Irish iNews

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 22, 2 June 1904, Page 9

Irish iNews

- OUR IRISH LETTER (From our own correspondent.) Dublin, March, 1901 It is proposed to hold an in Dublin in lOOfi Unfortunately, there arc two opinions about tl. is e.xibiticm , one party is for a puiely Irish show, which shall lend in five an impetus 1 o our home manufactures and natural products, and be also National in a display of the vast mine oi objects of Iri^h historical and artistic interest which can so easily be got toother in oui own capital, and which would prove intensely attractive to a large mass of people at home and coming from abroad There is a very widesjpiead feeling that such an exhibition would be of far greater per" manent ser\ice to lndustncs in this country than would be a more showy cosmopolitan one. and that our own beautiful lace, silk wares (oi winch liieie is still a good .-.haie manufactured heie), woollen, linen, damask, and other fabrics, glass and chmn, furniture. silver ware, jewellery, paintings (old and modern), marbles, agricultural, and other products, etc , should make a really i.ne display, and one tihat such a small nation might show with pride, without calling m the aid of, oi running (.he risk of being injured b\ , the more shov y products of Eastern lands or the wares, machinery, and so iortli oi England, France, America, to say nothing of Germany A se<ond party is in a pet o\ er the idea of not having an International exhibition, and threaten not, alone to wit hold support from the proposed National displar, but to take their ' c hajievs ' altogether out of the play and hold an exhibition for themselves in Belfast. This would nisi wpoil both, and" it is a pity the International party should persist, and so probably render any attempt impossible, foi they seem to torget that, seeing the distance Ireland is iroiii other lands, and the gieat cost of tianspoit, few foieign countries would exhibit heie at all, if we except the cheap ti lfles shown by certain Continental traders— (nfles that vist tatch the pennies of the people without being of any use whate\er to the spot wheie tliev are so profusely displaced except to attract crowds away trom the really useful and instruct i\e At present "the two parties are apparently so determined, each m its own opinion, that it looks as if between the two the exhibition project Will fal' to the ground. \n Interesting Exhibit To thi> S1 I ouis (I S ) Exhibition has iust been despatched a most \aluable and interesting Irish exhibit, sent, out by the Department ot Agncuituie and Technical Insfrudion This e\hil)it will ha\e a large space to itself and consists of specimens of most of our minerals, of our present-day products and manufacture-, arK and industries, and also a historical and arts and cm aits loan colled ion ot the celebrated Irish 17th and ISth centuries siher, brass, and copper waii's Cork and Water ford cut glass, lush lace, historical and antiquarian treasure**, coins and tokens connected with hisloucal periods, su< has the landing of (he French vie, altogether one oi the most complete lush collections e\er got together There had ..lso been proleeted an lush art galleiv of pointings and mimatuics portrait^ of illustrious lushmen, by aitids of any school paintings and miniatures by Irish art Ms \ large and \ erv \.iluable col'ection had been brought together and was ready foi shipping when, at the iast moment, Ihe department at St I ouis informed the gentlemen charged with this troublesome and cosllv exhibit that, owinc to the late Chicago and other extensive tires, the rates of insurance m Anienca were so high as to be prohibitne, and so the ait gallery has to be abandoned This is a \crv great pity, as a moM remarkable collection would have been <-hown of the portraits of those whose names are household words amongst InshAmer icans men of '!)8, politicians and patriots, Irish authors, scientists, painters, etc There is quite a section oi O'Connell soii\eTiirs, including the Liberator's umbrella, or rather, the remains of thai obiect, for \ery little is now there sa\e the nbs ajid hand'e The Holy Season of Lent. Never, perhaps, even in the Island of Saints, has Lent been more devout ly observed than this veai All throush the country retreats have been mode and missions ha\e been held In Dublin too, most successful missions ha\e bee>n held, the chnrc ties being crowded during the exercises a.nd Simons, and the close of each marked by the throngs wiio devoutly rec eh ed Holy Communion arid by the impressive ceremony of the renewal of the baptismal vows A touching sight, and

