LOYAL ROMAN CATHOLICS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 88, 14 August 1915, Page 2

LOYAL ROMAN CATHOLICS.

[To Tun Editou Stratford Post.]

Sir, —Would you kindly grant me ] space in your valuable columns for the ; i following," which is clipped from the | j Dundalk Democrat of -Tune 26, 1915, J 'as showing the part in history that ' Roman Catholics have played for the Empire: In a letter to the Irish •.Times, the Rev. Courtenay Moore, 'rector of Michel,stown, quotes this reI.markable utterance of the great Duke ! of Wellington:— “It is hardly known to your Lordships that of the troops which our gracious Sovereign did me the honoui to entrust to my command at various periods during the war—a war undertaken for the express purpose of sec- ■ uring the happy institution and independence of the country —at least one-half were Roman Catholics. . - •

Your Lordships are well aware for what length of period and under what difficult circumstances the Empire buoyant upon the flood which overwhelmed the thrones and wrecked the institutions of every other people how they kept alive the only spark ol freedom which was left unextinguished in Europe. “My Lords, it is mainly to the Irish Catholics that we owe all our proud predominance in our military career, and that I am personally indebted for the laurels with which you have been pleased to decorate my brow. . . We must confess, my Lords, without Catholic— blood and Catholic valour, no victory would ever have been obtained, and the first military talents might have been exerted in vain.”

This speech was very probably deliverecl in the debates on the Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829. It is the speech of a man who was no friend of the Catholics, but who* in speaking of the part they took in tho wars that ended with Waterloo, spoke of what he knew and had at least the grace to acknowledge. Two thoughts are suggested by the passage above quoted. One is - that had English statesmen not shown countenance to tho landlord and Orange clique whose operations sent millions of the Irish peasantry into exile in the later years of the last century, there would be nine millions of the best fighting material in the world from which to draw men of the same type as those who “kept alivo the old spark of freedom that was left unextinguished in Europe” a hundred and odd years ago. The other is that history is repeating itself in the part played by Irish Catholics in the present war. The Irish regiments and soldiers have covered themselves with new glory, frnfti the day the Munster Fusiliers, cut off in the retreat from Mons and surrounded by countless enemies, fought till the rifles fell from tho exhausted hands of the handful of survivors, down to the day when-the Dublins and the Ministers shelled in their boats, shelled on the bare ana open beaches,, dropping by scores ; n the bloody water a.s they waded ashore, shot down amidst the rocks of the sea beach, unsheltered against the withering blast of rifle and machinegun fire, forced their way up the cliffs, stormed the trenches, seized and silenced the guns, and once again, as Irish soldiers so often did in the past, achieved the apparently impossible. One other fact worth recording is that the 10th Irish Division, composed of battalions raised since the outbreak of war, is at the front or on the way there: The renowned Ulster Division, composed of Carson’s Volunteers who were reported 'to he “drilled, armed, and grimly resolved,” and ready for war at home before war abroad was ever thought of, is still at home and reported to he unready for service “because there are no reserves.” I am, etc, IRISHMAN.