WHEN IRISHMEN ARE NOT IRISHMEN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 196, 29 December 1876, Page 12

WHEN IRISHMEN ARE NOT IRISHMEN.

It cannot be accident; it cannot be ignorance. Must we concludethat it is designed-that is, part and parcel of the same old principle the same old i treatment, the same old ignoring of •n*jttiuX£3S lieknl rtSflS dtl ll elSame ISam1 Same ° ldma # nif yi n gofaUthati S discreditable tolielana—the same old principle, the acting upon which haa succeeded" so eminently in alienating "Ireland and the Irish '^ ao ever s2S?H£Si m^?" i° ftf tw nn ° J more favored members ofThTSed Kingdom and tne lengthened duration of which has made it a sort of EngUshmenT Mi S ent and enlightened and Serai -l .?°r PP 5 Fe % W^, may di9h ; ke l, th f conclusion, there is no other way for accounting for the remarkable fact that in none of the London daily newspaper notices that we hare seen of the Balfe festival-the-greatest.and^ most intereshug event of the week, except, perhaps, the debate m the House of Parliament on the possibility of Eagland sa^a^gs.sr^' thero beeQ a refeJL to - ™ T w7 r hiß nafc i onalifc y- Wo matter what ffi offence! no matter if the delinquent be even English bo-n, and hia father before him, as long as he happen to have an Irish name tie news' papers of the next morning are certain to have the conduct of this particular specimen of the people of Ireland prominently chronicled and on that country „ made to fall the disgrace of such conduct Let an Irishman come to London and distinguish himself as aa author or a journalist, or an artist or a musician, or as a great miUtarv genius his nationality is carefully ignored, he is never SSSSd 7* X S "S"' eV^fS VO^f>}e is done to make it appear he cannot Hundreds of instances of this to Irishmen tantalizing fact could be readUy advanced. We presume that most of our headers have personal kuowledge of many such cases. nave The Balfe festival is a remarkable instance Poor Balfe! If ever a musical genius existed, he was. If ever a really clever man had difficulties to contend against, he had. If ever a man fought successfully against well nigh overwhelming Dubi&\iK^^ Lt;WhenhJ^^^^^ trouble to get h« "Siege of Eochelle" produced at Dnirv LaneTheatre and notwithstanding the determined oppodtion of the ptess . of that period, Balfe and his-composition carried all before tW. Balfe during his time wrote and what is more produced successfX twenty-nine operas. Of tvrenty-one of them which have been set to Engl.sh words .several have been translated into Italian, German, and French, and have been played in every city, of any metenSanaht music in the world. Thfie are, besides^his^rama^cKaS^»£ zeppa, ' settings by him of some of Longfellow's poems and numerous SfonetusS^rshet ° £ *" ""-* ** fc ™ 8 for — Furthermore, he was a vocalist himself of no mean ability he was a capital instrumentalist-it is said that in hia early days he « played on the fiddle like an angel , " and he was an able conductor! fnl w tn S ;!if« ;. 8 ?il m' P l **?* 1 ' hwd-working, and idtimately success, ful genius, truly. Now that he is dead it is generally admitted that his music has become so popular that it may be looked upon as fhl'T' &nd % Balfe / eßfciT 4 •* *bo Alexandm Palace waa held foJ SSrSSfR 118 v*? I "*^ scholarship in Balfe's name at the English Royal Academy of Music. But in all this glorification of the musician there is no*, a word about the land that gave him birth? How different it would have been had Balfe of Dublin distin. guished himself as a drunkard and an incorrigible vagrant ! Then he Ztt^&^#££p or aoath DBblin ™ on r