THE McCANN CASE

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1911, Page 568

THE McCANN CASE

INSTRUCTIVE DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT EXPOSURE OF AN ELECTIONEERING DODGE During the debate on the address-in-reply in the House of Commons on February 7, the McCann case was dragged into the discussion by some of the Irish Unionists. This gave an opportunity to Mr. J. Devlin and Mr. John Dillon to give the facts of the case as far as they are known, and to show that the whole agitation was engineered for electioneering purposes. Mr. Devlin, replying to Mr. J. H. Campbell (member for Trinity College), said that from the moment this incident was first mentioned in the public press—-and even now, with all the privileges of Parliament to defend these gentlemen — had not said who the priest was. He challenged Mr. Campbell before the House to let them know the name of the priest. He would tell him further that of his own knowledge the priest against whom those sinister insinuations had been made was prepared to take him or any of his impeachers into the public courts. Let him come out and make that charge openly against this or any other priest as being associated with this transaction, and then a public tribunal would deal with the melodramatic performances which they were carrying on that night, which was the whole stock-in-trade which Ulster Toryism had depended on for its existence during the past two months. He said the reason he could not name the priest was because the woman did not know him! Let the House mark this. Documents had been published, statements had been made, and a priest's name had been specially published as ' Father C ' Mr. CampbellNo, no. Mr. Devlin Yes. He could produce to the House out of the documents the statement that ' Father C.'s ' name appeared several times, or at all events once or twice. Who was ' Father C ' ? Mrs. McCann said she did not know the name. Well, who got it? And why was the name of the priest not mentioned in the debate? He (Mr. Devlin) had taken t steps, not knowing the priest himself, with regard to it, because the right hon. gentleman had said it was one of the priests in the district in which the woman lived. Mr. Campbelll did not. Mr. Devlin— the right lion, gentleman marie himself responsible for it, and for the declaration made in the woman's statement —the touching and elaborate and pathetic statement of this woman, written six weeks or two months after the events referred to in —written five days before his (the speaker's) election in West Belfastwritten and printed before the Lord Lieutenant ever received it, and sent out in shoals into the English and Scotch constituencies in order to produce a ' tremendous effect' on the minds of Nonconformist electors in those countries. That was the statement made., and he (Mr. Devlin) felt the pathetic character of this' case. He regretted the necessity for intervention, but it would be proved that This was a Wretched Domestic Quarrel between these people of the lowest and meanest* domestic quarrels that ever came into an ordinary court, not to speak of the Court of Parliament. He had written to each clergyman connected with the church in the district in which she resided. He had asked that statements should be sent to him from those clergymen, and the only definite declaration made by any of them was to the effect that she herself sent'for this priest in order to exercise his undoubted influence as a priest in bringing peace into the family, to try to assuage the matter there, and in order to create domestic happiness in the home which they were asked to believe he entered in order to kidnap the children. It had been said that he himself had kidnapped these children. # He had been asked by the Tory Belfast newspapers again and again to produce the two kidnapped children. Why did not the right hon. gentleman repeat that charge there? Posters were placarded all over Belfast asking Will you vote for Devlin and have your children kidnapped by the priests ?' > The fact was Mrs. McCann had been the greatest political asset of the Tory Party since the days of William 111.

