IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 22, 7 June 1923, Page 43

IRISH NEWS

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. Cable messages to the daily press, under date London, May 29, state: De Valera’s Publicity Department announces that on May 24 a special army order was issued to cease fire. Arms will be dumped on May 28. Speaking in Dublin, General Mulcahy said that de Valera’s cease-fighting order was a counsel of perfection. It might have been adopted before, when the Republicans saw that they were beaten. Mr. K. O’Higgins (Minister of Home Affairs) said it was open to the opponents of the Government to form a political party in order to press their claims. If they did so the country would soon forget the past year’s events. General, Mulcahy, speaking in Dublin, announced that the Government had decided to raise a loan of £25,000,000 internally. He added that they must not give outsiders an opportunity of lending the money and drawing interest. An internal loan would make Ireland a creditor instead of a debtor nation. <*X*X-X*X*> HOUSE BURNINGS: OCCUPANTS GIVEN TWO MINUTES TO LEAVE. Bonnyglen House, a magnificent residence situated in Inver, six miles from Donegal town, .was, with its valuable furniture and heirlooms, burned down by armed men at three o’clock on Saturday morning (says the Free Press for March 24). The owner is Air. W. 11. At. Sinclair, British Consul-General, Philadelphia. The caretaker with his wife and family of five, two of whom are aged four and five, got two minutes to clear out. The different rooms were then sprinkled with petrol, and immediately afterwards the splendid building was a raging fire.

The incendiaries, who were in no way disguised, told the caretaker that they were burning the place as a reprisal for the executions of the four men at Drumboe. The incendiarism will cause the loss of employment to several men. The damage is estimated at £50,000. IRELAND AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The question whether Ireland should apply for membership of the League of Nations was recently debated in An Seanad. Senator Douglas said Ireland’s admission would be a world recognition of her independent national status, and would lie a safeguard of the position she had achieved. This country would, he said, become a member on exactly the same conditions as Holland, Spain, etc. Some Senators considered sufficient notice of the motion had not been given, and others thought that it would be well to have information as to the cost of membership. Eventually the proposer accepted the chairman’s suggestion to adjourn the debate to the first sitting after the Easter recess. “BEATEN BY SUMMER”: REBEL LEADER’S ADMISSIONS. The Irish Free State Publicity Department issues the following;, “Personal notebooks and documents were found in the possession of Con Moloney at the time of his arrest at Aherlow on March 7. Mr. Moloney was appointed ‘ Deputy Chief of Staff ’ of the Irregulars when Mr. Li am Deasy was captured. The following is an extract from Moloney’s personal notebook, written immediately before his capture, and apparently forms rough notes of a reply to a letter from Mr. Liam Lynch:

“Position not improving. Reprisals and counter-re-prisals. Agree to temporarily set aside ideals, but will complete surrender make our position- from that point of view any better?

“We can’t beat enemy militarily. Enemy can’t beat us militarily (if officers put more energy into the fight and take reasonable precautions). The advent of the English is probable, and our moral will by that time be very low, and the war will have become very bitter between ourselves. So both armies wall not come together to face England. All officers gradually becoming implicated in executions policy.

“Summer campaign. — war lasts till then we will bo beaten, or very nearly so. End must be in negotiation. Therefore, if there is to be an end, both sides must compromise, and I favor compromise, so long as spirit of Republic and ideal of it can be maintained, or if no issue be definitely before the people at any election.” " XX~X~X><X"O' PROVINCIAL INCIDENT. The comparative calm to which we are beginning to attune ourselves has lately been broken by few outstanding outrages (writes the Dublin correspondent of the London Catholic Times, under date March 10). Minor incidents there have been indeed, but an armed raid on the village of Athy, an attack on the waterworks at Portlavighise (formerly known as Maryborough), and an attempt to destroy Saint Alary’s Temperance Hall in Cork are the only examples of Republican activity worth mentioning. At Portlavighiso, an important town in Leix, the Irregulars succeeded in temporarily depriving the inhabitants of their ordinary supply of water, but in doing so they inflicted the same hardship on the many prisoners interned in that district. M hen the Republicans some months ago were engaged in manufacturing “atrocities,” it was one of their complaints that internees were not allowed sufficient baths. 11 that charge became justified recently at Portlavighise, whom have they to blame? They would answer, no doubt, the Free State Government, though they might not carg, perhaps, to accuse the Ministry of new “atrocities,” since over-production has taken from that particular variety of propaganda its onetime value. At Cork the Republicans’ exploit was even more astonishing than at Maryborough, for there they chose a Catholic temperance hall for their attentions. Although the hall in question was much damanged. portion of it, fortunately, was saved. The outrage itself, it is stated, could not have occurred had the owner of the stolen motor-car used by the attackers made know n his loss to the military authorities, a fact which witnesses to Ireland’s real need—a sense of civic dutv.

<K>-X*X>sX~X-LIBERTY AND ORDER: PRESIDENT COSO RAVE’S ST. PATRICK’S DAY MESSAGE. In a St. Patrick Day message to America, President Cosgrave says: —- “To-day, when we Irishmen and women the world over aie of one heart, one emotion, in paying customary homage to i all ick ho led us from spiritual bondage, a new pulse is in oui hearts, an unaccustomed throb in our emotions, for this anniversary finds us at last with our Motherland oui Nation in our own keeping, our future in our own making. The thought uppermost in all our minds to-day must be bow best to realise the hopes, the never-failing faith of our people in their destiny. Y have, during the gloomy years of our national political obliteration, preset ed a pride in our past history, which has sustained us through oppression, because that history was not a history of conquest or material acquisition or aggression against other peoples, but a history of liberty loved before all, of learning cherished and carried forward munificently, of continence in morals, of laws cultivated and obeyed, of deletion in arts and crafts, and letters, of smiles in tears, testifying to a static faith, of courage, and withal of an honorable simplicity these the gleaming strands of history indely torn I rein us, these the golden threads which, to-day we should resolve to gather up with loving hands and weave anew into the same pattern in the loom of our newmade State.

It is our grief that the pattern has been very rudely torn and tortured, and that madness and destructive fury has come upon some who should be weavers. But this is the message I send to Till who to-day honor Patrick: ‘There is much work for many hands and brains, and no walling worker will be turned away from the loom.’ ” (Copyright in America by the United Press.)

In a message to the New York World President Cosgrave urges that though the friends of Ireland may be grieved by what is passing, they should never waver in their hope or faith. The 'lrish leaders had created an army, established'.a police force, re-opened the courts, restored and maintained avenues of trade and industry, reduced unemployment, and, despite a wanton campaign of wreckage and sabotage, increased the national wealth. By next St. Patrick’s Day Ireland would be crowned by an “Immortal Shamrock,” on whose leaves would shine in everlasting golden letters the blessed words— “ Liberty, Order, Prosperity.”