CENTENARY OF '98.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 9, 1 July 1898, Page 2

CENTE N ARY OF '98.

WELLINGTON CELEBRATION. A SPLENDID DEMONSTKATION. (From our own correspondent.) The Irishmen of Wellington are to be congratulated on the success attending the celebration of the centenary of '!)S. For weeks past, a numerous and influential committee has worked hard, arranging details and preparing a programme. It was a work of love, and when hearts are in their work success is sure to crown their efforts. That their efforts were successful ample proof was Riven by the immense audience which filled the Opera House on Friday night, scarcely a seat being vacant. Among those present were his Grace Archbishop Redwood, Very Rev. Father Devoy, V.G.. Vtry Rev. Father Lane. Rev. Father Lewis, Rev. Father Holloy, Rev. Father Ainsworth, Rev. Father O'Sullivan, Sir Robert Stout, Hon. T. Thornf son, Mrs. Seddon and the Misses Spddon, Messrs. Geo. Fisher and ,T. Hutchison, M.H.R's , Mr. Martin Kennedy, Dr. Martin, Dr. Mackin, etc. Letters of apology for unavoidable absence were read from his Excellency the Governor, the Hon. Mr. Cadman, Hon. Hall-Jones, the Mayor of Wellington and others. Congratulatory telegrams were received from the Rev. Father dairy, editor of the Tablet, and Mr. O'Connor, secretary of tlie Dunedm committee. The staiie was artistically set out with furnt and pot plants, an Irish harp in deMgn being a conspicuous feitnreof the decorations. Above the proscenium was the motto • Who fears to speak of '.(S ' in gold lettering on a green ground. It is right here to mention the great work done by Mr. J.A. McGrath, the hon seer, t.iry, to whose untiring energy the suc< 5» ot the celebration was iv a ereat measure due. Without referring to his other labours, the cle-ioal worlc alone w.is enough to ha^ occupied pretty well his whole time during the past fortnij^B. 'Only tho^e who have h id any experience in tluse mutters can low any estimate of the labour entailtd. Mr. O'Dris3oll acted as chairman ot the committee, and to his tact and business capacity ametd of the success is certainly due. Not having yet received a 1M; of the names of the committee, I refrain from mentioning individual members as I may do an injustice to theee I do not know.

THE CONCERT. The concert programme consisted of the finest perns of Irish melody of a truly national character, and the committee were certainly fortunate in having secured the s rvices of some of the best local talent for the occasion. Miss Tanghey sang ' Kathleen Mayourneen ' (encored), and later om grave a very fine rendering of /' Oh where's the slave s-o lowly.' Madame Carlton's fine voice caught the audience in ' The meeting of the waters,' (encored). ' Believe me if all those endearing younsj charms,' (also encored) was her item in the second part of the programme. Mr. W. S. Cadzow did ample justice to the patriotic song, 'A nation ©nee again,' (encored). He also contributed 'The wearing ot the green,' which was enthusiastically applauded. Dr. Ingr.im's famous national melody, ' Who fears to speak of '98,' (encored) was in good hands with Mr. F. S. Pope, who sang it in a sympathetic and artistic manner. He was also recalled for the rendering of ' And we for one another.' The concerted items were : 'She is far from the laud,' a trio by Madame Carlton, Messrs. Cadzow and Pope. These items were exceptionally attractive. The accompmiments were played by Madame Cadzow, and the overtures on national airs were contributed by Mr. Cimino's orchestra. During tlie evening two addressee dealing wiih the insurrection of '98. were delivered, the first by Dr. Cahill, entitled ' The history of the causes which led t) the rebellion ' ; the other by Sir Robert Stout, on ' The rebellion and the lesion it teaches.' Both speeches were frequently and enthusiastically appla-ided during their delivery. DB. CAHILL'S SPEECH. Dr. Cahill, on coming on the stage received an enthusiastic ovation. In introducing his subject, the speaker set about disabusing