IRELAND'S PART IN HISTORY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 70, 29 August 1874, Page 12

IRELAND'S PART IN HISTORY.

From the ' Edinburgh Review ' we clip the following testimony to the abuity and learning of the sons of Ireland. It is such anu c occurrence to find ft journalist with the moral courage to do justice to Ireland, that we publish the article witk pleasure :— " Ireland has always played a part in History out of all proportion to Us sue and population. Isolated by the sea almost as effectually as » to "chain of mountains from the Continent, inhabited by apeople who for ages were strangers to all the arts of life, subsisting by the most rudS and homely agriculture ; and rescued but slowly from the aepths of anarchy and political barbarism, it has, nevertheless, produced within a period ol little more than a hundred years, over the Sst arena ot human enterprise, and in all, the highest branches of human knowledge, « notable band of scholars and divines, philosophers nn™po.t., statesmen and warriors, who challenge the admiration of the whole world. It is a angular circumstance, however, that up to a comparatively recent poiiod, nearly all the distinguished triumphs of Smen have been won in foreign lands. In the early ages, and i io3 f£m the middle of the tilth to the middle of the ninth century Vl en the lights of Roman civiliaation had been a 1 butextmamsS and the oscTlat.ons of the human understanding had reached E lowest point, the Irish missionaries swarmed from their conventual leWs over England, Scotland, France, and Germany, for the conversion of the heathen. It was from this spot that Charlemagne gathered «!mid 'he bri.best, spot of Christendom those learned strangers, eager Jor metaphjsical eointmt and foremost in all the literary tournaments, who became the supple and poweriul instruments of the civilization h lwuiht to promote. Ireland was studded with conyen ual school,, v bich preserved the learning of the West, but these mm ut,ona, ineludi, J cv«. the neat Armagh and Li.more Colleges, to which thousands oi Whs Hocked from the Continent, were evidently only large senun. a^b for priests, a body possessing even in thoee days no great learning

even in greater communities. The martial glory of the Irish has also been chiefly won upon foreign battle fields. It was th» remark of Voltaire that the Irish who showed themselves the bravest soldiers in Prance and Spain had always behaved shamefully at home. The taunt is hardly justifiable,for their value at Clontarf, Aughrim, Blackwater, kl& Limerick was incontastible, though their most brilliant achievements were reserved for the Continent. Napoleon might have laid of the Irish what he is reported to have said of the Poles, that they formed ■oldiers more rapidly than other people. Whether they fought for France under Turenne or St. Ruth or for Spain under herflnest generals — whether against Italians or Netherlands, or French or Spanish — no swords cut deeper than theirs ; and the plains of Rancoup, the ramparts of Lafelt, the slopes of Fontenoy, and the fierce battles of Luzara, Guillestre, Emoriin, and Cremona, witnessed their fierce onset-, and displayed their matchless discipline. The more recent history of war tells how from issaye to Yittoria, from Vimeira to Waterloo, and from Crimea to India, they maintained the glory of the English name. Nor can it be denied that no part of the United Kingdom has sent forth men of greater mark in our common history. It was Ireland, that gave the Duke of WelUington, Marquis of Wellesley, Lord Oaatlereagh, and Lord Palmerston to the State; it was Ireland that gave Goldsmith, Mooi c, md Edgeworth to literature, Mulready and Maclise to art, and has given Tyndal to science. It was Ireland that sent Burke und Sheridan, Grattan and Plunkett, Shiel and O'Connell to the House of Commons. We' know not by what perversion of fact and reason Ireland is supposed to repudiate any of these glorious names, because they are not the names of Celtic Irishmen. As well might Scotland i repudiate Burns, Adam Smith, and Watt because they are not Highlanders! The magnitude of their genius raised these men from an Irish origin to Imperial services and Imperial fame."