DEAR OLD IRELAND

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 88

DEAR OLD IRELAND

(By Rev. Wiixiam Thomson.)

At the beginning of the nineteenth century an Irishman saved the Empire from conquest by Napoleon the Great. At *>he close of Che century an Irishman saved _ it from disruption by the Boers. The one was the Iron Duke, the other was Lord Roberts. All honour to dear old Ireland! Being a Calvinist, I absolutely detest the doctrine which so many Arminicvn parvenus preach nowadays that men caft be dispensed with because from grace -they may utterly and forever 'all. No man living can be dispensed with in the order of things, for the very good reason that everyone has his work, place, and instructions divine, which it is truest happiness to realise and accomplish. By that reasoning every Irishman is indispensable to the Empire — and to Ireland. It is true even of the men in Kilkenny and Donnybrook ! It is true of my friend who condescends to read this article. It is with intense interest, therefore, that I venture — most humbly — to sa-y something about the dear old Irish, because I know every one of them is here to beautify our planet in some way or other according to his measure. It is often a problem for cooler-blooded Saxone to understand the Irishman, and, to tell the tTuth, he was a mystery to myself which I considered at one time dark, impenetrable, and impossible of solution, until I dissected him bone from bone and muscle from muecle. I inflicted no cruelty on dear old Pat. After the operation all was plain. The Irishman I found to be a magnificent soldier, but oh ! to be such a bad butcfoeT ; he is a first-rate solicitor, but a very bad witness in court; he is one of the greatesti of judges, but an indifferent juryman ; he ifi a splendid orator whether as politician or preacher, but the first to fling all principles of political economy to the devil ; he is an excellent policeman, but a most troublesome prisoner. This is a riddle more difficult to be solved than that of the Sphinx. So we think. The Englishman is ruled by prudence — he so prudent ! The Lowland Scot by intellect — he bo clever! The Irishman is ruled by his heart, Which means wisdom, intellect, and the loveliest of affections! Who would not love the dear old Irish, into whose composition have entered the elements which made Jupiter the greatest of the gods and Juno the Queen of Heaven? Get at aa Englishman through hisi stomach — by roast beef, cheeee, raw onions, and beer — is a well-worn tale, but a shocking libel. Get at a Scotchman through liberal potations of whisky — especially if nae sixpence gaes bang on his pairt — is a slander which eorae lineal descemdent of the impenitent thief must have invented. But get at an Irishman through his heart, and if that fail® — which it rarely does — try Ireland, for it lies heavily on the top of his heart, and you will be sure to succeed. Nowhere else in tie whole world is the response 6O warm and so spontaneous. Hurrah for the patriotism of dear old' Ireland ! / I was once travelling in certain company wfhere was, an Irishman who seemed naif overwhelmed »with some secret sorrow. No tale, music, sport, or anything else seemed to interest him in the least. At last someone played "The wearing o' the green," and the change was like magic. He was all enthusiasm. Pat' 6 heart was touched ; his imagination now carried him to his own beloved isle, where he saw not its glorious sceneries alone, " where angels fold their wingß and rest," but the men and women who lived through the stress of the "banging time," emerging from tyranny, whose last echoes weTe fast dying away and unfolding a character which would soon be as a beacon for the nations in purity, poetry, and charm of domestic happiness. To me, who am not an Irishman, play that melody over and over again — for it wafts me to Loch Lorn, to quaint old Drogheda, to the banks of the Liffey, or to those green fields so characteristic of dear old Ireland. The heart, as I have defined it, ie the key to the Irishman's character, and hence his splendours, his brilliant intellect, his love of country, -his unfailing humouT, and perennial debonnair, and hence, too, his magnificent and tremendous mistakes. Let anyone visit a small " country township in the South or West of Ireland when the young men. and maidens are enjoying a good, oldfashioned jig after the labours of the day ar« ended, and if h© is not dancing in. 15 minutes, so contagious are the goodfellowship and mirth, he should be stamped aa "fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." Then a fig for the new-fashioned waltzes, Imported from Spain and from France, And a fig tor the thing c*Ued the polka, Out own Irish jig we will dance. Dancing in New Zealand is often a Tetreat from boredom, or a refuge from ennui, and may accomplish its purpose very well in delivering the brain from the shackles of intelligent thought and rendering the head as giddy or dizzy as a windmill used in some places to scare away crows. Even dancing, however, in dear old Ireland is the expression of a light heart, a life free from caTe, and of spirits full of fun. One hour on a Tipperary green is more enjoyable than a reception at St. James's Palace. Ths Killarney maid at her spinning wheel is never in bad humour. Her fortune i* small, her home is modest, but who could dispute her genius as she proves herself all too smart for an Oxford don in repartee that would delight Swift? There she site — "master" of the situation: Her eyea are bright, , ■ . •, Her heart ia light, ', -Jj^ She spins her wheel From morn to night. Her face is her fortune, for her health colours her cheeks with the freshness of the rose. Little wonder that Pat, like the Ettrick Shepherd, prefers her " 'tween the gloamin' and the mirk" to a. "coach and four and gold galoie," for t

