Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXV, Issue 36, 5 September 1907, Page 27

Irish News

ANTRIM— The Belfast Strike Here is what Mr. T. I-I. Sloan, M.P., had to say about -the strike at an .Orange meeting in Jbelfast on July 12 :— While the ddclc laborers and carters might not all be right, no man could convince him that they were all wrong ; and, if there was a combina-' tion amongst the masters to safeguard their inter- , ests, the men had an equal right to combine to protect their interests. He understood that the men were asking for the right to submit the matter to arbitration, and the masters had denied it. In that case he thought that the sooner the men put their backs .. against the wall and faced the situation the sooner their courage and pluck would win the battle. Later . on a collection was taken up at the meeting on behalf of the strikers. / CARLOW— Congestion in Rural Districts In proposing a resolution at Carlow Board of Guardians, which was passed, ' asking the Commission on Congestion to hold a sitting in Callow, Mr. Purcell stated that in the ruial district of Siievemargy there were 164 holdings of less than an acre, 309 less than five acres, and 283 less than ten acres, and between Carlow and Aries there were from 2000 to 3000 acres under grass. DONEGAL— Peaceful State of the County Donegal is one of Ireland's most Gaelic and Nationalist counties (.says the ' Irish Weekly '). It has many policemen, and they are vigilant. Two silly cases were all Lord. Justice Fitzgibbon had to try on Tuesday. Donegal is .mainly a poor place ;• yet the people are peaceable. The Judge said 'He was very glad that County Donegal belonged to a very . large and very important section of Irela-nd, of which they heard much less, than it deserved, the part of the country in which law and order were respected.', Many of his colleagues on the bench have been ranting about the iniquities of those who do not ' respect ' ' law and order, but none of them have, mentioned the excellent reasons why the people can not anil will not respect what means to therm misery during their lives. Donegal is peaceful, though the people are mainly poor : there are no great grazing ranches there. Turning from' Donegal to England, we find in one column of an English paper reports of two brutal murders, an execution, some burglaries, and five or six other serious crimes. DUBLIN— Irish Arts and Crafts When the King and Queen visited the Dublin Exhibition they were received in the Irish Arts and Crafts. Section by Count Plunkett, to whom their Majesties expressed their pleasure at the sight of so much beautiful work. The King purchased a very c lever example of enamelling, a copper coin-box decorated with emblems by Miss Doran, of the Metropolitan .School of Art. The Chief Secretary bought a dainty painted jewel case, from the same collection. A commission for £500 worth of wood-carvings ■ has just been given to this Section, which was organised by the Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland. The King's Appreciation The Earl of Aberdeen, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has received from Lord Tweedmoulh, Minister in Attendance on the King, a letter conveying to the Irish people his Majesty's and the Queen's most warm and appreciative gratitude for the very enthusiastic- reception given them during the Dublin visit. Castle Methods It has transpired in connection with the robbery at Dublin Castle that the Ulster King at Arms asked, the Board of Works to build a strong room in which to keep the safe wherein the jewels were kept. The room was duly built, and then it was found that the entrance was too narrow to admit the safel Sir Arthur Vicars then asked for a smaller safe, but was informed there was no more money. A Generous Benefactor Mr. Richard Croker has given £.500 to St. Vincent's Hospital, Dublin. This gift will be greatly ap- ' preciated by the Hospital ' authorities, who, hampered as they are by lack of means, are nevertheless, doing a noble work. v

