IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 23 August 1917, Page 31

IRISH NEWS

GENERAL. The following distinguished Irishmen have fallen in the present war: —Priests: William Finn, John Gwynn, Donal Sullivan, Joseph Stuart Phelan, Denis Doyle, Matthias McAuliffe, Herbert Collins. Soldiers: Roger Bellingham, Chas. McGee, 1.. Leslie, Desmond Fitzgerald, Robert Addis Emmet, Gerald Flanigan, Edmund Hughes Flanigan, John Henry Grattan Esmond©,' Thos. M. Kettle, Win. Molloy, Raymond O’Malley, Win. Kent, Fred Ennis Boyd, Win. H. K. Redmond. Very Rev. Father K. Bowden, Adm., Pro-Cathe-dral; Dublin, presiding at a large and representative conference-of the Executive Irish National Aid and Volunteer* Dependents’ Fund, and delegates from branches in the Three Kingdoms, stated that the money received up to date was .£107.069. They ought to be proud that Ireland led in the amounts subscribed ; her total was .£32.833, and America came next with <£32,046.v From letters received it was plain that in any hour of need Ireland could call upon her sons abroad;” Mr. Jennings paid a tribute to the work of the executive committee. The report of the latter specially mentioned the great assistance given by Cardinals Farley,' O’Connell, and Gibbons, his Grace the Most Rev; Dr. Kelly (Sydney)/ his Grace Archbishop Duhig (Brisbane), Most Rev. Dr. Mannix (Melbourne), Right Rev. Dr. Carroll I'(Lismore), 1 '(Lismore), Right Rev. Dr. Dwyer (Maitland), Right Rev. Dr. Verdon (Dunedin), and Very Rev. Mgr. Hartnett (Los Angeles). His Grace Archbishop Walsh was thanked for his kindly help, especially in connection with remittances from abroad. The report stated* that, while the response was fully up to expectations,..the grants made- were not up to the standard which could be considered as adequately meeting the requirements of those concerned. The association had still a vast- amount of work before it. The executive believes the Irish nation wall willingly meet'the further call upon it. The Right Rev. Dr. Kelly, Bishop of Rosa, who is a member of the Irish ...Convention, preaching in th©bPx*d-Cathedral,s Skibbereen, on May 27, said that never in their-history had*the people of Ireland more urgent need of the Divine gifts of the Holy Ghost. The people themselves were called upon to select the form of legislature they considered best adapted to their country. No form was ruled, from a Grattan’s Parliament, down to an enlarged county council. The decision was a momentous one, for on it would depend questions to come—the happiness of the Irish race in Ireland and beyond the seas, and not improbably the course of civilisation itself among the white races. The previous evening he came home from London, where he had been during the week attending a reconstruction committee. He assured them that each and every member of the War Cabinet was sincerely desirous that the convention should not only meet, but especially should frame a new Constitution for Ireland. Whether this desire sprang from disinterested love of Ireland or from great international causes it was idle to inquire. In either case, the opportunity of the Irish people and responsibility of treating that opportunity rightly, seriously and wisely' was = the same.

. IRELAND’S RIGHTS. ~ A speech recently delivered by the Right Rev. Dr. Fallon,. Bishop of - London, Ontario, is an interesting evidence of the effect-produced- by the English “blunders that had insulted and estranged the whole Irish race. At the close of an, illuminating appreciation of. the Irish race and its history, Dr. Fallon, whom the Ottawa, Citizen describes 1 as, perhaps, the strongest advocate of Imperial relations in this country;” says: This is the Ireland whose children for fifteen hundred years have carried the traditions of learning and the love of liberty across the seven seas and into five continents, who have borne their full share in the development of democratic self-government wherever it exists, and who have spared neither their lives nor their treasure in the upbuilding of Britain’s world-wide pile, to which Britain’s Prime Minister has denied that right for the defence of which the Empire has been plunged into the bloodiest war of all history. We are fighting, so we have been told, and so we have believed, for the sanctity of treaties and the rights of small nationalities. ■ I shall lose no time in criticism of British rule in Ireland. With Sir Horace Plunkett, I believe that Anglo-Irish history is for Englishmen to remember, for irishmen to forget. I will not even repeat the words of scathing condemnation in which both the late and the present Prime Minister of Britain have, within the past year, characterised English rule in ■ Ireland. Hut with every man who has given the subject any thought, I know that there is an Irish question, and that its equitable settlement 4s vital to the honor of. the name of Britain, to the successful issue of the war, and to the satisfactory solution of the grave problems that shall confront us when the war is over. , And I know that the Irish question will not be settled by a repetition of ‘ the stupidities, ineptitudes, and the malignities ’ of the past three years. It will not be settled by rewarding the treason of Sir Edward Carson while insulting the loyalty of John Redmond nor by winking at gun-running in Larne while shooting down gun-runners in llowth : nor by shielding murderous British officers while murdering misguided Sinn Feiners ; nor by denouncing the broken pledges of Berlin while repudiating equally sacred pledges at; Westminster.” Canadian Journal’s Comment. The Ottawa. Citizen , commenting on Dr. Fallon’s notable speech, says; “The defection of such men as Lis nop ballon from any cause, and for any reason, must be serious. In this case it is doubly unfortunate, because of the undoubted hold on the sentiments of the Irish Catholic people of the Dominion of the Bishop of London. It is evidence of division of that sympathy and practical aid so essential at this time if Canada is to do her lull duty by the Emnire and by herself. Surely our statesmen, particularly those now in Britain, realise the feeling of the great majority of Canadians in this matter, and appreciate that in so far as it affects the internal unity of the overseas Dominions, it is more than a problem for home settlement alone. Any movement to bind the Empire closer must take cognisance of factors which will surely militate against such unity should they be disregarded at the time most opportune for their discussion and settlement.”