ST. PATRICK'S DAY CELEBRATIONS IN IRELAND.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 895, 9 June 1871, Page 4

ST. PATRICK'S DAY CELEBRATIONS IN IRELAND.

The National Anniversary was celebrated in Ireland this year by several 'reunions of patriotic Irishmen. In Dublin there was no public celebration of the festival, but the feeling of the citizens was fully evidenced by the display of shamrocks worn almost without an exception by every man, woman, and child in the streets. In Cork, a, national ball was held in the Athenaeum, which appears to have been very successfully conducted. The Cork Examiner gives a report of the proceedings, from which we extract the chief speech made :— The Mayor, on rising, was received with applause. He said they were met that night to celebrate the anniversary of the National Apostle, to renew the vows of fealty and sentiment of owr native land (hear, , hearj — a festival that was celebrated in a similarly appropriate manner in every part of the world where Irishmen aggregated (hear, hear). In this country, in advocating national 3entiments they had a very curious defined position to occupy, because they had to argue against prejudices of Irishmen, who ought to be national, but who were restrained from being so by religious prejudices. (Hear, hear.) It was therefore necessary in advocating the national cause to exercise moderation in thought and sentiment, and make a great deal of allowances for the prejudices of creed and politics which so unhappily severed Irishmen. (Hear, hear.) If they were to assert their rights of nationality, they could only do so successfully as a united people against England. (Cheers.) He had had a considerable experience of Englishmen, and he could not but help admiring their character — their pluck and steadiness in material undertakings — but he knew that there was below those characteristics a contempt for Irish. (Hear, hear.) He had often been struck with the manner in which statements reflecting grossly on the character of Ireland had been made by distinguished statesmen to prejudiced audiences in England. Within the (last week an example of this was furnished by the Times of the 10th, and Lord Derby was reported to have said, speaking of Ireland, and addressing the highest assembly of the land — the House of Lords — " You are dealing with a nation where, as we have abnndant proofs, the law is not respected, where human life is not held sacred, and where the general sympathy of the population gofis with the assassin and not with the law." (Hisses.) This statement he (the Mayor) proclaimed as an atrocious libel. (Hear, hear.) Further on, in the same speech, the same lord said, " Take the case of a man who made himself conspicuous as being true and loyal, and in the streets of Cork or Dublin his life was not worth a week's purchase." (Hisses.) This was also a libel (hear, hear), and he had only to instance the case of the local stipendiary magistracy, whose loyalty ought to be unsuspected, because (and he didn't wish to be offensive in this remark) it was bought and well paid for. These gentlemen had iv the discharge of their duty made themselves conspicuous in a trying time, and the result proved the untruth ' of Lord Derby's assertion. If Lord ! Derby made the statements without a knowledge of the facts, he was guilty of the most culpable ignorance — if he spoke them for party purposes and to embarrass the present Government, he uttered a calumnious lie (cheers). The Mayor then proceeded to say that in any future scheme for the regeneration of the country his 1 motto would be — " Union amongst Irishmen — full, free, and unrestricted — civil and unrestricted liberty to every man except where it interfered with the good of the State"— (hear, hear). If they worked with this motto the time would arrive— -and he believed that it had dawned in the return of Mr John Martin, a Protestant and a gentleman (cheers). As regards the country's connection with England, he could tell the State he was no Fenian. A Voice — You ought to be one (cheers). The Mayor continued — He did not believe any good could result from Feni&nism in this country (hissing and cries of dissent). He knew very well that any secret association only effected the sepation of one class of Irishmen from another, and entailed utter ruin on the projectors (hisses). He was prepared for these expressions of disapproval, but yet he should express his candid opinion. He firmly believed, having lived through the times of Fenianism, that had he been a Fenian, he would now be an imprisoned man. Had he been a Fenian he would not hold the positions he now did of a commercial roan, and of chief magistrate of his native city — positions attained by many years of industry (hissiug). The fruits of all this would be goneirom him had he been a member of such a secret organisation, and he might add that through life he had always made it a rule not to go into an undertaking out of which he did not clearly see his way (renewed hissing). In the future of the country a great deal was to be done by steady, persistent hard work, when they would erect h platform on which all Irishmen would stand and demand their rights from England, which she dare not refuse (cheers). The England of '71 was very different from the England of '15 (hear, hear). In '15 England was the (arbiter of Europe— mistress of the seas — the supreme power of the world ; in '71 England was. flouted and despised in continental countries — her flag was outraged at Rouen (cheers). Perhaps it would be found that England had relied too much on the security of her insular position — that after all the silver cordon was not a barrier impossible — for it was likely that in less than half a ceutury she would have io pay dearly for her misdeeds, not i alone to this country, but also to the ter ritories she had entered and subdued by lire and sword (cheers).