Mr. Devlin then referred to the declarations he had received from the priests of the district. The first said that Mrs. McCann called on him at the beginning of October, 1910, to see if he would go to settle some differences between herself and her husband. He went to her house at once with pleasure in the hope of being able to do some good. That was his first visit. He found that their life was unhappy, that disputes had been frequent, and rendered necessary the intervention of the police. He (the priest) counselled peace. Contrary to certain statements in the press, he said it was absolutely false-that he or any other priest took the children away. ~ He had never accused her of being a ‘common woman.’ The fact, Mr. Devlin said, was that before any priest was called in their domestic life was anything but happy, and the police had to be called in frequently owing to their quarrels. The hon. member would have preferred that the Chief Secretary should have told them something about these quarrels, because ho understood the intervention of the police was a more constant thing than the intervention of the priest. This declaration added that she left her husband in consequence of the disagreements and took lodgings in Buckingham street. The hon. gentleman passed to the statement of one of the curates, who said that in his capacity of priest he visited them for the first time in January, i9lO. Neither , then nor on any subsequent occasion had he informed Mrs. McCann that she was not properly married or was living in sin, or that her children were illegitimate. Ho had had no part in breaking up the home, nor in bringing about the separation. Coming to the third priest, he (the clergyman) said he never called upon them at their home ; he only met them once. On that occasion — a Sunday— attended church as usual to baptise children. Amongst these was one brought in in his arms by Alexander McCann, which was rather unusual. He (the priest) inquired the reason, and was told that his wife was not a Catholic, and that other women were afraid of her and would not bring the child. The priest asked a young woman to act as sponsor, which she did. ’ Mrs. McCann then moved forward, evidently with the intention of attacking the young woman 'who held the child. The husband stood between them. She (Mrs. McCann) attacked them most violently, using both her hands and feet. She made an exhibition which he would rather not describe. The sacristan removed her and her husband from the church, and he understood that she continued the scene outside. The hon. member, continuing, said he had received that morning by post a letter from some friend of McCann’s. It was in McCann’s writing. It told one of the most sordid tales of domestic misery that he had over read. He did not want to attack Mrs. McCann, J he whole thing was to him absolutely repellant, but, after all, members ought to know some of the particulars stated. Every statement in the memorial was denied and before they accepted one side of a sordid domestic story perhaps they would read the other side, and see that it was irrefigion, and not religion, that was responsible. Ho was willing to give this letter to any two Protestant members of the House, and when they had considered the statements in the ‘ memorial ’ and the other documents, let them form for themselves a judgment as to whether it was not

One of the Most Scandalous Political Dodges utilised by the men who, in order to slander and libel a nation, dragged in miserable domestic conflicts into the arena of Parliament to further their own scandalous objects. This had occurred in October; but the hearts of these gentlemen were not touched at all till the eve of the elections in Belfast. Why, from October until December, were not the right hon. gentleman and his merry men engaged in this affair of the children of McCann? They waited, although to his knowledge they had all the facts in their possession for six weeks. Sir E. Carson Who had? .. £*?*•, Devlin said their officials—the men who supplied the brief to the distinguished lawyer. Who was the lawyer that .dratted the ‘ memorial ’ that was presented with such irresistible force to the Lord Lieutenant. He was Mr Alexander McDowell of who was the unelected ope of the Ulster Capital. Here was what he wrote in a letter not intended for publication to one of the colleagues of the right hon. gentleman. After denouncing the Ulster Unionists, saying they were a very ‘peculiar people stupid, and hard to understand, he said:— ‘l have found a tit-bit at last that will arouse the uttermost enthusiasm for the Unionist Cause.’ * Mr. Kerr Smileylt is a stolen letter. x , Devlin—! suppose the hon. gentleman thinks I stole the letter as I kidnapped the babies. What did this Mr. McDowell do— simple lawyer— gentleman who. ho understood, did not get a knighthood from the last Government, but expects to get one from this? He hoped by the way, the right hon. gentleman opposite would take a note of that. Mr. McDowell says: —• T /I .suppose you saw yesterday’s Whig and NewsLetter' in relation to the kidnapping of the children. It is having a tremendous effect here. I am told it will have T he , same effect in Scotland. It ought to be useful to you in the shape of stiffening any waverers.’ It was not, continued Mr. Devlin, to assuage the grief of a sorrowing mother it was not to bring back the long.

lost, babes; it was not to impeach the wandering and degraded father; but it was to bring back and stiffen the waverers.

