing sublime? I should like to
see our excellent Protestantism produce fruit; like this?”
Next
to the devoted clergy, the Catholic schoolmasters suffered most. About the same
price was set on a priest, a schoolmaster, and a wolf, or wild beast. Sometimes
even bloodhounds were set upon the track of the Catholic schoolmaster, on the
mountain or in the woods! Year after year men were thrown into prison and
sentenced to transportation for the sole crime of imparting knowledge to Irish
youth. Nor are we to suppose that being transported was a light penalty. Those
transported were treated as slaves. Mr. Froude admits that they “were sold to
the planters in the colonies” (10) that
thus they might defray in their persons the expense of transporting them. By
such laws and such penalties it was vainly hoped that barbarism would be
enforced upon the Irish people, or that the Catholic youth of Ireland, in their
eager desire for knowledge, would drink it in at the poisoned sources of
heresy. While, however, the hedge schools produced excellent classical
scholars, the Government schools miserably failed and were attended with the
worst results, though they were richly endowed, and had been established for
the avowed purpose of reclaiming Irish youth from Popery to “Protestantism and
good manners.”
The
Penal Laws were at first mainly aimed at the clergy and other leaders of the
Catholic body. Death, imprisonment, or banishment awaited the Bishop and the
Priest. Confiscation, ruin and exile were the lot of the landed proprietors and
wealthier class, unless they renounced their faith. It was hoped that thus the mass
of the people, deprived of their leaders, would, through apathy or ignorance,
be gradually led to embrace the Protestant tenets. As years went on, however,
that delusion vanished. No such result ensured, and hence everything was done
by the persecutors to crush out the very lifeblood of the Irish Catholic
peasantry.
In
view of such facts Lord Macaulay might well speak thus –“It is not under one,
or even twenty, administrations, but for centuries, that we have employed the
sword against the Catholics of Ireland. We have tried famine, we have had
recourse to all the artifices of draconian laws, we have tried unbridled
extermination, not to suppress or conquer a detested race, but to eradicate
every trace of this people from the land of its birth. And what has come of it?
Have we succeeded? We have not been able to extirpate or even to weaken them.
They have increased successively, notwithstanding all our persecutions, from
two to five, and from to seven millions. Ought we then to return to the
superannuated policy of former days, and render them yet stronger by
persecution? I know history. I have studied history, and I confess my
incapacity to find in it a satisfactory explanation of this fact. But if I were
able, standing beneath the dome of St. Peter’s at Rome, to read with the faith
of a Roman Catholic the inscription traced around ‘Thou art Peter, and upon
this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it’, then, indeed, I could solve the problem of Irish history”.
“Persecution
only purified the Irish Church; the faith, having passed through the crucible
of every trial, only shone forth the more brilliantly, thereby showing to the
world that God was its Author and God was its Defender. If the wicked ingenuity
of the statesman, if the word of the warrior, if the axe, the gibbet, the
halter of the executioner, if all the wealth and talent of a mighty nation – in
a world, if all the power of earth and hell leagued together could extinguish
the faith of a nation, then, surely, the praises of Jesus and Mary must have
long ‘since died out in our country’. ‘ I know not’, wrote Lord-Deputy
Chichester in 1745, ‘how the attachment
to the Catholic Church is so deeply rooted in the hearts of the Irish, unless
it be the soil is infected with Popery!’ Deep into the soil of the hearts of
the Irish people St. Patrick laid the foundations of the Church of Ireland. She
has seen the snows of 1,500 winters; and centuries of unparalleled persecutions
by the Danes, and still more by the English assailed her in vain. If
perseverance in the Faith under unheard of persecutions of every kind be a test
of a nation’s fidelity, the sixteenth and seventeenth, as well as the seventh
century, may be called the Golden Age of the Irish Church.
