DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 26

DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF LIMERICK

The beginning of this week has brought the sad news of the death of the Most Reverend Thomas Edward O’Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, whose loss will bo mourned by every Irishman alive to-day. And yet there is no need to mourn: he had done his work, and done it greatly, when a few days ago the end of a long, full life came for this zealous churchman and sterling Irishman. Seventy-five years ago Dr. O’Dwyer was born at Holy Cross, in the county of Tipperary; twenty-five ears later, in 1867, after a distinguished course of studies in the College of Maynooth, he was ordained priest; nineteen years later, while he was curate of St. Michael’s, Limerick, he was raised to the episcopal rank : and from his consecration in 1886 to the day of his death he added new lustre to the magnificent and venerable Hierarchy of Ireland. His writings on controversial and general subjects attracted attention far beyond the shores of Ireland. As a keen thinker, wielding a trenchant pen, inspired by zeal for religion and Irish nationality that knew no fear, he was a welcome contributor to the most important of the English reviews ; and his pastorals, which treated of religious, social, and national problems, commanded the respect even of those who did not always see eye to eye with him. Many, at various times, did not agree with the views of the Bishop of Limerick ; but none could doubt the splendid honesty and the high principle which always guided him. Thomas Edward O’Dwyer was a child during the awful years of that famine which helped, perhaps more than anything else, to burn into the soul of Irishmen the hate of English misrule. He was just ordained when the unfortunate Fenian Rising broke out. He became a Bishop when the struggle which smashed landlordism was at its height. The last year of his life on earth found him crying out, even as a voice in, the wilderness, against the perpetuation of misgovernment and the atrocities for which it was responsible in the dear land he loved. He did not choose the popular side ; nor did he remain silent, as many smaller men would have done, when he knew that to speak meant unpopularity. c If a principle was at stake no such considerations prevented him from expressing his views to men who were inclined to forget

the principle. When he condemned the Plan of Campaign he was denounced by politicians and berated by men who were unworthy to loose his shoes but, dear to him as was the good opinion of .his, fellowcountrymen, dearer still was duty ; and it were hard to find any man left now who held so high an ideal of duty, and who was so courageous and so single-minded in his performance of it. If it is certain that Dr. O’Dwyer was a great churchman, it is no less certain that he was a great Irishman: he will go down to posterity as one of the greatest of all the sous of green Erin. “/ n peace he passe* to eternal peace. ” For the past two years the heart of the Bishop of Limerick was broken with sorrow for the hopeless and overwhelming woes of Ireland. His letter written when a crowd of ruffians molested a few Irish boys on the Liverpool wharves, his correspondence with the man who devastated Dublin and inaugurated a reign of terror in Ireland, his protest against the attempts to pack the Convention, have be_£ii read wherever the Irish race exists to-day -the Gospel of a new Ireland. If he was fearless in his denunciation of the politicians of Ireland when he believed them to be wrong, he was equally unmoved by the thought of consequences to himself when he defied Maxwell and accused the Government of persecuting and oppressing Ireland. I!is attitude towards the politicians was highly unpopular at the time, but his views received the sanction of the Pope himself. • To-day there arc few Irishmen who do not approve him as the champion of their native land, that most long-suffering of all suffering small nations, and the one about whose interests the men who speak of the rights of small nations seem to care least. Ireland av 1 not forget that he did more than any man to put before the whole world the true characters of those brave patriots who died for her in Dublin in 1916, and who by their deaths have given a new and undying vitality to the soul of the nation. They were calumniated and blackened— the dead as well as the living, —but the Bishop of Limerick was never the man to stand by and permit such injustice to thrive; and never, in all his long career as a bishop, priest, or Irishman, did the shining qualities of his patriotism, his intense hatred of lies and injustice, and his unflinching devotion to truth reveal themselves so splendidly. Even as we go to press they will have laid the remains of Bishop O’Dwyer to rest in his cathedral, in the historic city of the broken treaty : and throughout all the land there will be deep mourning for the loss which Ireland has sustained. We who belong to the Greater Ireland beyond the seas will mourn him too. But let us not forget him. He has gone to his rest, and his long life is ended. Let us pray that his purgatory will be short and that through refreshment, light, and peace, he may speedily pass to the eternal joy of the sight of God. We need not doubt that Ireland will remember; she remembers all who loved her; and there have been few of her children so faithful, so pure-souled, so untiringly devoted, as was Thomas Edward, Bishop of Limerick: A mother, and forget! Nay! all her children’s fate Ireland remembers yet, With love insatiate. Faithful and true is she, The'mother of us all: Faithful and true may we Fail her not though we fall. (Lionel Johnson.)