Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 30, 15 November 1889, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National papers.) Father Anderson stands, perhaps, unique in the sense of being the only priest wno li<ta btseu evicted fiom his homestead undei the, present regime. The rev. gentleman's eviction from Abbeylands Dear Feth >rd, county Tipperary, was camea out under the auspices of Sub-Sheriff Power and his gang of bailiffs, Emergency men," and police. Tne landloid, Mr. Garner, refused, it seems, a reduction of twen'y-five per cent, on the rent. Hence the eviction. The following circular has been issued in one of the Leinster counties :— " English M.P.'s visiting Ireland (confidential).— Several English M.P.'s aud others are at present in Ireland, and many more may visit this country during the recess. The avowed object of this visit is to obtain information by personal observation, and to make inquiries from persons in various localities. The R.I C. will extend to these gentlemen the courtesy and assistance to whicn, as strangers seeking information, they are peculiarly entitled. These gentlemen should not be shadowed ; and as it is not likely they will make violent speeches, no particular measures need be adopted to have notes taken of tbesame."

Yet another resignation amongst the Royal Irish tells of honesty and manhood still struggling to find expression in the force. Constable Martin Deely, a strapping athlete of about thirty years of age, iesijjnp, as he told the Cork Herald reporter, after twelve years' service, by reasi n of the prevalance of " peijury and injustice " in the force. His history is the history of thousands of constables. He was not sufficiently zealous in the cause tf Coercion. " I always," he said, " entertained strong private feelings with regard to my country ; but I did not allow those feelings to interfere with me in ihe exercise of my duties, which I always conscientiously discharged." That was not enough. He gives one striking illustration of how police prosecutions are manufactured in the case of a young man named Larkm, who was assaulted from behind and knocked down without the slightest provocation on the occasion of Mr. William O'Brien's trial at Carnck-on-Suir, and, by way of compensation, was sentenced to tix months' impnsotiment for assaulting the DistrictInspf c or.

The other day the devastated estate of Mr. Olphert witnessed a further assertion of landlord rights on which humanity itself criep shame. It is not enough that these poor peasants' houses — houses their own hands built — have beea levelled by the battering-ram, and they with their wivps and families driven out on the baie mountainside. The little crops which their indomitable industry made grow amongst the rocks aud mountains from the seed which charity supplied must be wantonly destroyed. We read that a military guard of 60 policemen, armed cap-a-pie, was supplied by the benevolent Government to the reckless emergency ruffians who cut down the little patches ot green corn — the sole support of those wretched peasants — and carted them away. This wanton and cruel destruction of the food of a starving people would seem revolting if perpetrated by a hostile array in the enemy's country. Here it is the paternal Go^ernm-nt that is responsible. In the phase which neatly covers every (xce-<H, however loathsome, of injustice aud inhumanity in Ireland — " It was a vindic iiion of the law."

A brave Irishwoman near Mnchelstown, is succesfully defending her home ag nust the crowbar brigade. Mrs. Jatn<.s Bdiry's husband died a year ago, and she fou id herself unable to pay the rent the landloid dtmanded of her. She, theufjru, shut herself up in her bouse with her children, and prepared to stand abi 'ge. Luckily for Mrs. Berry her house is not of the ordinary kuici. It is the oncefdmed Castle of Mmanimy, which h,is walls sjven fejt thick For forty-eight hours B-ilfour's battering-rams hammered away at these formiiJablewalis without making the least impression. At la^t the police, thoroughly disgusted by tbur failure, sent word to the besieged widow through \he parish priest, that it she did not surrender they would plant a battery of aitillery before her house and bombaid it. Ihis threat had no cfLct on the brave woman, who sent back word that the police might do what they pleased, but she would not suirender. It is not likely, therefore, that the police will carry out their threat and besiege Mrs. Berry's fortress. The latest news from the scene of action is that they have surrounded the house and intend to starve out its inmates.