“Hence,
Ireland’s claim to her honoured title ‘Catholic’ remained as strong and
indisputable as ever it had been; that
in feeling, character, numerical strength, she continued the devoted
child of the Church, that persecution only increased that attachment to her
priests and that loyalty to her Faith which had been cemented in the blood of
her children for 300 years, and which furnished a spectacle as rare as it was
heroic – a whole nation suffering everything, sacrificing everything, even
life, in her determination to cling to the old Faith of her fathers”. – Dean
Kinane
Now,
to what has all – under Providence and the protection of St. Patrick – to be
attributed but to the fidelity and the
inseparable union of the Priests and the People, who have always stood by one
another so nobly and so unselfishly, and who, please God, will continue to
stand together to the end, in spite of the aspersions of one or two undutiful
sons, who call themselves Irish and Catholic, and wish to be regarded as such,
but who prove by their lives and their writings that they are neither one nor
the other. People cannot be true to Ireland, no more than to their Religion,
without being true to their Priests! We might apply to our Priests, as well as
to our mothers and our country, the words that a Poet has written of his Alma
Mater: –
“Our
childish hearts she drew to her
To
foster them and cherish.
No
good is ours but due to her –
How
could we be untrue to her,
And
suffer love to perish?”
A
cruel grinding policy on the part of the Government forced vast numbers of the
peasantry, or poorer classes, in to the ranks of the Whiteboys and similar
associations and led to the Rebellion of 1798, when so many suffered and died
for Faith and Fatherland.
We
leave it to others to treat of that unhappy epoch in Irish History – it would
take a large volume to do justice to it – and we conclude in the words of
Father Burke: –
“We
see the providence of God in the labour of Ireland’s glorious Apostle. Who can
deny that the religion which St. Patrick gave to Ireland is divine? A thousand
years of sanctity attest it; three hundred years of martyrdom attest it. If men
will deny the virtues which it creates, the fortitude which it inspires, let
them look to the history of Ireland. If men say that the Catholic religion
flourishes only because of the splendor of its ceremonial, the grandeur of its
liturgy, and its appeal to the senses, let them look to the history of Ireland.
What sustained the faith when church and altar disappeared? When no light
burned, no organ pealed, but all was desolation for the Church, of which the
external worship and ceremonial are but the expression. But if they will close
their eyes to all this, at least there is a fact before them – the most
glorious and palpable of our day – and it is, that Ireland’s Catholicity has
risen again to even more than her former glory! The land is covered once more
with fair churches, convents, colleges, and monasteries as of old. And who
shall say that the religion that could thus suffer and rise again is not from
God?
“What
is the future to be? What is the future that is yet to dawn on this
dearly-loved land of ours?. The past is the best guarantee for the future. Oh,
how glorious will that future be, when all Irishmen shall be united in one
common faith and one common love! Oh, how fair will our beloved Erin be, when
clothed in religious unity, religious equality and freedom, she shall rise out
of the ocean wave, as fair, as lovely, in the end of time, as she was in the
glorious days when the world entranced by her beatify, proclaimed her to be the
mother of saints and sages. Yet I behold her rising in the energy of a second
birth, when nations that have held their heads high are humbled in the dust!
As so
I hail thee, O, Mother Erin! And I say to thee –
“The
nations have fallen, but thou still set young:
Thy
sun is but rising when others have set;
And
though slavery’s clouds round thy morning have hung,
The
full noon of Freedom shall beam round thee yet!”
(1)
Introduction to the Life of Dr. O’Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, by Dean Kinane
(2)
Ibid
(3)
The Catholics of Ireland under the Penal Laws in the Eighteenth Century by
Cardinal Moran
(4)
Morley’s Burke, p. 101
(5)
Lecky, History, II, pp. 256, 386
(6) Lecky,
History, II, p. 282
(7)
See Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1748
(8)
Irish Record Office, Presentments of Grand Juries, 1750
(9)
Boulter’s Letters, 11, 12; Hardiman’s Galway, p. 188
(10)
Froude, The English in Ireland, 1, p.593
--------------------
Roman
Catholic records - The Irish Times
Interactive
Catholic parish maps. ... Tuesday, March 17, 2015. Irish Ancestors. The Irish
Times · News · Sport · Business · Opinion · Life & Style · Culture · More.
------------------
WE
ADORED USA- JOHN F. KENNEDY- THE FIRST
ROMAN CATHOLIC PRESIDENT OF THE USA...
Discrimination
Against Catholics
The founders of the United States, like the early population, were almost
entirely of Protestant background.
---------------
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