the public mind of the impression that the intention of the gathering was to perpetuate the memory of former contentions. The spirit in which they approached the celebration was expressed in the beautiful song by Davis :—: — 1 Oh I let the orange lily be Thy badge, my patriot brother ; The everlasting green for me, Acd we for one another.' We have met to-night (he continued) not to pay a tribute to rebellion, or the spirit of rebellion, but we have met to honour the memory of men who endeavoured by constitutional means to obtain for their fellow men political and religious equality ; and who were subsequently goaded into insurrection by the intolerable wrongs to which they were subjected by their masters. They became rebels for the same reason that John Hampden, Algernon Sydney, George Washington, and Louis Kossuth became rebels, because tyranny supplemented law in their native country. The principles which they advocated and for which they suffered are common to humanity, they belong to every age and every race. It would be strange indeed if we, who inherit these fortunate islands when there is fair play for all, should deny to the cause of the leadei-s of 1798 that manly sympathy which we extend to-day to the rebel chiefs of Cuba and the Philippine islands. HISTORICAL. Glancing at the political and social condition of the country before 171)8, the speaker pointed out how the provisions of the Treaty of Limerick had been set aside by law ; the mass of the people excluded from Parliament, from the magistracy, army, navy, bar, jury-room, and polling-booth ; their religion fiercely repressed^ and they themselves.reduced not merely to poverty but to ignorance — for education was forbidden. The Catholics—five-sixths of the population — could not purohase or inherit landed property or hold leases except on limited and imperfe ;t tenure. A few Catholics saved their estates by the aid of their Protestant friends, for, to the credit of humanity, there were always individuals more generous than the law. The Presbyterians of the North fared little better than the Catholics of the South, so far as power was concerned. They were shut out by law from civil, military, and municipal offices. The entire Government of the country was monopolised by a few great Protestant land-owners, who represented only one-twelfth of the population. Add to all this the destruction of Irish trade and commerce, and the picture of misery is complete ; for, writes Mr. Green, since the time of William 111. England did her best to annihilate Irish trade and destroy Irish agriculture. The result was that which might have been expected. For more than a century Ireland was the wo/st governed country in Europe. Towards the end of the century, England, as the result of mistrovernment, had lost her American colonies, save Canada and Newfoundland. Ireland was threatened with a French invasion, and the want of any regular force to oppose it compelled the Government co call upon Ireland to provide for her own defence, and in answer to its call, 40,000 volunteers appeared in arms. Two years afterwards, 1781, the volunteer officers of Ulster, the Presbyterian descendants of the Scotch planters of James I. and of the settlers of Cromwell, met in convention at Dungannon, under the presidency of Lord Charlemont. Resolutions were passed favouring 1. The Declaration of Independence of the Irish Parliament. 2. Recommending Parliamentary Reforms, including Catholic Emancipation. It was during these years that England lost a great opportunity of reconciling the two nations. In Ireland, as in the colonies, England shrunk from carrying out either a national or imperial policy. lam quoting from Mr. Green. She might have recognised Ireland as a free nationality, and bound it to herself by federal bonds, or she might have absorbed Scotland into the general mass of her own national life. With a perverse ingenuity, continues Mr. Green, she not only refrained from taking either of these courses, but she deliberately adopted the worst features of both.