Provincial of the Dominican Order Sincere regret was felt in Dublin 1 at the news o£ the death of the Very Rev. Lewis J." Rickey, 0.P., which took place in Rome on July 13.' Born in Dublin in • 1840, Father , Hiclcey entered, the Dominican Order at an early age, and made "a brilliant course of studies in Rome and Louvain. On his return to lre^. land he taught theology for some years in Tallaght and Cork, and was, afterwards Prior of several houses of the Order, including that of Dublin. In, 1887' he went' to Rams as Prior of San Clemento, and in 1896 he was elected Provincial of the Irish Province of the Order, and held this office for eight years. A couple' of months ago he went to Rome. to attend a General ■ Chapter of the Order, though at the. time, owing to ill-health,' he was quite unlit to travel. Charitable Bequests A probate suit involving r bequests to Dublin- hospitals and Catholic charitable institutions came before the Master of the Rolls, Dublin, recently, in the mat-, ter of the Hughes charity. Marcus Walter Hughes* devised over £30,000 to his 1 executors (Mr. Maher and^ Mr. W. Craig) in trust to (among other purpose's) pay' large sums to practically all the Dublin^ hospitals, and to several Catholic institutions in and outside the city. By a codicil Mr. Hughes directed that the residue of his estate 1 . should go to the establishing and maintaining of a Catholic Girls.' Orphanage and School in County Dublin, for the training of Catholic orphan girls of from fifteen to seventeen years of age for positions as-domestic servants or for higher positions, according to their abilities. The case now came up with regard to the latter bequest. The Master of the :Rolls approved of the scheme as submitted. The chiarity will be called the t M&'rcus .Walter 'Hug|hes Technical Training Beq,uest, and the Commissioners of > Charitable Donations will pay the income annuallyto the local Superioress (for the time being) of the Sisters of Charity, Upper Temple street, Dublin, where the trust will be carried out. A Distinguished Convert' Rev. Father Basil 'Maturin, the celebrated pulpit ' orator, is at present in Dublin (writes a correspondent of the ' Catholic Weekly ' under date July 14), where, in the Carmelite Church, AVhitefriars street, he is delivering a course of daily sermons. It may not be generally known 'to your readers that Father Maturin is an Irishman, having been born in Dublin, and having graduated in Dublin University. After a most distinguished career as an Anglican clcrgman, embracing such different -spheres of action as the Established Church in rural England, a < long residence in Capetown and in Philadelphia, and a missionary career amongst the well-known Cowley Fathers, he at length found the truth in the one True Church about a dozen years ago. His merits as • a preacher are widely known. But his name and the recollection of, some of its bearers are an assurance that his personality alone should attract thousands in 'Dublin. The Maturins, a Huguenot family, have been settled in Ireland for over two centuries, and it is somewhat remarkable that in almost every generation the representatives of the ' name were Protestant clergymen. The late Rev. William Maturin, D.D., who died about twenty years ago, was the father of our distinguished visitor of this week. He was many years Rector of Grangegorman, in this city, and was no less distinguished ' for .his great merit as a preacher than for his earnest and lifelong advocacy of what are known as High Church views. The father of the late Rev. Dr. Maturin was even more widely celebrated, being indeed no other than the famous Charles Robert Maturin, also a clergyman, and one of the most renowned preachers of his day, but known wherever English literature is .known as Ihe author of the. powerful tragedy of ' Bertram ' and of the enthralling romance of ' Melmoth the Wanderer,' and other works of fiction admired by some of the greatest writers of an age of great writers. He died in the same year as Byron,/ to whom, he' was somewhat akin as a • writer. GALWAY — Scathing Exposure of Landlordism A few ■ weeks ago we were informed by cable that Lord Ashtown was the victim of an agrarian outrage whilst staying at his shooting lodge at Wexford. As very few people in these colonies had ever of the noble lord before this alleged .outrage', the • following character sketch, by Mr. Lindsay Crawford at an Orange meeting at Magheramorne on ' July 13, as reported in the Belfast ' Irish Weekly ' of July 20, will be of interest : — Lord Ashtown was the leader of a band of Irish Unionists who were slandering and vilifying their country across the Channel. He was the descendant of