Mr. Dillon, in the course of his speech on the subject, said:— had been alleged that the children had been spirited away by a priest. ;He did not believe there was a single word of truth in that, though that was one of the many things put before the House. He believed that the children were taken away by their own father perfectly legitimately; at all events, he had good reason to believe, although he could not state that on his own knowledge, that the priest had nothing whatever to do with taking away the children. . If the children were removed by their father it was perfectly legally done, and for that the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant could have no responsibility because as long as the children were in the custody of their own father what could the Government do? Nothing had been said to prove that the children were not removed by their father, who had a right to remove them Next there was the alleged desertion, of the wife by the husband. It was alleged that” McCann deserted her under the orders of the priest, who persecuted the husband until he left his wife. Not one tittle of evidence had, however, been laid before the house in support of that. It was a monstrous thing that for political purposes that debate should ha\e been inaugurated by hon. members who had not produced one* shred of evidence to support their allegations. It was alleged that although a priest had broken up this family Mrs. McCann did not know the priests name, and that none of the members who had made the allegations knew his name He (Mr. Dillon) did not believe that assertion. Hon. members were afraid to state the name for fear of a writ. He was in a position to say that if they were to-morrow to name the priest a vnt would immediately be served, and machinery would be put in motion for investigating this case to the bottom and in all its details, much more effectively than rt. could be done in a debate in the House of Commons. He would now turn to what was rather a painful aspect of the case—and he must protest against the statement that because he and hi friends gave such evidence as was placed in then hands rebutting the charges made -against people in Ireland and the Catholic people of Ireland in this case, they should, therefore be held up as attacking and hounding down this unfortunate and wretched woman. They were no more hounding down the woman than Unionists w ere hounding down the man. Hon. members had come into that House and read an ex parte statement made by the wife charging her husband with every form of cruelty and outrage- and yet when Nationalists made statements on the other side they were told that they were acting m a most ungenerous, unchivalrous, and cruel way towards a woman. The people who were acting; cruelly and ungenerously were the people who dragged This Sordidly Wretched Dispute into the press and into that House. There was a letter which he was told and believed was 111 the handwriting of McCann himself. That letter was in his hand, .and hon. members could see it; but the address had been torn off. It was a long document, giving a horrible history of asm did, disgusting family life. In the very first sentence the busman cl said:— the husband of the woman in the recent Belfast trial, I desire to say that the priest had no more to do with the case than the editor of the Irish JSews, and to show you how utterly impossible it was for• me- to live in the same house with this woman and be then went on to give a hideous picture of their life for several years. He found it impossible to live with her. He writes that her letter— what was supposed to be her letter the Lord Lieutenant was all, or nearly all, a pack or lies.’ He writes that he is not a cruel-hearted man, as the'Presbyterian minister would have people to believe Mr. McCann was as well entitled to be heard in that House as his wife was, although he (Mr. Dillon) did not think either of them was entitled to have those ex-parte statements read in that House: The letter went on < She says I asked her to change her faith on account of the way the priests were rating me. I never said anything of the kind. I did ask her to get married so that we could like like Catholics. She says that during the first thirteen months there was never a dispute about religion • but there was never a day went by without a dispute. For ’instance, she would have meat for me on Friday. She would put back the clock to make me late for Mass. She ridiculed the priests and religion, cursed the Pope, and sang hymns Ml day.’ Mr McCann’s letter sounds more genuine than Mrs. McCann’s. He claims that he is neither a drinker nor a smoker and he gave up smoking because his wife would not allow him to smoke; that he paid her all his wages every week except a shilling or two; and yet his wife abused him for not giving her enough. She also accused him of “‘in- another woman. She attacked his mother and father & and called them outrageous and most opprobrious names’ She went into the country to "her mother’s to be confined; and Mr. McCann says that when he went there she told him that the child was still-born and buried, and naked him to go for some drink; but when he returned she told him the child was alive. Finally there was the evidence of the priest, confirmed by this letter, that when the unfortunate man took -the child in his arms and brought it to be baptised, this delightful woman followed him into

the Catholic church, and pulled away the girl whom he had got to hold the child as godmother, and when he interposed she got hold of him in the church and pounded him with her fists, and the police had to interfere and that, finally, she went home and broke the windows .of her own house.. That was not a picture of a home of happiness and peace into which this diabolical man, this Mephistopheles, the Catholic priest, entered, and for the first time was the cause of disturbance and dispute. Apparently this was a domestic tragedy dragging on for years and he (Mr. Dillon) did not pretend to adjudicate upon the relative njerits and demerits of Mr. and Mrs. McCann. They seem to have been an ill-mated pair, and, like many a man who went as a peacemaker, the priest had been unfortunate. The priest tried to make peace, but failed; and it was a gross and scandalous thing to attack him on the ground that he interfered with a happy home, and brought discord where peace had reigned Before. He did most sincerely say that he believed firmly that this case was an electioneering case, and that the public would never have heard of Mr. and Mrs. McCann had it not been for the elections. It was nothing short of an outrage to bring the matter before the House of Commons. °