GUATTAN. Up to this date the Parliament of Ireland acknowledged the supremacy of the English Legislature. In the following year Grattan carried his Bill declaring the independence of the Irish Parliament, and the English Parliament unanimou-ly passed their famous Act of Renunciation. The franchise was, however, not extended to the mass of the people, and all political powers still remained in the hands of that small portion of the population who belonged to the Established Church. The borough system, which was chiefly the work of the Stu irts, prevailed, and proved, as it had formerly done a fruitful means of corruption. Whatever were its defect-", the Parliament made great and beneficial change". The masses were restored to many of the rights of citizenship, free trade was proclaimed, and the country advanced in prosperity and peace. For the purpose of bringing pressure on Parliament, and completing the good work thus commenced, the Society of United Irishmen came into existence. THE UNITED IRISHMEN. In the year 1791 the Society of United Irishmen was formed, in Belfast by Theobald Wolte Tone. It was at first essentially Protestant and confined to the Dissenters of Ulster. Its chief objects were to obtain Parliamentary Reform and Catholic Emancipation. Every member of the United Irishmen pledged himself to use all his abilities to obtain an impartial and adequate representation of the Irish nation in Parliament, and to do all that lay in his power to form a union of affection and interests among Irishmen of all religious persuasions. According to Lecky, five-sixths of the leaders of the Society— like Tone, Thomas Addia Emmet, Arthur O'Connor, Rowan, and many others — were Protestants, and belonged by birth and education to the party of ascendancy in the country. Two were closely connected with the nobility : the Hon. Simon Butler was brother of Lord Mountgarrett, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was the son of the Duke of Leinster. The Society spread south to Dublin, and extended into Leinster and Munster, but it does not seem to have reached Connaught. The most important of its early transactions took place in 1792. The leaders met in convention in Dublin, and when, as a result to their petition to the King for the relief of Catholic grievances, the members of that body were, in 1793, admitted to the Parliamentary franchise, though still excluded from sitting in Parliament. Relief measures in Ireland are usually accompanied by Coercion Acts. The Catholic Relief Act of 1793 was accompanied by three such measures. One of these, the Convention Act, waa specially framed to prevent meetings of the United Irish party. Open and constitutional organisation was thus driven below the surface. After the rebellion was over, Emmet, O'Connor, and Dr. McNevin, representing eighty United Irish leaders, drew up a Memoir, in which they say that it was not until convinced by years of experience of the hopelessness of expecting the Parliament to reform itself, that they most reluctantly began to dream of revolution and of foreign aid. THE REBELLION. Of the immediate causes which led to the rebellion, it is probable that Mr. Pitt's determination to destroy the Irish Parliament, and the means which he adopted to this end, were the most potent. Let us hear the great philosophical historian, Mr. Lecky, on this point. In his Leader* of Public Opinion in Ireland, he says :— 'It is probable that he (Pitt) was already looking forward to the Union. The steady object of his later Irish policy was to corrupt and degrade, in order that he might ultimately destroy, the Legislature of the country. Had Parliament been a mirror of the national will, had the Catholics been brought within the pale of the constitution, his policy would have been defeated. By raising the hopes of the Catholics almost to a certainty, and then dashing them to the ground, by taking this step at the very moment when the inflammatory spirit, engendered by the revolution, had begun to spread among the people, Pitt sowed the seeds of discord and bloodshed, of religious animosities and social disorganisation, which paralysed the energies of the country and rendered possible the success of his machinations. The rebellion of 1798, with all the accumulated misery it entailed, was the direct and predicted consequence of his policy. Having suffered Lord Fitzwilliam to amuse the Irish people with the prospect of Emancipation, he blighted their hopes by recalling him, and then produced the Rebellion.' Lord Fitzwilliam was withdrawn in 1795. Lord Camden took his place as Viceroy, and from that moment rebellion became inevitable. As to what happened on Canvden's accession to office, I shall call English witness only. Were Ito attempt to describe the transactions which followed, I would probably be accused of using the language of exaggeration, perhaps of misrepresentation. Walpole, an English Protestant writer of the present day, says in his Kingdom of Ireland : — ' The Catholics were attacked indiscriminately, masters were compelled to dismiss their Catholic servants, landlords to dismiss their Catholic tenants ; decent farmers, quiet, peasants, hard-working weavers, quite unconnected with tne Defenders' received notices to go to hell— Connaught would not receive them • their houses were burned, their furniture broken up, and their families driven from their holdings.' The historians Plowden, Gordon, etc., estimate that in one county (Armagh) alone, in the year 1 7 .):,—m ark, three years before the rebellion— seven thousand Catholics, men, women, and children, were driven from their homes or put to the sword. Lord Gosford stated in December of that year :—: — 1 Neither age nor sex, nor oven acknowledged innocence of any guilt is sufficient to excite mercy, much less afford protection. The only crime which the objects of this ruthless persecution are charged with is the simple profession of the Catholic religion. A law Teas banditti have constituted themselves judges of this new species of delinquency, and the sentence they have pronounced is nothing less than confiscation of all property and immediate banishment.' In this year, 1795, Parliament, notwithstanding the opposition of Mr. Grattan, carried an Indemnity Act, which protected magis

tratea who apprehended suspected persons without due authority, or who seized arms or entered houses, or did other divers acts not justifiable by law. Walpole, in his Kingdom of Ireland described what followed :—: — ' All the safeguards of the constitution having been suspended, numbers of persons were taken and flung into prison, and refused bail. Spies and informers were the only witnesses, and of these the Government had a whole army in their pay. The prisons overflowed, and, worse than all, no discipline was maintained among the soldiers, who were allowed to commit all kinds of excesses. They were even encouraged to play havoc with the miserable inhabitants. Houses were plundered and burned, women outraged, and children brutally ill-treated and murdered ; villages and whole districts were devastated.' In the following year, 1796, Sir Ralph Abercromby, the hero of the Egyptian campaign, had command of the Irish army. He describes its condition on his arrival in Ireland as being utterly without discipline, and in one of his letters, speaking of the soldiery, he says : — ' Houses have been burned by them, men murdered, and others half -hanged. Within the past twelve months, every crime, every cruelty, that could be committed by Cossacks or Calmucks, have been committed here.' In February, 1797, Sir Ralph issued a general order appealing to his officers to restrain the soldiery. Immediately the Viceroy called upon him to withdraw this order, and upon refusing to do so, he was forced to resign, protesting that Lord Camden had betrayed the situation of Commander-in-Chief, and had thrown the army in Ireland into the hands of a faction, and made it a tool under their direction. Lord Moira, speaking in the English House of Lords, thus describes the reign of terror that existed in Ireland in 1797 :—: — ' My Lords, — I have seen in Ireland the most absurd as well as the most disgusting tyranny that any nation over groaned under. I have been myself a witness of it in many instances. I have seen it practised unchecked. I have seen the most grievous oppression exercised in consequence of the presumption that the persons who were the unfortunate objects of such oppression were in hostility to the Government, and yet that had been done in a part of the country as quiet and as free from disturbance as the city of London. These were not partioular aots of cruelty exercised by men abusing the power committed to them, but they formed part of a system.' Lord Holland, in his Memoirs of the Whig Party, writes :—: — ' It is a fact incontrovertible that the people were driven to resistence by free quarters, and the excesses of the soldiery, which were Buch as not to be permitted in civilised warefare, even in the enemy's country. Trials by courtmartial were frequent. Floggings, picketings, death, the pitch-cap, were the usual sentences. The measures which lead to the rebellion, suggested by Lord Clare and a remorseless faction, aroused the indignation of every man who had any sense of justice or feeling of humanity. The outrages perpetrated with the sanction of the Government excited horror.' One more quotation and lam done. It is from Mr. Goldwin Smith, who will not be accused of a bias against England. In his Irish History and Irish Character he says: — ' The peasantry, though undoubtedly disturbed state, might have been kept quiet by lenity, but they were gratuitously scourged and tortured into open rebellion. These were the crimes, not of individual ruffians, but of faction, a faction which must take its place in history beside that of Robespierre, Couthon, and Carrier. . . . The dreadful civil war of 17i)8 was the crime, as a candid study of history will prove, not of the Irish people, but of the terroints, who literally R-oaded the people into insurrection.' It is only fair that I should add that the peasantry committed many acts of brutality which are to be deeply regretted and condemned, but it must be remembered they were, with ene or two