NEW IRELAND.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5267, 9 February 1878, Page 5 (Supplement)

NEW IRELAND.

(From the San Francisco Bulletin.) This is the title of a very interesting volume by A. M. Sullivan, proprietor of the Dublin Nation. Its object is to draw the contrast which exists between the Ireland of the olden ti "ie and the Ireland of to-day. The work is done in a series of essays, without any pretension to historical unity. Few are aware of the great changes that have been brought about. The new Ireland is fairly educated. The area of the Irish language is constantly being diminished. The vast majority—fully ninetenths—of the rising generation can “ read, write, and cipher.” This great change has been effected by the National School system. The schoolhouse may now be said to bo as frequently conspicuous in Irish landscapes as in Prussia or the United States. These schools are conducted on the secular principle nominally. As a matter of fact they are dominated by the sectarian influences of particular sections. But no religion can be taught except before or after school hours. The volume is replete with anecdotes of attempts to evade the law, which are “ racy of the soil.” The effect of the dissemination of education can very distinctly be traced through tho social, industrial, and political condition of the island. The different religions, representing for the most part the different races by which Ireland is peopled, are, for the first time, working pretty generally together for the national advancement. The Protestant no longer looks upon his Catholic fellow-countryman as his natural enemy. The sentiment of the great mass of the people seems to bo in favor of the policy known as “ Home Rule,” in which there are some faint glimmerings of local sovereignty, culminating in a Federal compact, having some resemblance to our system. But by what devious political paths these results have been reached it would be an almost hopeless task to explain, so speedy appears to be the disintegration to which party organizations are subject. Mr. Sullivan throughout his volume exhibits a broad national From the facts which he narrates clerical influence on both sides seems to be on the wane. The people of tho south of the island, as well as tho north, are learning to act politically without the direction of their pastors. We have also for tho first time in this volume an approach toward a connected narrative of tho Fenian excitement. James Stephens appears from it, though tho author is no admirer of that individual or his projects, to have been much more of a leader than he was generally considered to be on this side of the water. Ho remained iu Dublin for two months, living openly as Mr. Herbert, after the conspiracy was revealed, though the police were hunting him high and low. Two days after his arrest he walked out of Richmond gaol, the strongest gaol in Dublin, without any apparent effort. Aftor remaining concealed for some time he left the city openly in a magnificent carriage with footmen and outriders. He rode through the principal streets, but no detective recognized in the splendid aristocrat tho hunted Fenian.