MODERN IRELAND

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 226, 20 June 1936, Page 23

MODERN IRELAND

Miss Cicely Hamilton’s Survey “Modern Ireland,” by Cicely Hamilton (London: Dent). The critical sympathy which invests Miss Hamilton’s able works on modern Europe is nowhere, more evident than in this illuminating attempt to diagnose the problems of modern Ireland, that country which, in so many respects, holds a unique position in the world to-day.

After speaking of post-war dictatorships and new forms of religion, Miss Hamilton says in her foreword:—

Ireland also is trying her collective experiment—in that major portion of the island which is known as Saorstat Eireann, the Free State. Not in the way of religion; her experiment is economic, an attempt to attain to complete independence and sufficiency. . . . What they work for and dream of is a country in all things free of foreign interference . . . a country that will deny Itself superfluity, a luxury, even much that elsewhere is classed as necessity, that it may live in itself alone! An exact reversal of the Free Trade ideal of Victorian England. . . To Cobden and Bright the world-wide pushing about of commodities was almost a religious principle; while Eanion de Valera, in this present year of grace, pursues with a fervour equal to theirs his ideal of an Irishman who, from cradle to coffin, consumes nothing bnt Irish products.

The author goes on to note the difficulties in the way of the realisation of this ideal, not the least being the artificial frontier between Northern and Southern Ireland in connection with which Miss Hamilton tells strange tales of smuggling, many of them with a grimly humorous side. One of the most significant chapters deals with the Irishman’s attitude toward the past, particularly the dim glorious legendary past, as, compared with the Englishman’s, hard disillusioning historical fact plays little part in the patriotic Irishman’s vision of Ireland’s Golden Age, that age to which he dreams of a return even in the matter of daily speech. The obstacles encountered in the attempt to make Gaelic once more the everyday speech of Ireland are discussed at length, making thOught-provoking reading in a shrinking world where an increasingly better understanding of one’s neighbour’s speech and customs has become almost compulsory. ■ This vision of the future and the hatred of England as the hereditary foe are the great forces which enable Southern Iredand to present a united front to the world to-day. Regarding internal dissension the author says :— Those who read of Ireland, as well as those who write, would do well to bear in mind Wolfe Tone’s description of his countrymen which is as true to-day as when it was uttered—six generations ago at the close of the eighteenth century. They were, he said, “separate nations met and settled together, not mingled but convened; unccmented parts that dp not cleave to each other.”

A description is given of the drawing of the Dublin sweepstake and the interest of the text is enhanced by 16 pages of interesting photographic illustrations.