exceptions, isolated acts of retaliation, and done, not with the sanction, but in direct violation of the orders of their leaders. CONCLUSION. These are the main facts which led to the rebellion. I shall not continue to harass your feeeings with this tale of cruelty and wrong. I have no desire to embitter the feelings and perpetuate the memory of these troubled times. I merely desire to point out these acts of misgovernment which did so much to alienate for the greater part of this century the vast majority of the people ol Ireland from sympathy with the Empire, so that the position being better understood, one of the few remaining difference shall be the more readily adjusted. In concluding an eloquene oration, Dr. Cahill called upon hif> hearers to emulate all their forefathers in an endeavour to bring together all that is good and noble in our national character by adopting one of their great principles : — 'To do all that lies in our power to forward a union of affection and interests among Irishmen of every religious persuasion.' If we do this, he said, the few difficulties that yet remain will soon disappear, and we shall then take our place, as a solid unit, in the great, free, and enlightened empire, to which we have the honour and privilege to belong. (Tht speaker resumed his seat amid tudcott of applause). SIR ROBERT STOUT'S SPEECPI. Sir Robert Stout, who was accorded a very cordial reception. Bail they were met there that evening to commemorate an historical e/ent that was of very great moment to Ireland one hundred years a, r o. It might be asked what need was there to refer to matters fiat happened so long ago ? What had such celebrations to do with us wholived many thousands of miles away from where the incidents to >k place. It seemed to him that the study of history was the m >st useful study in which they could engage. That night they were really but turning over the piges of history which might have nu»t important le=sons for those present. How are we to decide the problems of our time if we do njt know the trials, the failures, the successes, and attempted solutions of similar problems in the past? They were not called upon that night to justify rebellion, nor need

they lay down rules under which revolution was justifiable. An appeal to arms was the last ordeal which men should resort to, when striving against oppression, but they should remember that they were dealing: with a time in history when men had few other means of redress against oppression, and when the oppressed preferred to die fighting: rather than die slaves. This was the resort of many people who had our sympathies, such as the Bulgarians and Cubans. How much more was Buch a resort justified 100 years ago, when there was no popular opinion, no powerful Pre&s to voice the feelings of the people and pway the rulers of the nation. He had not time that evening to sketch the causes that led up to the rebellion of 17D8 ; this Dr. Cahiil had very ably and exhaustively dealt with. He wisheo , however, to disabuse the minds of many people regarding that insurrection who had an erroneous idea concerning it, and to apply the lesson which it taught to our own circumstances to-day. THE IXSURBECTION. In the first place, it was not a Roman Catholic revolution. This w s a popular error held by many persons who had not studied the question. The Society of United Irishmen was first organised in Belfast, and was composed mainly of Protestants. It was some years before it spread to the south and west of Ireland. Its principles were not revolutionary at all. In the first place the Society declared that the weight of English influence was so great as to organise a cordial union of all the people of Ireland to maintain liberty ; that the only constitutional method of opposing that influence was by reform of Parliament ; that no reform was practicable which did not include Irishmen of every religious persuasion. The United Irish Society only demanded redress of the many grievances under which the country suffered by constitutional means, yet before it had adopted any revolutionary ideas it was suppressed by the Government. In inquiring into the causes which led to the action of the United Irish Society in connection with '98 they must look outside of Ireland. An impetus had been given to it by the events which had taken place in France, and the Declaration of Independence in the American colonies — since known as the United States. The United Irishmen having failed to obtain a redress of the grievances under which they laboured for two centuries by constitutional means, were led to follow the example of France and America, where reforms had only been accomplished by revolutionary means. They were forced to take up arms as the only means which seemed successful elsewhere. The Society of United Irishmen had not, as was sometimes erroneously supposed, received any support from the Catholic Church, for many of the priests had been educated in France where the principles then propounded by the revolutionary party were distasteful to the clergy, and consequently many of the Irish priests and bishops were strongly