a man who took Castlereagh's bribe at the .Union for betraying his country. In the course of an examina^ tion, Lord' Ashtown objected to, one of the cottages being planted on his estate; because it would necessitate ' the cutting down of some sycamore trees. They all knew that •' .Lord Ashtown preferred bullocks to Irishmen, but on his own admission he preferred to see, an Irish laboring man and his family in a wretched unsanitary hut ratlier than disturb a few sycamore trees. Evidently Lord Ashtown had not improved much on his ancestor of Union feme. In the course of an inquiry it transpired that Lord Ashtown had dismissed a number of Roman Catholic laborers on his estate for no other reason X apparent to these men than that they were not Protestants. As a matter of fact, it was an open secret in Orange circles— and he challenged Lord Ashtown to deny the fact— that for some time past he had been organising for the plantation of Protestant farmers and laborers in the West to take the place of dispossessed and unemployed Catholics. Was it any wonder that there was unrest and lawlessness in pacts of the West when men like Lord Ashtown placed greater value on sycamore trees than on an Irish Roman Catholic laborer, and whose idea of Unionism was. to drive the unfortunate Roman Catholics from the stony and barren hills and bogs into which they were driven in days gone by when under cruel penal laws they were forced to choose between ' hell ana Connaught ?' And what, continued Mr. Crawford,, were the conditions of labor on the Ashtown estate ? In examination before the Local Government inspector, Lord Ashtown said he employed 100 men on his estate at an annual cost in wages £2,870, which worked out at the munificent sum of 10s 6d per week for each laborer. Yet, under those miserable conditions of labor the harassed Papist ■ could find no rest for the sole of his foot on the Ashtown estate. Sycamore trees and bullocks were more sacred in the eyes of this traducer of Ireland than the lives of men, women, and children, who were eking out a miserable existence in the West of Ireland. KlLKENNY— Selecting a Representative A convention was held on July 15 at Ballyhale, for the purpose of selecting a candidate for South Kilkenny. The Rev. John O'Shea, Thomastown, president of the Executive, presided, and Mr. David Sheehy represented the National Directory. The canditates proposed were :— Mr. Richard J. Ryan, Thomastown ; Mr. Nicholas J. Muiphy, merchant, Ballyhale ; Mr. Matthew -Keating, London. A division was taken, with the following result :— Murphy, 39 ; Keating, 37 , Ryan, 19. Rev. J. Bremen, Mo.oncoin, the proposer of Mr. Keat- - ing,~ withdrew that gentleman's name, and Mr Murphy was unanimously adopted as candidate. * LIMERICK— A Successful Architect Mr. W. K. Ryan, architect and engineer, of Leadenhall street, London, and Richmond, Surrey, who in open competition has been awarded first prize for plans and designs for the proposed new Technical Institute for Limerick, is a well-known London Irishman. He was one of the original members of the Southwark Irish Society with Mr. Fahy, Mr. Percival Graves, and Mr. D. J. O'Donoghue, and is also a well-known member of the Irish Literary Society and other social and political bodies. He has been Mayor of the Corporation of Richmond, and is now, or very ' recently was, an alderman of that ancient borough. A native of Limerick, though some twenty years professionally established in London, it must be gratifying to him and to his Limerick friends to know he has carried off the coveted prize. y . v Over the Century The death took place early in July at the age of 312 years of Mrs. Mary Mangan, Kilmeedy, Limerick, LOUTH— Clerical Appointment His Eminence Cardinal Logue has appointed Rev. T. Cassidy, P.P., Tenure, to the pastoral charge of the parish of Dromiskin, County Louth, in succession to the Rev. J. Healy, P.P., deceased. MAYO — A Centenarian The death took place at Ballina on July 11 of * Mrs. Ryder, who had attained the age of 105 years. ~ Deceased was in possession of all her faculties up to a few days before -her death. - SLlQO— Death of a Solicitor • - ■ . Mr. Valentine B. *Dillon, Sessional Crown Solicitor of Sligo, died "at his residence, Sligo, on July 13. Mr. Dillon, who' was about 90 years of age, was an uncle of Mr. John Dillon, M.P. He practised in Dublin formerly, but for the last forty,, years was engaged in 1 business in Sligo.