A rousmg meeting of the Smith-Barry tenants and other Tipperarymen was held on tiunday, September 8, in the town. Influential and representative delegations came from various outlying parts of the county to give aid and encouragement to their fellows who are fighting in the van. The clergy, Town Commissioners, Poor Law Boards, and other public bodies, were strongly represented at the gathering. Key, Canon C .thill, P.P., was in the chair, and the principal speaker wjs J. E. Redmond, M.P. A very remarkable episode in the struggle was made public at the meeting. The few tenants who had broken away from the combination and paid their rents, on seeiDg the capital that was being made out of their action, had come to Mr. Redmond and begged to be taken back into the combination on any terms. No decision lus as yet be^n come to upon this matter, but it is extremely likely that the majority of the other tenants will perceive the value of presenting a solid front to the common enemy, and re admit their peaitont fellows. The meeting was'attended by two members of the Home Rule Union, Messrs. Morton and Walfad.

Balfour and his underlings of the Prison Board have worked themselves up into high dudgeon over the publication of several letters by Mi. Conybeare, M.P., in the London Star. Inspector Joyce, whose petty partisanship is a matter of common notoriety, was sent down from Dublin in hot haste to hold an inquiry as to ho*' the letters in question reached Mr. T. P. O'Connor's newspaper. How Joyce should have h..d the audacity to open or rather attempt to open his inquiry by asking the chaplain of the prison, the Uev. Father Doherty, to give evidence on oath on tne matter, and how he could be naif enough to fancy that rev. gentleman would accede to

their shady request, are puzzles that we willingly leave to our readers to solve ; but the result ot course was that the chaplain very properly refused to play the lcle of spy. and remarked that his official duties did not include those of prison warder, " I will answer no questions on the subject," observed the clergyman, •' you can ask on that head the warder who has charge of the prisoners. The chaplain's duties are entireiy different, for they relate solely to the spiritual welfare of the prisoners." Ate* days after this iuteiview, the Ilev. Father Doherty received a no^e from the Governor of Derry Gaol, informing him that by order of the Prisons Board and the Chief Justices be was dismissed the service " for having refused to give evidetice at ah inquiry held by the Inspector." We congratulate the rev. gentleman on this signal honour unintentionally conferred upon him by the red tape officials of Dublin.

Instead of all this bunkum, the Kight Hon. Mr. Stansfeld offers to the intelligence of Belfast the speech of a prudent statesman looking before and after. He develops the entire question of Home Rule. He proves with logical clearness that Home Rule is one method by which the union between the two countries can be made effectual, and , above all, by which a death-blow may be given to sectarian bigotry and a union consecrated between all classes of Irishmen labouring honestly for their country's good. We cannot doubt that a speech of this character, appealing at once to their patriotism and their prudence, will have a powerful effect with all in the North whom bigotry has not made deaf and blind.

It is to be hoped that amongst the places of dismal interest to be visited by the English deputations in Ireland will be the Vandeleur estate. They ought to see the horrible wreck which the batteringram has made of the once happy though humble home of the Magraths. It stands upon the high-road from Kilkee to Kilkrush, and needs no detour to get a full view of it. It is a horrible sight, speaking more eloquently of " man's inhumanity to man " than ten thousand poems by .he most moving of authors. It was some time ago a comfortable, substantial building, but is now a hideous mass of debris, The poor people who inhabit it are honest, pure, good-hearted folk ; and Pat Magrath, who, with his heroic sister, defended the place against the ruffian torces of " law and order," is a fine young peasant of whom any country but this cruelly-misgoverned one would be proud. His physique and courage may be imaeined from the fact that when, bleeding and faint from a long fight, the police ran his hands into handcuffs, he snapped the degrading fetters asunder as easily as Sampson did Ihe boads of the Philistines. No offer has as yet been made to reconstiuct the home of the Magraths ; so that the English visitors may see, if they be so inclined, the place where Balfounsm has scored one of its best records in emashmg in the home of a quiet, God-fearing family, and causing a mother to die of grief at the injuries inflicted upon her eon.

