'The Wild Irishman'

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 32, 10 August 1905, Page 18

' The Wild Irishman '

Mr. Cfrosland is a Protestant writer* His sarcastic pen liasi been turned in literary caricature upon Scot and Briton. His study of the Irishman at home has resulted in another volume that bites and ' pinks ' here and there in the manner that is familiar to readers of the other whimsical diatribes that have come a-plenty from his pen. ' The Wild Irishman 'is the unpromising title of his latest boo'c But it is in many respects a splendid vindication of the priests and people of Green Eire from the attacks of non-Catholic and anti-Cath-olic writers like Michael McCarthy, whose ideas of our faith (which he denounces as a silly superstition) and of our worship (which he calls a ' mummery ') were acquired in the strongly Protestant institutions in which he wasi brought up, In one sense at least the remark applies to him which Father Healy made when he heard that Juldge Keogh was smitten with the thirteen superstition : ' He wouia belie\e anything except an article of faith.' Here is an extract from ' The Wild Irishman ' :—: —

' The fact is that the Irish Church and the Irish priesthood have been cruelly and brutally maligned by pretty well every sand-blind writer and carpet-bagging politician who has visited the country. We have blamed upon the Chturch poverty and distress, and ignorance and squalor, which are the direct outcome of bad government, and not of priestly cupidity i We have said in effect to our Irish brethren : " You are too indigent to have a religion, or churches, or spiritual guidance. Every penny you pay for these things is sheer waste of money, particularly as it Keeps- our rents down. And inasmuch as you are of one Church and one mind— which is a thing unthinkable in this free and enlightened England — you are slaves and soulless." But the Church of Ireland goes on its way, and in the words of Archbishop Croke (which, by the way, Mr. McCarthy, Irish-Cath-olic, quotes with a sneer), the Irish priesthood " holds possession of the people's hearts to a degree unknown to any other priesthood in the world." '

Mr. Crossland makes short work of the stock-in-trade fiction about Ireland being ' priest-ridden.' Figures, according to Disraeli, are rot prrty-men. Mr. Crosland qjuotes some in point. We have before now iquoted many. A harsh and most unjustifiable controversial statement published in this week's issue of the" Presbyterian-Methodis't-Congregiationalist organ of NewZealand will probably give us an opportunity of returning to the subject in the near futaire and dealing with it on more extended lines. The true story of the Priest in Irish Political and Social Life and of the Par-

son in Irish Political and Social Life may be gathered from official publications and from the works of Protestant writers of foremost note. It is unnecessary to fall back upon a solitary Catholic author for an averwhelming vindication of the first or fox a deadly condemnation of the second. The facts that are before us, if brought home to those who (often, no doubt, in perfect good faith) feed upon the reckless calumnies of ill-conditioned writers like the soi-disant ' Catholic,' Michael McCarthy, would speedily convince them that it is very unsafe to provoke discussion upon such themes.