GOD SAVE IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 17, 23 January 1891, Page 11

GOD SAVE IRELAND.

(Irish World, November 29.)

The spirit lin which (the twenty-third anniversary of the judicial murder, known as the martyrdom of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien in Manchester, was celebrated by the Irish race all the world over on the 23rd inst., showed clearly that the principle represented in the honouring of their memory is 3s dear as ever to ihe hears of the Irish people. The shameleßa effrontery with which the English Government has been accustomed to employ the enginery of the°law for the purpose of destroying the lives of Irish patriots, regardless of their guilt or innocence, w*s made patent to the whole w^rld by tbe trial, verdict, and ex-cutions in this tragic and historic case. And co, also, has been presented in strong li^ht the awi -inspiring majesty of Irish character in presence of the British scaffold and tbe blood-thirsty minions of oppression who surround it. Five men were tried on the same ii dictments by the same court and jury, testified against by the same witnesses, declared guilty by the tame inclusive verdict, and condemned toihe same death penally. After the verdict had been rendered the entire innocence of one of the condemned men was declared by intelligent and close obs rvers of tha trial to have been co clearly established as to art use a widespread feeling against tbe whole farcical tiial. The perjury of the suborned witnesses was made manifest by their absurd contradictions. The utter absence of any intention of causing death by the shot fired to break tbe luck of the prison van was clearly shown, but the cry for Irish blood had to be appeased. Of the five men condemned to death for complicity in the rescue of Colonel Kelly, one was Thomas Maguire, a private in the marines, who never heard of Colonel Kelly's existence until his arrest. Another was Captain E. O'Meagher Condon, an American citizen, who boldly avowed in Court his connection with the rescue and answered the jury's verdict of guilty with the historic prnyer, " God Save Ireland 1 " which has Bince been made the National watchword, and the inspiring lines of T. D. Sullivan, commemorating che prayer of patriotic dehance, has been accepted everywhere as Ireland's, National anthem. And yet, although the five were included in the one verrhct of guilty and condemned by the one sentence, Mnguire was pardoned for an offence of which he had no knowledge. Captain t'ondon was reprieved because he was an American citi/en, and \l]pn. f arkin, and O'Hnpn, none of whom woq armed 'it th* 3 innr of the rescue, were sent to the gallowp. 'I hey met their fate with a gentle and touching heroism winch imparted to tbeir execution all the religious lmpresiivun.-Hs ot a martyrdom for the Faith in the earlier persecutions. "In the olden time," said General O'Beirne in his eloquent address at the memorial meeting ia Chickering Hall last Sunday evening, " the word ' martyr ' meant witness, and here in our martyrs we have their memories wuh us as living witnesses of the cause for which they died," bo long as the Celtic race, which has triumphed over every assault ot persecution in the past, will maintain its identity and be known as a factor in civilisation, so long will " The Manchester Martyrs " be honoured for thsir devotion to Ireland's cause and their djing piayur, " Go i Save Ireland," ring in the tars of their guilty execu'iontra uutil m God's own time Justice, so long a mockery, shall bavu bocn avenged,