A STUDY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 2 August 1917, Page 35

A STUDY OF IRELAND

“After studying Ireland for many years, the main feeling left in my mind (spoke Mr. Augustine Birrell, LL.D.), is how, after all the fighting and revolution and confiscation and menace, after all the Penal Laws and Famine and Coercion Acts, after the destruction of native industries and the yearly drain on the population by emigration, there are still in Ireland 4,500,000 people, and that the majority of them still adhere to their old religion. Such tenacity of faith is, I believe, almost unexampled in the history of the whole world. From the time of Elizabeth, almost down to the time of Victoria, to be a Catholic in Ireland wa a to be an outcast. Catholics were robbed of their land ; they were given their choice between ‘Hell and Connaught’ ; they were ousted from portions of Ulster in favor of Scotchmen, and they were killed or banished whenever opportunity offered. But they were neither annihilated nor converted ; and yet, from the time of Elizabeth downward to our own day, they enjoyed all the blessings of the Protestant Establishment. " They had four Protestant Archbishops, between 20 and 30 Bishops, I do not know how many deans, and a parochial clergy, all supported by tithes wrung out of wretched tenants, none of whom ever entered the place of worship to which they were compelled to contribute.”