Correspondence.

New Zealand Tablet, Issue 31, 3 December 1897, Page 20

Correspondence.

eyes and blinded them, became perfectly cold, and then sent them adrift maimed and muti ated for life. This pleasant practice they sometimes varied by rubbing moistene 1 gunpowder into the hair in the form of a cross and then setting fire to it, or cutting off the ears and noses of their hapless victims. Thus entirely surrendered to the ruthless fury of their hellish foes, without the faintest hope i of protection or redress, can we wonder that, grown desperate, they took the law into their own hands and did execution upon their merciless persecutors .' Their doing this may be called rebellion, to me it is known by quite another name. Yes, the people took the law into their own hands, and maddened and desperate as they were, and often having entirely at their mercy the wives and daughters of their bitterest and most relentless persecutors, not one of all their calumniators has ever dared to charge them with having offered insult to a woman. Think of this, my countrymen, and rejoice for the honour of your race. Think of this, my countrymen, and say if the centenary of those martyred saints — for saints in heaven they are to-day — who have handed you down intact through the century the glorious inheritance of bravery and virtue deserves not to be commemorated by you .' But if the excesses committed by the military before the outbreak were bad, those committed after it were infinitely worse. The cruelty of the yeomanry was not unsurpassed by that of the regulars, notably the Ancient Britons. Of this latter regiment it is recorded on unimpeachable testimony that after the battle of Arklow some of the soldiers belonging to it (eternally accursed be their names and memory) seized upon the body of the heroic priest, Father Michael Murphy, who was killed during the action, cut out the heart, roasted the body, and oiled their boots with the grease that dropped from it. Men, women, and children, were indiscriminately slaughtered — sabred or shot down at sight — and this continued for many months. Those who had to go through the mockery of a trial were without exception sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. This sentence enacted that the person adjudged guilty be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, there hanged, then cut down, disembowelled, and his entrails burned before life was extinct, the body then beheaded and quartered. In 98 31 Irisa gentlemen were put to death in this way Of these five belonged to the Church of England, eight were Presbyterians, and 18 Catholics. But enough for the present. I will not harrow the feelings of your readers by dwelling further upon the devilish atrocities perpetuated upon poor, unhappy Ireland at that sad period of her history. Times have changed and for the better. A century has well nigh rolled away, and the day is not far distant when Irishmen of all creeds throughout the world will join issue in commemorating one of the most glorious events in the national life of their c mntry. Of the importance of the occasion to my countrymen in New Zjaland, I need not speak. You have already pointed out very clearly to them the road that leads to the thrine of duty. Poor Ireland is still dragged at the chariot wheels ot the oppressor, and Gcd alone can tell what her future dc-tiny will be. But let it be what it will — let it be that of prcvince or nation, in the temple of her fame, in the hearts of her children, no names are, or ever will be, more lovingly inscribed than the names of the brave men who suffered and died in her cause in 17!)8. — I am. etc , Another Irishman.

[We are not responsible for thi> opinions expressed by our cnrresponilents.] ♦ '03 TO THE EDITOH X.Z. TABLET. gl R] — At our last monthly meeting, amongs-t other matters discusser!, was the advisability of taking some action to commemorate the patriots of '98. I was instructed to communicate with you through the columns of the Tablet on the subject, and receive any suggestions that may be useful in connection with the matter. But seeing that jou have offered those suggestions already in the Tablet it is almosc unnecessary to trouble you farther in that direction. We intend to call a public meeting at a convenient time, of Irishmen and all sympathisers, without distinction of creed or party, as the man ot 'US Were not confined to any one creed or cla^s. An i we would al-o think it advisable after the d.fferent centres celebrated the event, to have a joint tribute or memento to the memory oT '• the faithtul and the few ■' forwarded from New Zealand: say wreaths to be placed on itheir graves — the cost t> by, borne jointly by the throe or four centres. — I am, etc., Wellington, November 2.j. P. W. Twomey, Acting secretary, I.N.F 'OF.

TO THE EDITOR N.Z. TABLET

Sir, — T. too, wish to express my warm admiration of your able and vigorous article on ' ( J^ Your apt advertence to and uncompro nising denunciation of the brutality practised upon the Irish people of that date, as well as ycir manly and honourable vindicali >n of the memory of the martyred heroes who illumine its page, was pleasant and refreshing to read, and richly deserves the high encomiums that have been so lavi-hly bestowed upon it. I cannot plead guilty to that fiery enthusiastic temperament, with which my countrymen are generally credited, and yet I confess that when reading your article I experienced a throbbing of the heart and a quickening of the pulse at the vision it conjure 1 up, very foreign to my every day disposition. We who live in the pre-ent day can f irm no adequate conception of the horrors that were incidental to that period. The wildest imagination would hardly be equal to the tas'c of d ling justice to the diabolical barbarities of the time. All the cruelty that the fiendi-.li ingenuity of an enemy grown ferociously mad could possibly device was brought into requisition and c n ployed Mg.iiiibt the people. They ha 1 no rights not even the right* to live; they were unarmed aiul defenceless, and at the complete mercy of th ir relentless foes. Rapine and slaug iter was the order of the day. Thousands of brutalized miliuirv b itchers — yeomanry and militia — were let 100-e among them With unrestricted license to plunder, ravage and destroy. A favourite pastime of th^se incarnate ruffians v\as to lay violent hands upon the innocent and un-u^pectiug peasants, drag them to the guard-house, placs pitch cip< up >n their h 'ads. keep them uncil the warm pitjh, which njt unusually stronuied d >wn into their