THE GENTLE ART OF PROPAGANDA.

Southland Times, Issue 18850, 16 June 1920, Page 7

THE GENTLE ART OF PROPAGANDA.

To the Editor. Sir, Your correspondent “Veritas” famongst other untruths pot a load off his chest, when he attacked, in a discourteous manner the clergy, to whom he attributed n large share of responsibility for his imaginary massacres. As every intelligent writer who has dealt with the doings of 1641 has been unstinted in praise of the efforts made by the clergy to prevent the people from ill-treating the intruders whom they found in possession of their property, it cannot be that he referred to their conduct on that occasion, and as he jumbles up the revolt ol 17S8 with the previous, more than century old. affair, it is only reasonable to conclude he referred chiefly to the rebellion of ’OS. It is quite true that several clergymen took a conspicuous part in the melancholx transactions of this latter period. Amongst them stand out. Fathers John and Michael Murphy and Philip Roche. The first-named was in charge of Bonalavogue. and for a long time used his intluenee to repress the desire for revenge in his people who were the victims of the outrages of the British soldiers at free quartern among the farmers. All the horrors we had dished up to us during the late war :ts perpetrated by the Huns on the Belgians and French were anticipated in the doomed County Wexford by yeomanry, Hospians and ancient Britons. Indiscriminate elaughter of unoffending peasants, outrages upon females, the pitch cap, the flogging at the triangles, and every species of torture that, a diabolical ingenuity could sniggert were the pant lines of these brutes. Some thirty-tour churches were burned down in wanton mischief. V hen Father John Murphy came on a Sunday to officiate he found Ins church had been burned down during the night and seeing (hat wholesale extermination was the objective of the authorities, he could no longer restrain the indignation he felt- and said to his people, “Well! it is better for us to die like men with arms in our hands than he shot down like dogs on the roadside.” Armed with pikes thev marched up On tart hill ami camper! in a quarrv, from which an effort, to dislodge them later was made by a detachment o. troops, sent for that purpose. Lining a stone fence, the insurgent' - waited the word, of command. The a'taekmg lorce deployed for the purjHese of covering as many as p-os siblc, and with guns presented awaited the rebels to route over th-' top. The stentorian voice of Father Murphy was heard giving the command to jump over, and presently a vollcv was li red into the hats of the insurgents which they had simultaneously raised on their oikes to receive the charge. Before the soldiers hail time to reload their muzzle-loaders the pekernen were upon them, Thev turned and lied down the hillside ; but scarcely one reached the village of Oulart

I'iivo. Th.fir graves still to be seen on that hillside niter more than a century. Alter the first victory the insurgents were elal-cu nr.■! joining other forces, they had a. tnumphal march through the country. Kverv important position fell into their hands, and T-eds of valour were performed l.v them that will live in story and song while a loyal heart heats in a true man’s breast. Father Philip Koch" was put in eonunar.d of a division which made “the three rooks" overhanging Wexford their base of operations, and performed prodigies of valour with his nikemen, who soon came He drearier! by the cavalry for the expert sßtmner in which they unhorsed meir adv i-rsiuics’, and proved that the long-handled pike W35 more than a match for the sabre of the dragoon. Father Michael Murphy niter various successes was victoriously leading his men to the capture of Arklotv. which it seemed nothing could save, when he met his death from a cannon ball, an event, which brought confusion amongst his followers. Now if those clergymen bad not taken their Maces with their people and by their influence retrained tu-m from e.v r oss.es tbm' would ’oe unworthy of tile trust and love with which their people regarded flrt*t;;, it was made nianitest that no provocation would be omitted that inigut form the 'people into revoh. Pitt was determined tiy L -ar-.- his urojeci of union of the Knglish and Irish Parliaments To em-et b.c 1-ad to destrov tin- union of Irishmen (if all that existed rum through No.th and South, In r.h.e N rth Presbyterian clergymen stood by their P.-cks in resisting the bnttal attacks of ihe soldiers at free quart-

e r , end 'heir names am enst'-rtned in liie nieruories of a grateful people. The atrocities were not coniinod to any particular part, of the country hm they were particularly ferocious in !>i;b!m where ! ’.eresford’s rifling school gained an unenviable notoriety for the brutalities perpetrated there. One inhuman giant named Hepenstall is conimemorated f., r his murderous doings. Vv hen he mot a unarmed and helpless creature, he without anv am-roadi to wmmty -r trial put. a rone rouml the unMrtunaf-e s hock «nd drew' him up over his shoulder, dragging him 'ill death released 'be -wretched victim. An. er-il anti was pro\'.ded tor this monster, ami mads: ‘Tier.’ lies '.he- budy brute big Hepenstall. ,Tiid'-c jury, hangman, gallows, and all. Tt is not pleasant to have to dwell on tno-v----awful times, but it is heartrending to think that the kiib ami km of Iri.-hm-n here in this free laud an- to-day subject to many of the brutalities that charac'erised He- i-n-i of the eighteenth eentury. that they iISP to-dav exp-wed to merit mid- of hostile police and soldiers with all their attendant outrag'-s; that rim “1.-un s de cachet ’ winch r . m lc Has,- tine's mfmm-u.- are at the pmsent, t i r> i> - (i-o-or; h-: o.- Is of respectable citizens t.. f.,reign i ru-on-- without trial or without charge, ;u'd that the who!.- mump i/being pr0'.0i...-i a- it was in aiiu-ty eight to an insurrection that could have only one result considering the relative positions of the tyrannical ('astl-* authorities am! the unarmed people.-"I am. etc.. lONA.