UNREST IN IRELAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1831, 25 May 1918, Page 3

UNREST IN IRELAND.

The following are brief personal sketches of the Sinn Feiners recently arrested in Ireland :• —

De Yalera is the leader of the Sinn Fein and is entitled to sit in the House of Commons, but has never taken his seat. He took part in the revolt of 1916, and his speeches have been described by Mr Lloyd George as “cold-blooded incitements to rebellion.” He was bom in New York, whither his father', a member of an old Galway-Spanish family, had emigrated. He appears to have come to Ireland as a child, and was first at the National School at Bruree, County Limerick, where his uncle resided, and he went as a boy in his teens to Biackrock College, Dublin. He is B.A. of the National University, and held the position of Professor of Mathematics at Blackrock College. During the insurrection he commanded the insurgents in the Dingsend area of Dublin^ 1 and, like the Countess Markieviez, was sentenced to death by court-martial, but had the sentence commuted to penal servitude for life. It is said in military circles that the dispositions he made at Ringsend showed a much higher order of military tal-: ents than was displayed by any of the other insurgent leaders. A remark that was supposed to be made by him at the time of his arrest is very much quoted: —“Ah,” he is alleged to have said, “if only the people had risen even with knives and forks ” It was he, it may be added, who took charge of the released prisoners on the mailboat to Kingstown, formed them up on the deck, and marched them up the gangway and on to the platform in .military order. He was released with other Irish prisoners, before the Convention met, and on the death of the late Major W. H. K, Redmond contested the East Clare, seat, winning it by a majority'of nearly 3,000.

The Griffith' mentioned in the cable is probably Arthur Griffith, the editor of a Sinn Fein newspaper, and the leader of what may be described as the original Sinn Eeiu movement, which did not advocate physical force. He was arrested during the revolt of Easter, 1910, but proved his innocence. In a speech at Cork on September,.23rd, 1917, Griffith said Ireland should lay her claim before the peace conference. He called on the young men of Ireland to stand together and use no force until a certain event happened —that was if any attempt was made to apply conscription to Ireland. If any such attempt rvas made he Avould exhort them to oppose it by physical force. He urged that the Irish Convention should be ignored because it avus not constituted by the Irish people.

The Countess Markieviez Avas also sentenced to death, and finally liberated in 1910. For years she has been one of Dublin’s stormy petrels. At ail times of popular excitement she has appeared, rushing about Avitli tremendous energy and haranging sometimes a croAvd, at other times individuals, Avith a curious swift, shrill rush of Avords, and giving the impression of a Avell-mean-ing, but ill-balanced and hysterical personality. In spite of her name, Mine. Markieviez is an Irishwoman, being the eldest daughter of the late Sir Henry Gore-Booth, Bart., of Lissadell, .County Sligo, and sister of the present baronet, Sir Josslyn Gore-Booth. Another sister is Miss Eva Gore-Booth, the poetess. In 1900 she married the Polish Count Casimir Dunin de Margievicz, and in all those 1 little tea-cup storms that periodically tossed the art Avorld of Dublin, the pair Avcrc to the fore, always siding with the most “advanced” party and always anxious that the bourgeois should •be Avell shocked for their OAvn good. The Countess was the more active in all these quarrels and reforming enterprises, and the Count, a genial, popular, boyish giant, Ayho painted pictures, Avrote plays, and, Avith enormous enthusiasm, sang the Polish National Anthem at artistic functions, folloAved his Avife closely, and betAveen them they gave a good deal of amusement to Dublin in the long ago before the Avar. The genuine artists and “intellectuals” were tolerantly amused, but there was often an element of disgust in the amusement of the plain people. When the Countess appeared in the Count’s plays, the small, but unsophisticated audiences that assembled ahvays had an evening of suppressed giggles. It Avas all so earnest, and the shocking Avas comically self-consci-ous ! But it Avas when authority had to he defied that Madame Markieviez surpassed herself. Then what denunciations of England from this gaunt, excited figure! What belabourings of Man! For she Avas a “suffragette” as well as a Sinn Feiner, and she Avas a prominent figure in the suffrage disorders in Dublin. One of her chief SAVoops into notoriety Avas in the big strike in 1913, when she Avas one of the most active of Larkin’s supporters. William Cosgrove was sentenced to death for his part in the 1916 rebellion, but the sentence Avas commuted, and he Avas aftenvards released.