The police surpassed themselves in their manipulation of the coroner's jury for the mquest on the unfortunate young man, Daniel Donoghue, who had been shot down (so far as the facts yet before us go to show) without provocation or excuse by Constable < ullinane. As might have been expected, every obstacle was thrown in the way of holding an inquest atall, on the grounds, so far as we are permitted to conjecture, ihat a Nationalist who is shot down by a constabularly revolver in Ireland may be assumed to have died a natural death. When an inquest was seen to be inevitable, ever precaution was taken that the homicidal police-constable should not be troubled by any inconvenient verdict and Pether spared the trouble of packing a jury for his acquittal at the assizes. Pother himself ntver did a neater bit of jury-packing than the police at Bandon. All sense of public &hame and decency was lost in their anxiety to help a comrade. It was is case to-day, it might be their own to-morrow. The privileges of the force were in the balance.

The main operators, so far as we can gather from the report, were Mr. Purcell, D.I , and Mr. Jones, the factotum of Pasha Pounkit, the same who dispatched the cipher telegram, " On her Majesty's Service " (and the " Forger's "), to the Irish Office in London. He came across special to Bandon to assist in the administration of the law. It was but natural that his master, Pasha Phunkit, should take a deep interest in a constable who, in obedience to his famous telegram, had not hesitated to shaot. The police had the precept for a jury m their hands for nearly two days, and they certainly made the best of the time, In all Bandon in that time they could only collect twelve jurors out of the twenty-three, which constitutes the full coroner's jury. But. by way of compensation, seven of the twelve chosen ones weie Protestants and Coercionists. Who can speak too highly of the diligence of the constables who, in a Catholic and Nationalist town like Baodon, were able to accomplish the result. They did better still : of the five Catholics selected as the only Catholics in the town fit to serve on a coroner's jury, in default of a sufficient supply of Protestants, two were absolutely illiterate.

One would think that shameless audacity had reached its climax when the jury ofthi3 very peculiar constitution was ushered into the box. Not at all. The police who searched the town of Bantry as with a lantern for Protestants, and Ecoured the adjacent country for miles, were outraged at once at some exception taken by Mr. Bhinkwin to the result of their labonrs, and protested with magnificent indignation against the introduction of any question of religion. Two of the selected Coercionist jurors, Mr. Diunt and Mr. Lovel, ihereupon vindicated the judgment of the police by quite a spirited defence of the jury-packing which had resulted in putting them in the box. Henceforth the proceeding is a manifest and palpable farce. It is true that the protest of Mr. Shinkwm had the effect of having the jury laised to twelve. But the agreement of twelve jurors is necessary for a verdict, and that agreeim-nt the police have taken good care to make impossible. Oon&table Cullinane, thanks to the well-directed efforts of his comrades, is as safe as the police murderers at Mitchelstown or Youghal, and ytt another is added to the nnmberless instances adduced by Mr. T. M llealy, M.P. in Parliament, th.it killing is no murder in Ireland, provided only the victim is a Nationalist.

Mr. liedmond did well to deprecate the stone-throwing. The cause of the Smith-Barry tenants does not need to be supported by

violence of that kind, which, on the contrary, can only do it injury But in condtmnngthe stone-throwing it must not fail to be well noted that Tippeiaiy has had to suffer during the past week from violence of quite another and far more dangerous kind. Ugly a mis-lie as a sione is, it is harmless compared with bullets and buckBhot, and regrettable as are tbe broken windows which the people in their excitement left after th- m on Wednesday night, they are a very snull giieva.ee beside the bullet-wounds and the buckshot-wounds for which Dr. O'Ryan treated the poor boys with whoso blood the demoralised police sought to celebrata the anniversary of Mitchelstown. It is tasy for us to blame the stone-throwers, but when we think of Tipperary town as it now is, in possesion of a regular army corps of swash-buckling Royal Irish, who, at the slightest provocation, take to dißchargiug their murderous rifles down narrow streets at groups of ooys, and who appear possessed with the ambition to emulate in Tjpperary the bloody glories of Youghal and Mitchelstown ami Timuleague, one begins to understand the angry spirit which is roused there. Two wrong 3 don't make a right, however, and i sell-restraint umltr provocation and quiet contemptuous reliance O) its own invincible might is tbe most becoming policy for gallant Tipptrary. &

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