Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 29 October 1908, Page 27

Irish News

DERRY— Death of a Priest

At Limavady on September 4, Very Rev. Edward O'Brien, D.D., P.P., V.Gf? died after a brief illness, at the age of seventy-seven. Deceased was born in the parish in which he died, and of which he was the revered pastor during the last eighteen years. After a brilliant course he was ordained at Maynooth in 1859, and was forthwith appointed Professor of Humanities in that great ecclesiastical institution, a position which he filled for twenty years. His next appointment was to St. Columb's College,- Derry, of -which he was the first president. Subsequently he ministered at Magilligan, Coleraine, and finally at Limavady, of which he was given pastoral charge in 1890, Deceased was possessed of extensive ecclesiastical knowledge, and was frequently consulted by ecclesiastics on theological matters. At Maynooth he was a contemporary of Cardinal Logue, and the Archbishops of Dublin, Tuam, and Melbourne, each of whom held him in high esteem. DUBLIN—The Catholic Truth Society

At the annual meeting of the Catholic Truth Society in Dublin last week, his Grace the Archbishop of Melbourne delivered an address, in the course of which he traced the growth of the Catholic Church in Victoria. He described as astounding the progress that Catholic education had made in that State against great opposition. Meeting of 4 the British Association

There was a great influx of distinguished visitors to Dublin in connection with the annual meeting of the British Association (writes a correspondent); in fact, the city was overrun with learned philosophers. As might be expected, they met with a warm- welcome in the Metropolis of Ireland, a country which has produced so many original thinkers, so many men of deep research. While a number of the essays read and discussed at the sectional gathe.ings of the association were interesting to various classes of the community, and were couched in language that all could understand, others were so abstruse as to puzzle and perplex the man of average intelligence. In this connection Professor Miers, Oxford, delivered some interesting remarks when he said the most useful function that could be performed by the local societies, in addition to that of lendi.nc an interest in local problems and in the methods by wlvch they were to be studied, was to encourage a habit of expressing scientific results in simple and intelligible language that would appeal to the whole society. The Church and Science

r JPJ P / C \ J WCrG reSCrVed at the Hi g h Mass in the ProCathedral, Dublin, on Sunday, September 6, for members of the British Association. The Rev. Michael Cronin, D.D., MA b.R.V A., m his sermon, referred to the attitude of the Catholic Church towards Science and to the obligations of Catholic scientists. He said when God conferred on any man or class of men uncommon gifts of any lfiW, He at the same time impo.pd tL ?* a T C !f ! , ° bligation of us5 "g th <> opportunities which those gifts afforded for the greater manifestation of His glory and for the wider extension of His name. Among them that day were men who had received special talents at God's hands, who by reason of their great intellectual gifts were capable of exercising a very profound and a very salutary influence on the worlds Might he be permitted, on the part of the Catholic Church s n 5"*"' iJVT? a elC ° me that h3d gOne Out to the "embers Th \ T Associatson from all classes of the community. They should remember, he said, that in defending the Catholic Church they were defending seething that would not pass away as theories and hypotheses did. When they and he were gone out of he world, when their great association had disappeared or should come to be known by another name, as was ppc;S c ; f the boundaries of nations should be altered, when the sciences themselves had been changed, s till the everlasting Bride o^ ChS would be upon earth. Whilst opponents were advising and abu «ng her. and prophesying her downfall, she still pursued the s t k : f ,r;.s souls> wherever there — ■«* * * w - She would still go on with her mission when CMtuHes-W" passed, unmindful of the world's fashions, undisturbedly ftt criticisms, undated at her own successes over it But liXl it be their glory to defend her. For in defending her they wt defending God Himself, and they would receive the reward promised ,n the Old Testament by the Holy Spirit: • TheyTa explain Me shall have life everlasting.' y

ROSCOMMON— A Delegate to America At the urgent solicitation of Mr. John E. Redmond, .M.P., Mr. John Fitzgibbon, Castlerea, chairman of the Roscommon County Council, accompanied Mr. John E. Redmond and Mr. J. Devlin, M.P., to' the great Convention of the United Irish' League in America. « • The Bishop of Elphin The Right Rev. Dr.. Clancy, Bishop of Elphin/ visited Manchester on September 5 for the purpose of fulfilling a longstanding engagement to assist in the opening of the new Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Blackley, Manchester, and was accorded a most hearty welcome ftpm the branches~of the United Irish League and the Irish Foresters. • Mr. Councillor D. Boyle read an address to Dr, Clancy on behalf of the 150,000 Irish Catholics in Manchester, and assuring him of a hearty ccad mile failte. Mr. John Doyle read another 6h behalf of the Foresters. TIPPERARY— Death of a Religious Much regret was felt at Clonmel at the death of' Mother Philomena, a venerable and much-esteemed member of "the local Presentation Community, who had been for forty years ' in religion. >. WATERFORD— A Popular Landlord Major VilHers Stuart, of Dromana, County Waterford, died on September 8. His death was caused by a paralytic stroke. Major Stuart was a very extensive and a most popular landlord in County Waterford. He was a member of the Waterford County Council, in the working of which he took a very ke-n and active interest. He suffered, though not much of late, from a rifle wound which he received in the late South African War On the death of the late Duk« of Devonshire, Major Stuart though quite a young man, was appointed Lord' Lieutenant' of County-Waterford, which position he occupied until his death. WEXFORD -Jubilee Celebrations The jubilee of the establishment in Enniscorthy of the Cor'vent of Mercy was celebrated on September 3. The Most Rev Dr Browne, Bishop of Ferns, presided at the celebration" ofHigh Mass. The Most Rev. Dr. Kelly, Coadjutor Archbishop' of Sydney, was also present, and there was a large attendance of clergy. Jubilee Celebrations An immense congregation filled the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Wexford, on Sunday, September 6, during the celebration of Pontifical High Mass, the occasion being ihr fiftfcth anniversar-y of the completion of the two beautifil churches erected in the town by the late Very Rev. Father Rodr" The Right Rev. Dr. Browne, Bishop of Ferns, presided at "the ceremonies, which wore characterised by all the solemnity befitting an event that excited deep religious fervor in the faithful of the district. At the High Mass, Mgr. Vaughan preached an eloquent sermon. It was, he said, a great day for them j their hearts went back fifty years to the time when that church was raised to the honor, and glory of God. They knew what history told them of Father Roche, and the earnestness, piety and *eal with which he set about collecting the means wherewith to build the twin churches, from the generous people of Wexford^ That church a grand monument to his memory, and as they saw it lifting' up its splendid spire to Heaven their hearts wen* out in gratitude to Father Roche, who was instrumental in estabi lisning it. GENERAL The Queen's Colleges - ' " t , T s e / reports for the y ear 1 907-8 of .the Queen's Colleges in Ireland have just been -published, and show that the number" of students who attended the Queen's College, Cork, during th» session 1907-8 was 263, being two in execs* of those in t!^ previous year. At- the Queen's College, Galway, *he number wn< 102, or 9 less than in the previous session. Land Purchase _ Land purchase transactions (says the Catholic Times) are *o ..- numerous in Ireland that the sum provided to complete contracts under the Act .is quite insufficient. To solve the problem various plans are put forward. " Professor Bastable at the meeting of the British Association suggested no less than half a doz»n iOfithods for relieving the Government from the difficulty in which' it has- been placed by the breakdown of the financial arrangements. Lord Kenmare and a number of London financiers have ' submitted to the Chancellor a scheme by which, assuming tha-