opposed to the new doctrines. Froude, who was not likely to exaggerate the condition of things, said of the time preceding the rebellion :— ' Rarely since the inhabitants of the earth had formed themselves into civilised communities had any country suffered from such a complication of neglect and ill-usage.' Thousands of Presbyterians had been driven from their homes, and found an asylum in the American colonies, Roman Catholics were even worse treated. Lord Charlemont, an ancestor of Lady Ranfurly, writing of the same time, told how a small minority treated the Irish people ' as an inferior race,' and flouted their claims. ' Thus,' said he, ' did Ireland possess many inhabitants, but few citizens.' RUMOURS, ETC. The speaker then referred to rumours and counter-rumours of intende 1 massacres which were propagated in 1798. These rumours, he said, were untrue. The murder of 130 people at Scollabogue inflamed the wrath of the Protestants. Of those killed there, sixteen were Catholics, whilst the insurgent leader was a Protestant. The murder of these people was contrary to the orders of the insurgent leaders. Although many Protestants of the North stood aloof from the war, still most of the leaders were of that faith. As proof of this it might be mentioned that of the twenty prisoners sent to Fort George, Inverness, after the rebellion, ten were Anglicans, •jix Pre&byterians, and four Catholics. The rebellion failed because of dissension and the want of funds and resources, and the pouring in of troops from England. Many Catholics were loyalists and fought against the insurgents. It was, as he said before, not by any means a Catholic rising. He had not time to dwell on what might be called a civil war. and if he had, would it be edifying to detail the cruelties which were inflicted by both sides ? It was estimated that 400 Royalihts were murdered, 2000 rebels exiled or hanged, I,GOO King's troops killed in battle and 11,000 rebels. The destruction of property was great. Neither side could be defended for what was done, but the impartial student must say that the strong who could have shown clemency exhibited little mercy. War is, as has been said, a horrid business at any time, and the war of 171)8 was no exception. It was, however, illumined by yreat heroism, fearlessness, courage, and military strategy, and even those with no military training, like Father John Murphy, lisplayed great generalship. It was doomed to failure, the weak md the divided could not win, however heroic, against the strong md united. Providence, it is said, is on the side of the biggeßt battalions, and the Government had the best and most numerous bodies of armed men. THE LESSON. Now what were the lessons which this page of Irish history taught us ? First, that if we wish for reform and progress we must not" be impatient. The leaders of the United Irishmen got impatient at the slow progress of their agitation for reform, -short cuts are dangerous, and reform must come slowly, and the impatient reformer who thinks he can cure all the ills of the body politic at once, often delays the coming of the wished-for day. Then another lesson learned was that you cannot make people have only one religious belief, no matter how numerous might be penal laws and Test Acts. Men's beliefs are their own concern, and it is a fatal thing for the State to attempt to make all men believe

alike or worship in accordance with one form. Then again they had to learn of the need for union. It ia fatal to cause religious strife and to create class dissensions and distinctions. In a democracy all are entitled to equal rights and privileges, and he is an enemy to hia country who attempts to create prejudices against a class and to foster class strife. The need of both had injured Ireland. If her sons and daughters had listened to the poet who said :—: — ' Stand together, brothers all, From Kerry's cliffs to Donegal Bound in heart and soul together,' what a different Ireland we should have seen. Another lesson from Ireland's past was also the need of union. Long after the Irihh rebellion it was the idea of Comte and others that what we needed was small compact states. But to-day Uni"n is in the air, and perhaps Ireland would have ere now a local parliament, or some other form of local government, were not a few of her sons injudicious enough to talk of separation from the Empire The spirit of the age is one of federation. They needed not s?p iration, but more unity. He had always advocated the Irish people having more local control over Irish affairs, but it would be a fatal blunder to separate themselves from their brothers in England, Scotland and the colonies. Ireland's sons had played no inconsiderable part in the building up of the Empire. Their fathers at both sides sinned, and it was for them not to commit similar sins or perpetrate similar iniquities. After exhorting his hearers to study well the lesson of the past, so as to fit themselves to be good citizens in these colonies, Sir Robert concluded by a fine peroration on the benefits of unity and brotherly Jove. (The speech was frequently and warmly applauded.)