one that could be seen, perhaps, only in Ireland, was witnessed on last Good Friday in Mullmgar. Eight hundred of the officers and men of the Conmaught Rangers marched to the Catholic church and went in a body ■ The Way of the Cross,' the Catholic chaplain reciting the prayers at each station. It may be noted that at killamev. the sermon on the Passion of our Loid was preached in Irish The Orgajuscr ot the Japanese Navy. Now that .Japan is so much to tho fore that all the world is watching with interest the progress of the liii.i.o Japarcc War, i j n u< o mor^ recur* to one's mind that the Japanese Navy was organised by a Cork 'nan, Mi Culliii^, vvl.o now In Co ( u_>t outside his native city and eniovs a handsome pension ironi the Japanese Government I think 1 mentioned this in 1902, when speaking oi the Coik Exhibition of that year, and of the visit of the Japanese Admiral and fleet to that town, when Mr Collins, along with the Lord Mayor and some other citi/ens, did the honors ot our southern capital to the \dmual and his stall, when the latter were received in the pavilion esnecia'ly devoted to the New Zealand exhibit During that visit the ofltoers and men oi the fleet came ashoie m batches of 300, and everyone was stunk with the gentle, boyisih-mannered and too} ish-lookiiig little follows, who went about in groups otten hand-in-hand like school girls. I wai> amused to see thai, so unlike the rough English naval man, these little icliov. s were most courteous in their manners to any of their own countrymen or of the Chinese who kept stalls at the exhibition; they even carried visiting cards and nresented them to the Japanese stallholders, one ot whom handed over a card to me, exp'aining that the characters m-eant that ' K. Asawd ' was a sailor on board such a ship. The grave little owner himself bowed in a very pleased and polite style on :. Ting that I took his card, which I still have, and wonder how ' K. Vsawd ' is faring in the present crisis: has he covered himself with glory, or has he gone to the fields of everlasting flowers^— or whatever the Japanese idea of heaven is The New Provost of Trinity College. There is almost consternation over the appointment of 1 lie new Piovost of Trinity College, Dublin ; coming, as it does, immediately upon the manner in which Mi Baliour and Mr Wjndham have turned their backs upon all tneir previous' — well, almost promises with regard to the giant ing of a Catholic Lnivcrsity. The appointment oi I)i Traill, one of the greatest and narrowest of Orange bigots iiom the North of Ireland who evet got a Fellowship m TCI), is received by the Catholics as one of those ' flouts and gibes and sneers,' the gitt ior whuh Mi Balfour appears to have inherited from his uncle Lord Salisbury, who was once desenhed by Disraeli as past master of such weapons. So blindly bigoted is Dr Traill— a medical, not a divinity doctor— that it has otten been said that when he entered upon any question relating to any mallei concerning line Catholic religion, he left the 1i«nl of the serpent all over the matter. Amongst Pi otcst ant s, there is expiessed widespread disapproval c-t the choice, for not only is Di Traill unpopular amongst his co-r eligionists, who are anxious to show lair play to Catholics or who consider that the time is eniniin:, when tlieie will be worldly wisdom in bowing to the inevitable but he is not a man of any eminence whate\er he is a nai row -minded, and anything but a siholailv man m lad, much capital has been made out oi the iac i that on the very day of his appointment to the Ptov o -.tship of TCD — one of the most valuable and coveted pu/es in Europe— a letter from Dr Traill, containing a decided slip m grammar, appeared in print. No one seems able lo brin^ torward any reason for the extraordinary appointment, save 'the tap of the Orange drun.' whnh appears .is powerful wit v h this Government as ever Some think it was a mere piece of rvmeism on Mr Balfour s pait to tluu-A aside- learned men, divines, more than one of whom could be worthily to fill the chair vacated by the death of the late Dr Salmon, who was certainly a broad-minded scholar The tad lemains that both Irish Catholics and veiy many lush Protest, ants have a very bitter feeling on the Mibiect — for which feeling Mr. Balfour does not care two pence. A Memorial of Moore Ml thmg-S come to them that wait For two generations strangers to Dublin have invariably stopped in wonder or in admiration, before two groups of statuary which are within a stone's throw of each other : in admiration, before the great Fo-!ev's fine statue of Edmund Burke and that of Oliver Goldsmith— the 130 th anrmersarv of whose death will be commemorated a few days hence by the admirers of his incomparable genius \ lsitors pause before the statue of Tom Mooro in wonder wonder, that an eminently artistic people, a& Ruskin declares the Irish to bo, can tolerate the

parody on a statue that disfigures one of the principal thoroughfares of the city. This hideous libel on our National poet was the outcome of a ' job ' , I really cannot call to mind to what hack the job was given and public money paid. Of a certainty, it has long been an eyesore in a city that possesses so many line monuments to public men. Now, at last, the greateat and sweetest of our poets, and the most truly National, is about to have a fitting memorial laised to his memory m Dublin A movement is on foot to invite subscriptions, and there is no doubt but that sufficient funds will be forthcoming lor the purpose There is a double pleasure to Irishmen m this movement, la.li- a^ it Lointb. Foi a biief while, it vva-.s the humor of a certain number to deny the genius, the beauty, the nationality oi Mooie s poems. Bui ' ihc unswerving demotion of the people, the spint that awoke and kept awake by his poetry could never have been evoked by a false poet : there was no use- in trvmg to tear Tom Moore oil his pedestal , he is there today, a» truly loved and adnnied as in the days when he sang his own melodies to charmed circles, and will bo there, and in the hearts of the people, while Ireland claims a place amongst Nations Alas ' that there is no Foley to chisel a statue worthy of Moore M.B