j£s>ooo,ooo a year will be forthcoming, the Treasury, through an issue of short-dated notes bearing 2% or 3 per cent, interest, can raise at par t<m millions for every million a year of the which is assigned for the redemption of. the notes for ten years. The proposal, though not without drawbacks, is worthy of consideration. -. But, however the money may i<e secure j, it is-of the utmost importancc_that the tenants should continue to purchase their holdings. -Though the policy of enabling the tenants to become the owners of their farms may involve a yheavy expenditure, the policy is the surest that can be pursued to ensure the prosperity of the country. The Economic Side of the Land Question Speaking at the meeting of-the 'British, Association for thn Advancement of Science, in Dublin, on the Land Act and the means to be adopted for getting the necessary funds for the " . completion of the scheme, Mr. T. W. Russell said that the onlyway in which he could have kept out of the discussion on this important question would have been for him to have^kept out of the room. altogether. - He wished to state at the opening 'that. he did not attend there that 'day in his official capacity as Vice President of the Department or as a member of the Govern ment. But he did attend as the representative of an Irish constituency composed almost entirely of tenant farmers, most of whom had purchased under the various Acts. And it was a very typical constituency, because there were very few holdings of over twenty or thirty acres- of land. He had studied this question from its political aspect, and he -had been driven to study 'it from the economic "side. In his opinion land purchase must proceed to the end. It could not be arrested or stopped. At this moment 260,000 holdings out of a total probably approaching 500,000 had passed from the owners to the occupiers. That had broken the back of things, at. all events, and made it impossible to stop -where they were. No Government could give to 260,000 men (ernis of the character tharwere given under these Acts and withhold them from- the remainder, who were placed under precisely the same conditions. He therefore said that this ' procedure could not be stopped, but that, on the contrary, it must go forward until the land was transferred from "the owner to the occupier. He said that for another reason. Everybody knew— and this was almost a meeting of strangers to Ireland— that the real troubles which had paralysed government in Ireland for so long had arisen from the land, and just as the land question had been settled peace and order, had come about where it had been settled, and all the trouble which they heard of now was simply the. aftermath of that struggle, which had gone on for centuries. Therefore, altogether apart from the injustice to individuals of a stoppage of land purchase now, the necessities of public order necessitated that the battle should be fought to the end, thus applying an effective remedy to the whole country. Irish Athletes for Rome The following were selected to represent Ireland at the athletic competitions at the Vatican :— Messrs. C J McCarthy Maynooth College; T. J. McNamara, Maynooth " College ; Patk' Kirwan, Kilmacthomas, County Waterford ; J. J. Burke Cappawhite. County Tipperary ; D. McCarthy, T.C., Kilkenny " The team to represent Ireland in the Gymnastic Section of the competitions was selected from the following members of the Catholic Young Men's Society :-Messrs. Edward G. Lemass, rS. Bregazzi, John Breen, Wm. Carroll, T. J. O'Donnell, John Coonev, Wm Heaney, John Nugent, James O'Duffy, M. Cranny, and ' D. Bregazzi. It was decided to .give an exhibition game of caman in the Vatican" Gardens, and the' competing teams were to be played on to the field by am Irish piper in national dress. At the special audience an illuminated address was to be presented to his Holiness on behalf of the affiliated branches of the CathoiYoung Men's Society, and other addresses were to be presented from the Dublin Corporation, North and South Dublin Unions Rural Councils and the Central- Committee of the Irish Confral termties and Sodalities. A very large number of priests andprominent Catholic laity took part in the pilgrimage. - Father Mathew Anniversary ' v Notwithstanding very unfavorable weather conditions ths Father Mathew- anniversary. celebration, held in Dublin on^SuffT"' day, August 23, was a success. Thousands joined in the process.on that assembled in O'Connell street and marched to the^ Phoenix Park, while sympathisers in immense numbers assembled*" along the route and showed plainly the faith that animated them