IRISH DISCONTENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 149, 10 March 1876, Page 14

IRISH DISCONTENT.

[An English visitor to Ireland _J if he happens to be a Catholic, has in consequence a trial to sustain of his own of which the continental tourist has no experience from Austrian police, or Russian douane, or Turkish quarantine. He has turned his eyes to a country bound to him by the tics of a common faith ; and, when he lands at Cork or Kingstown, he breathes more freely from the thought that he has left a Protestant people behind him, and is among his coreligionists. He has but this one imagination before his mind, that he is in the midst of those who will not despise him for his faith's sake, who name the same sacred names, and utter the same prayers, and use the same devotions, as he does himself ; whose churches are the houses of his God, and whose numerous clergy are the physicians of the soul. He penetrates into the heart of the country ; and he recognizes an innocence in the young face, and a piety and patience in the aged voice, which strikingly and sadly contrast with the habits of his own rural population. Scattered over these masses of peasantry, and peasants themselves, he hears of a number of lay persons who have dedicated themselves to a religious celibate, and who, by their superior knowledge as well as sanctity, are the natural and ready guides of their humble brethren. He finds the population as munificent as it is pious, and doing greater works for God out of their poverty, than the rich and noble elsewhere accomplish in their abundance. He finds them characterized by a love of kindred so tender and faithful as to lead them, on their compulsory expatriation, to send back from their first earnings in another hemisphere incredible sums, with the purpose of bringing over to it those dear ones whom they have left in the old country. And he finds himself received with that warmth of hospitality which over has been Ireland's boast ,• and, as far as he is personally concerned, his blood is forgotten in his baptism. How shall he not, under such circumstances, exult in his new friends, and feel words deficient to express both his deep reverence for their virtues, and his strong sympathies in their heavy trials ?

But, alas, feelings which are so just and natural in themselves, which are so congTiious in the breast of Frenchman or Italian, are impertinent in him. He does not at first recollect, as he ought to recollect, that he comes among the Irish people as a representative of persons, and actions, and catastrophes, which it is not pleasant to any one to think about ; that he is responsible for the deeds of his forefathers, and of his contemporary Parliaments and Executive ; that he is one of a strong, unscrupulous, tyrannous race, standing upon the soil of the injured. He does not bear in mind that it is as easy to forget injury as it is difficult to forget being injured. He does not admit, even in his imagination, the judgment and the sentence which the past history of Erin sternly pronounces ujflft^him. He has to be recalled to himself, and to be taught by what he hears around him, that an Englishman has no right to open his heart, and indulge his honest affection towards the Irish race, as if nothing had happened between him and them. Their voices, so full of blessings for their Maker and their own kindred, adopt a very different strain and cadence when the name of England is mentioned ; and, even when he is most warmly and generously received by those whom he falls in with, he will be repudiated by those who are at a distance. Natural amiableness, religious principle, education, reading, knowledge of the world, and the charities of civilization, repress or eradicate these bitter feelings in the class in which he finds his friends ; but, as to the population, one sentiment of hatred against the oppressor, mauet alto, mente repostum. The wrongs which England has inflicted are f aithfully remembered ; her services are viewed with incredulity and resentment ; her name and fellowship are abominated ; the news of her prosperity heard with disgust ; the anticipation of her possible reverses nursed and cherished as the best of consolations. The success of France and Russia over her armies, of Yankee or Hindoo, is fervently desired as the first instalment of a debt accumulated through seven, cci*

turics; and that, even though those armies are in so large a proportion recruited from the Irish soil. If he ventures at least to ask for prayers for England, he receives one answer — a prayer that she may receive her due. It is as if the air rang with the old Jewish words, " O daughter of Babylon, blessed shall he be who shall repay thee as thou hast paid to us ! " — Du. Newman.