Paddy Atkins

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 51, 21 December 1905, Page 23

Paddy Atkins

Paddy Atkins is assiduously ' coorted ' in the days when the band has begun to play and there's something heavier than atmosphere in the air. But mark the difference when the .piping times of peace have come. Paragraph 3 of the ' Irish Command Orders ' of September 11 notifies an approaching ' vacancy for a drill instructor in the Royal Hibernian Military School.' The school in, question is (says the Dublin ' Freeman ') 'in the main an orphanage for the sons of deceased soldiers. Catholics and Protestants are alike eligible, and there are, if we mistake not, chaplains appointed for all the denominations represented in the school.' But Lord Grenfell's Order officially proclaims religious inequality and intimates, sans phrase, that no Papist— and, for that matter, no Presbyterian or Methodist— need apply for the position of drill instructor to the Royal Hibernian Military School. Thus the Order runs :— ' There will shortly be a vacancy for a color-ser-geant (gun drill instructor) on the establishment of the Royal Hibernian Military School. . . Candidates should not have less than ten years' service, not to be (sic) under the rank of sergeant, and must be married. . . . The religion of applicants must be Church of England.' We should have no great objection to this sort of favoritism if, in the event of war, it was as clearly intimated that all the fighting were to be done by Anglican Tommy Atkinses. But it so happens that this Order represents the usual practice in Ireland. 'An Irish Catholic non-commissioned officer,' says the ' Freeman,' ' has as much chance of getting into one of these posts as a camel through the eje of a needle. . . But the principle of exclusion is not usually proclaimed openly to the men of all ranks ; and Lord Grenfell's Order is, therefore, unusual, though it explains the usual practice.' And yet some New Zealand dailies cannot understand why reci uiting should be unpopular in Ireland, and why it has become difficult in Scotland. ' If,' says the Dublin ' Freeman,' ' the Irish or Scotch lad who is thinking of enlisting is now to be told that, though he may be good enough to cover retreats like those from Spion Kop, or advances like those on the Tugela, when it comes to distributing the " soft jobs " at home his beliefs will be a! disqmalilication, we know what results may be expected to follow.'