THE EMIGRANTS OF IRELAND.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 14, 25 July 1884, Page 7

THE EMIGRANTS OF IRELAND.

We (Nation) take the following passages from the lecture on " The Emigrant Ballads of Ireland " delivered by Mr. A. M. Sullivan recently to the members of the Southwark Junior Irish Literary Club, of London. The chair on the occasion was taken by Mr. Justin M'Carthy, M.P. We are indebted to the Universe for the report of the lecture which we use below :—: — " Air. A. M. Sullivan, on rising to epeak, was greeted with great applause. He said he had consented most readily to speak to. them that night, because his opportunities now were few to contribute something to educate the young to be good and true Irishmen and Irishwomen, and not the less good citizens of the land in which they dwell, because they loved their native land the better. Nearly every civilised country had a poetry of its own. Scotland was rich in the poetry of the people, as was Germany and France, but Ireland in popular ballad poetry was singularly deficient, because the rural homes of the people bad been swept away, and what might have been a thriving peasantry had become a mere set of labourers. You do not find welling up from the heaits of that people, and taking shape in song and ballad, that loving for the unforgotten land they have left behind them. That most singular fact singles out the Irish emigrant aa having some cause peculiar to himself and a character that does not attach to the adventurous wanderer of any other nation in the world. When they gather round the fireside they whisper in song of another land that id far away. The Irish exile brings up his little children in tbe foreign land and teaches them lulf fabulous stories of bis native land, for he tells him of the dreams of hope pictured in his heait. There are legislators, 1 am afraid I must 6ay, in London at this moment, who could not pass a school board examination in Irish history, who believe Ireland belongs by right of conqueßt to England. They will find Ireland does not belong to her by any conquest. The treaty of Mellefont in 1601, Limerick 1691, and the intei- Parliamentary treaty of 1782, made certain terms to be granted to our countrymen, and if they had been kept there might be no Irish emigrant nation to-night, aad there would not be surging in the hearts of twelve millions of Irishmen all over the globe the passion that fills them this evening. The terms of the treaty of Mellefont were considered too liberal by a certain party in Ireland at that time. We have specimens of tbe same class there 'to-day. If ever terms are offered to Ireland, supposed to be liberal, you will find those hungry vultures crying out that the Government has delivered the loyal subjects into the hands of the seditious. The speaker next proceeded to speak of the first military emigration of the Irish chiefs to Home, the asylum and the refuge of the persecuted and the oppressed. There no English revenge could touch them, and thtre England's edict never ran. There the Boveruigu Pontiff assigned them a royul allowance out cf his own purse, but they pined under a foreign sky. The treaty was broken at home ; their clansmen were now lik^ sheep without a shepherd, and they with broken heaits soon sank iuto foreign grave?. The Earl of Tyrconnell died on ths 28 1 h of July, 1608 ; his brother in the September following, and the son of Hugh O'Neill in 1609 ; and on July 20, 1616, the old chieftain himself, who had nearly won the total independence of his country sank into a foreign grave, and was buried with royal pomp in Borne out of the private purse of tble Pope. Having briefly referred to Count O'Neill of Tyrone, who Ityea in Paris to-day, as the descen-

dant of the great Owen Boe O'Neill, Mr. Sullivan proceeded to say that the military emigration from Ireland subsequently- had grown to iuch an extent, and the Irish filled such hieh positioni in the courts, the governments, and the cabinets of Europe, that the English. Government became alarmed. The Irish emigrant in that hour was found at the companion of kings, not as the delver and toiler on the railways of America or England, but as commander in the armies of Continental Europe. Mr. Sullivan then enumerated some of the ballads that have found their origin in the wanderings of the Irish race throughout the world, and recited with much elocutionary skill and amidst deafening applause Thomti Davis's " Battle Eve of the Brigade." In concluding. Mr. Sullivan said : What is to become of this great emigrant land beyond th» shores of their own native iisle ? Will the statesmen never see thy not without a great purpose has the great God implanted ur> deeply in the heart of a virtuous race a love so imperishable as oura? will there never come a day when true statesmanship will see in this marvellous fidelity of a people to the home where their lot was hard and their suffering severe something pointing to a great task which Will be for the benefit of liberty throughout the whole world ? My faith is strong and my convictions invincible that from 'the fidelity/ the self-sacrifice, and the devotion of that emigrant Ireland beyond the Irish shore, as well as of that of our countrymen at home, will come the resurrection of that beloved isle. I believe if lam spared even a few years more I and you shall live to see a great step taken towards that happy consummation. I have hope if those who teach the little children of the Irish race in England, in Columbia, in Canada, and in Australia teach that only virtuous and righteous men can work out a cause so just and so holy as the Irish cause, and that the love they bear their mother land in nowise hinders them from a true and loyal compsnionhh'p, neighbour, shopmate, or friend, in tue countries where their lot may be cast—my hope is strong that the Irish in England and in foreign cliiaes may each, by his own personal character, so win the confidence and respect of those around you that no longer shall the finger of scorn be pointed , at the exile as he passes by, but that the stranger may say thtre goes a man from whose heart the struggles with adversity or the greed of Wealth have alike Tailed to eradicate the love of bis native home. Let us respect him and feel a kindly sympathy for the land he loves so well; and from Ireland, in morning and evening, a prayer of constant loving thought will go forth with a feeling of sympathy to our exiled countrymen in the foreign land, and to you here in England, «• Hail to our exiled brethren."