With quare sinsashuns and palpitashuns, 1 A kiss he'd venture then, M&vrone — j But then she is an Irish girl, and the girls of Ireland have no peer, and Pat's father and mother are Irish and he is Irish too, and whether be emigrates to the back woods of Canada or the bush of New Zealand his heart beats faster and his face readily colours when he thinks on the girls of dear old Ireland. An Irishman's sense of humour must be credited with the numerous stories that hare provoked fun all the world over. In some ways it is unrivalled, and, as the Highlanders say, "it is a gift." If you ever met an Irieshman without humour, watch him until he is quite five miles away. Sometimes Pat's humouT is purely experimental : " Och ! Denis darlint, whet is ii you're doing?" " Whist Biddy, I'ee tryin' an experiment." "Murth«r! what is it?" " Why, it's giving hot wather to the chickens I am, so they'll be afther laying boiled egga." Sometimes his humour shows a somewhat advanced state of education : "Arrahl don't be wastin' yer edidicflfihun p&adin' milestones! just thry and s&te an' be aisy. F«dx! its not to the fair at all ye're going, my purty baneen." The pig was gating intently at a stone nlarked " four miles to Cork." Irish humonr is sometimes suggestive of the possibilities of evolution : A oow had Paddy-the-Piper for a bed-mate one night, and circumstantial evidence pointed to her having devoured him. The proofs need not be detailed, but the cow's owner declined to keep such a murtherin' villia-n," land, wlong with his son, he set out to the fair to get rid of her that very d*y. As they approached the market the strains of the bagpipes arrested the cow's attention, and neither Paddy nor his son could Btop her from running at full speed in that direction. When she oame to the ring where the piper wae m«Tohing round end pl»ydng the " Young may moon " the cow stood calmly contemplating the musician as if she had met an old friend. It was Paddy-the-Piper — suppo&ed to have been eaten. The gentle musicloving oow was thereupon takem home, and for mamy «md many a long year she lived to supply the family with milk. When she died her thoughtful owner had her skin made into a. pair of trousers, and, strange &s it may se>em, to this day, if anyone wears them, h© immediately begins jigging and) jigging, and jigging, and continues to do so until they are taken off. It is Irish bagpipes alone which, are capable of imparting so much energy to the hide of a oow. It is certain that all the organs in Presbyterian churches, which are iso much machinery to praise God, could not even charm a country fox. After miracles of this kind, commend me to the bagpipes of dear old Ireland. Ireland! Dear old Ireland! There the very monuments of the immortal dead still speak. There's, the statue of Daniel O'Connell. Lood at him. What an. ornament he is ! He's, dead now nearly one hundred years, but whin, he opins his mouth there's not wan in the whole of Oireland can compare wid him. Quite so ; but there's no contradiction in the assertion that "it's easier for a rich man to go through the eye of a needle than for a mimber of Parlimint to enter the kingdom of heaven." But that is only the rural -philosophy of a country where chickens are always tender except when they live in a healthy place ; where cream never gets sour but when cows' think it is going to be sold to landlords, and where potatoes only catch disease when the wind is blowing across St. George's Channel. Carlyle declared there were 30,000,000 people in England, mostly fools. King Edward VTI, a much greater man, could never have said that about the Irish. It was so that a hotel porter in Dublin replied to a Saxon who spoke to him as a " national man " — and "be jabbers," he continued, "we Oirish don't care much for the nationality of a nation that is mostly fools, for our psychological metempsychosis has propounded spiritua'istic conditions of impenetrable comprehension." Exit the Englishman, exclaiming, " O that I had the wit of these dear old Irish people !" The religion of Ireland is mostly Irish. The Irish priest is an Irishman first — a-nd after that he is an Irish Christian, an Irish scholar, an Irish theologian, an Irish patriot, an Irish poet — yes, from the crown of his head to the tip of his little toe he i 6 Irish. The Methodist is first of all a Methodist, and Tarely an Irißhman. The Presbyterian is often pure hotch-potch, someone -whose ancestors sat in the Jerusalem chamber over the Confession in the days of the Long Parliament; but oh! so anxious to be considered an Irishman. The Episcopalian is the real article polished and turned out of Henry the Eighth's laboratory and gifted with a constitution nob altogether unlike that of the Vicar of Bray, which was so hardy that it could live in any rain (reign). The author of " Father OTylnn " will excuse the sug- j gested improvement in hi 6 song, but it j suits the great majority of the people in dear old Ireland : Here's a health to you Father O'Flynn For you're Irish, and Irish, and Irish fcgin, Powerfulest pra/cner and tenderest tacher And meet Irish cr&ture in all Donegal And now — with Queenstown in 6ight — we are about to say farewell to dear old Ireland. I have seen Belfast at work, j and Belfast during the strike ; I have j gazed on its magnificent buildings, and on its dockyards where are launched those vessels that are the admiration of the world. I have looked on Drogheda and wished I might wander among its quaint old houses a-nd by the banks of the Boyne. j But Dublin, with its thousand-year-old memories, it 6 International Exhibition, and endless scenes of interest and historic lor© delighted me most. The democracy of Greece during tlie fifty short years of its existence accomplished so much that it still commands the admiration of hi - j torians like Grote, but it passed all too j soon away. A greater than Grote will yet teJ\ £he worl<J how the Irish, not less gifted than the Greeks, naVe risen to a foremost place as a component part in an Empire whose destiny is to spread light and liberty among th» nations of the earth. The star of dear old Ireland will yet brighter burn, and as I thffik of the b^jab people and all that they are I find jit. _ - ---*■

myself repeating almost unconsciously : " Oh ! for a breath of the Irish air. Oh, once more to hear those lovely melodies which delighted me co much on Loch Lome or in Dpblin ! Oh, for an Irish song, and oh, shall I ever set foot again on the soil of dear old Ireland ! "