The Story of Ireland

New Zealand Tablet, 17 November 1921, Page 7

The Story of Ireland

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

Chapter LXXXIV.—How the Irish People Next Sought to Achieve the Restoration of Their Legislative Independence. How England Answered Them With a Challenge to the Sword. . ' Emancipation was won vet there was a question nearer and dearer even than emancipation to O'Counell's heart the question of national independence —the repeal of the iniquitous Union. It might be thought that as an emancipated Catholic ho would he drawn towards the legislature that had freed him, rather than to that which had forged the shackles thus struck off. But O'Connell had the spirit and the manhood of a patriot. While yet he wore those penal chains, he publicly declared, that he would willingly forfeit all chance of emancipation from the British parliament for the certainty of repeal. His first public speech had been made against the Union; and even so early as 1812, he contemplated relinquishing the agitation for emancipation, and devoting all his energies to a movement for repeal, but was dissuaded from that purpose by his colleagues. Now, however, his hands were free, and scarcely had he been a, year in parliamentary harness, when he unfurled the standard of repeal. His new organisation was instantaneously suppressed by proclamation act of the Irish secretary, Sir Henry Hardinge. The proclamation was illegal, yet O'Connell bowed to it. He denounced it however as "an atrocious Polignac proclamation,'' and plainly intimated his conviction that Hardinge designed to force the country into a fight. Not that O'Connell "abjured the sword and stigmatised the sword"' in the abstract; but, as he himself expressed it, the time had not come. "Why," said he, "I would rather be a dog, and bay the moon, than the Irishman who would tamely sub-mit-to so infamous a. proclamation. I have not opposed it hitherto, because that would implicate the people, and give our enemies a triumph. But I will oppose it, and. that, too, not in the way that the paltry Castle scribe would wish —by force. No. Ireland is not in a, state for repelling force by force. Too short a period has. elapsed since the cause of contention between Protestants and Catholics was removedtoo little time has been given for healing the wounds of factious contention, to allow Ireland to use physical force in the attainment of her rights or her punishment of wrong." l , Hardly had his first repeal society been suppressed by the "Polignac proclamation," than he established a second, styled "The Irish Volunteers for the Repeal of the Union." Another Government proclamation as quickly appeared suppressing this body also. O'Connell, ever fertile of resort, now organised what he called "Repeal breakfasts." If the Government," said he, "think fit to proclaim down breakfasts, then we'll resort to a political lunch. If the luncheon be equally dangerous to the peace of the great duke (the viceroy), we shall have political dinners. If the dinners be proclaimed down, we must, like certain sanctified dames, resort to ' tea and tracts.' " The breakfasts were "proclaimed." but, in defiance of the proclamation, went on as usual. Whereupon O'Connell was arrested

and held to bail to await his 'trial. He was not daunted. "Were I-fated to-morrow," said he, "to ascend the scaffold or go down to the grave, I should bequeath to my children eternal hatred of the Union." The prosecution was subsequently abandoned, and soon afterwards it became plain that O'Connell had been persuaded by the English reform leaders that the question for Ireland was what they called "the great cause of reform," —and that from a reformed parliament -Ireland would obtain full justice. Accordingly he flung himself heartily into the ranks of the English reformers. Reform was carried; and almost the first act of the reformed parliament was to pass a Coercion Bill for Ireland more atrocious than any of its numerous predecessors! All the violence of the English tories had failed tc shake O'Connell. The blandishments of the whigs fared otherwise. "Union with English liberals" —union with "the great liberal party"—was now made to appear tc. him the best hope of Ireland. To yoke this grant to the whig chariot, the whig leaders were willing to run a high price. Place, pension, emolument to any extent. O'Connell might Thad from them at will. The most lucrative and exalted postspositions in which he and all his family might have lived and died in ease and affluencewere at his acceptance. But O'Connell was neither corrupt nor selfish, though in his alliance with the whigs he exhibited a lack of his usual firmness and perspicuity. He would accept nothing for himself, but he demanded the nomination in great part of the Irish executive, and a veto on tho selection of a viceroy. The terms were granted, and it is unquestioned and unquestionable that the Irish executive thus chosenthe administration of Lord Mulgravc—was the-only one Ireland had known for nigh two hundred yearsthe first, and the only one in the present century— possessed the confidence and commanded the respect, attachment, and sympathy of the Irish people "Men, not measures," however, was the sum total or advantage O'Connell found derivable from his alliance w'tl the great liberal party. Excellent appointments were made, and numerous Catholics were, to the horror of the Orange faction, placed in administrative positions throughout the country. But this modicum of good (which bar. moreover, as we shall see, its counterbalancing evil) did not, in O'Connell's estimation, compensate for the inability or indisposition of the administration to pass adequate remedial measures for the country. He had giver, the Union system a fair trial under its most favorable circumstances, and the experiment only taught him that jr. Home Rule alone could Ireland hope for just or protective: government. Impelled by this conviction, on April 15. 1840, he established the Loyal National Repeal Association, a body destined to play an important part in Irish politics. The new association was a very weak and unpromising project for some time. Men were not, at first, convinced that O'Connell was in earnest. Moreover, the. evil that eventually tended so much to ruin the association, was now, even in its incipfmt stages, beginning' to be felt. The appointment by Government of popular leaders to places of emolumentan apparent boon —a flattering concession, as it seemed, to the spirit of emancipationopened up to the administration an entirely new field of action in their designs against any embarrassing popular movement. O'Connell himself was a tower of personal and public integrity, but amongst his subordinates were men who by no means possessed his adamantine virtue. It was only when the Melbourne (whig) ministry fell, and -oho Peel (tory) ministry came into power, that (government places for Catholic agitators being no longer in the market) the full force of his old following rallied to O'Connell's side in his repeal campaign. It would have been well for Ireland, if most of them had never taken such a step. Some of them were at best intrinsically rude, and almost worthless, instruments, whom O'Connell in past days had been obliged in sheer necessity to use. Others of them, of a better stamp, had had their day of usefulness and virtue, but now it was gone. Decay, physical and moral, had set in. A new .generation was just stepping into manhood, with severer ideas of personal and public morality, with purer tastes and loftier ambitions, with more intense and fiery ardor. Yet there were alsp amongst the adherents of the great tribune, some who brought to the

repeal cause a. fidelity not to be surpassed, integrity beyond price, ability of the highest order, and a matured experience, in which, of course, the new growth of men were entirely deficient. (To be continued.)