IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 25 August 1921, Page 39

IRISH NEWS

CRITICISMS ON IRISH CATHOLICS' CAPACITY

ANSWERED.

A message from Dublin, under date June 1, says:

Sir James Craig, Premier-Designate in the Belfast "Parliament," has made the charge that the Catholics of the South, have no constructive capacity. A people without a government (ff its own has not much opportunity for exhibiting constructive talents. Taking the Catholics of the South within this limitation it is not true to say that they are not constructive. Perceiving the advantage of thorough education they obtained after long agitation the National University. Only for the efforts made by the Catholics, Belfast itself would have no University. The National University and its constituent colleges have made remarkable progress. . '

The Catholics of the South, backed by the bishops and priests, have promoted technical education in every way possible. They were the first to organise an Industrial Revival movement. This movement was inaugurated in Cork. Its originator was a leading Catholic, Mr. George Crosbie, proprietor of the Cork Examiner. Soon every chief town in the Smith had its association, and to-day they all form branches of the Irish Industrial Development Association. Agriculture, mainly, in the hands of Catholics, is the staple industry of the country. For years past the Catholic farmers have been improving and modernising their methods. Their system of co-operation is so perfect that deputations have come from other countries to study it. They replaced the old system of dairying completely by creameries. But 60 of these have been destroyed by Crown forces.

■ Within the past two years Sinn Fein appointed a : commission composed of priests and laymen of all sections /to inquire into the industrial resources of Ireland and to make recommendations as to their development. Inquiries in public by that commission were prohibited by the British Government. It had to conduct its proceedings furtively. It succeeded in collecting a mass of valuable I evidence. It has already issued two or three reports which r for research and practical suggestions surpass anything jof the kind done in Ireland since the days of Grattan's .Parliament. In view of these facts how can it be said that the Catholics do not possess constructive ability?

DETAILS OF MURDER OF FATHER O’CALLAGHAN, A PRIEST OF CORK : THE THIRD PRIEST DONE TO DEATH INSIDE OF SIX MONTHS. , Rev.'James 0 Callaghan, killed at Cork, makes the ■ third priest done to death in Ireland inside six months. Father Griffin, of Galway, was the first victim. No person was made amenable in that case. Canon Magner, of ? Duamanway, Co. Cork, was murdered on the public highway in broad , daylight. An , auxiliary policeman was con(Yicted of the murder, but the.court-martial found he was insane at the time he committed the deed. ff' The . circumstances under which Father O’Callaghan ; was killed are revolting. He and Liam de Roiste, one of |the Republican members for Cork City, occupied flats in ithe , same house. The occupants of the house on. Sunday morning were Mrs. de Roiste, her mother, Father O’Caiaaghan, and his maid servant. ' At four o’clock there was at the door. Mrs. de Roiste declined to open the :door, ?as the raiders would not say who they were. One of, ,them climbed by the window into her bedroom She grappled with him. His revolver fell from his hands - Other members of the party effected an entrance by smashing the door.

„ Father O'Callaghan and his maid were aroused, and from, their;:respective, rooms came out to the corridor.' One of the men pointed his revolver at the priest, whereupon the maid shouted, "Sure ye won't kill the priest; that is Father O'Callaghan." .-, The man threw his left arm around Father O'Callaghan's neck, pulled him towards himself .and hooking his right hand to the back discharged a shot

which entered the clergyman's body. The maid tried to grasp the revolver.-. But the raider managed to fire two more shots. Father O'Callaghan died some hours later in hospital.

Mr. de Roiste was not at home. On the day before the occurrence he had been returned unopposed at the polls with three other Republicans for the city of Cork.

A number of other priests are either in prison or in internment camps. They include Father Dominic, O.S.F.C, serving three years' penal servitude in a convict prison in England, and Father Delahunty, Kilkenny, serving two years' imprisonment. Two are in internment and two, untried, are in prison. One of the latter was arrested after attending a meeting of the White Cross.

HOW ENGLAND REWARDS HER HEROES. In reply to Mr. T. P. O’Connor last Monday, Sir Hamar Greenwood gave his version of how one Joseph McCarron, a Donegal man, met his death. McCarron enlisted in the British Army at the beginning of the war to fight for “the rights and liberties of small nations” : and, of course, the small nation first in his thoughts was Ireland. He fought bravely; he took a gallant part in several desperate battles; he was wounded severely more than once; he charged at Givenchy, where Tom Kettle fell leading the Dublin Fusiliers right up to German trenches that the pick of British regiments had failed to i each; he kept on fighting until his riddled frame AAas no longex capable of active service: Sir Hamar Greenwood said yesterday that this brave Donegalman was shot dead A'hile engaged in an ambush, and that he was a prominent member of the I.R.A. Does the fact —assuming the accuracy of the story convey no lesson to the minds of persons like the Chief Secretary for Ireland? How was the man who freely risked his life in battle after battle under the British flag turned into an insurrectionary leader in his own country?

There have been many thousands of similar cases. Lord Edward Fitzgerald's was one; Thomas Russell's was another. There are tens of thousands of ex-soldiers in Ireland to-day who believe, in wrath and bitterness, that they were basely betrayed by England's' rulers. Those men fought; the roll of Irish dead in the war against Germany was out of all proportion to the number of Irish soldiers engaged; and the number of Irish soldiers was as great, in proportion to the country's population, as that of most other nations. Even English statistics show that a 5.3 per cent of Ireland's total population fought for "the rights and liberties of small nations." When the war was coming to -an end at the beginning of November, 1918, the total strength of the United States Army and Navy, including naval reservists and about 8000 yeomen, 'was 4,203,638. This is a fraction under, 4 per cent, of the total population of the country for 1918. ' So far as can be learned, the men under arms, at home and abroad, at no time comprised 5 per cent, of the American population. Ireland's male population between the ages of 20 and 45, according to the census of 1911, was 776,637. The 1910 census gives the number of the same class of .young men 4n the United States as 18,634,772. From these figures it can be seen that the Great Republic, whose generosity in men and resources cannot bo denied, gave 22 per cent, of its total man power, of military age, whereas Ireland gave, with 230,949 men serving in the" British forces, 29.8 -per cent.; and the hundreds of thousands of Irishmen who came from the free Dominions are not included—neither are the 650 000 soldiers, of Irish birth and blood who fought under 'the Stars and Stripes. These facts are forgottwi im England • they are remembered in Ireland; hence the tragedy of the past three years.