Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 26, 1 July 1909, Page 1027

Irish News

CLARE— Evicted Tenants Mr. William Redmond has received a letter from the Estates Commissioners stating that 130 evicted ten-ants-in County Clare have been reinstated or provided with holdings, and 30 others have been registered for consideration in the allotment of untenanted land. Proceedings' are pending before the Commissioners with a view to the acquirement of close on 2000 acres of untenanted land under the Evicted Tenants Act. CORK— The New Member As we were advised by cable at the time, the Irish Parliamentary party, at a meeting in the House of Commons on May 12, decided by an overwhelming majority against admitting Mr. Maurice Healy, recently elected for Cork City* to the party. He was introduced in the House of Commons by his brother, Mr. T. M. Healy, and Mr. Eugene Crean. A Consumptive Sanatorium The Countess of Aberdeen laid the foundation-stone recently of the first county /consumptive sanatorium in Ireland, provided by the Joint Hospital Board for County Cork. Mr. William O'Brien A Home exchange says, on what it is stated to be good authority, that not only has Mr. William O'Brien, who resigned his Parliamentary seat in Cork recently, retired from politics, but it is his intention to take up his residence permanently in Jerusalem, where he will live in complete retirement. Irish Priests Honored A number of priests of the Archdiocese of Boston, U.S.A., have just been raised to the dignity of Monsignor by his Holiness. Two of the new Monsignori are of Irisfi birth. They are the Rev. Jeremiah E. Millerick, born in Newtown, County Cork, and now pastor of St. Joseph's Church, West End, Boston, and the Rev. John O'Brien, a native of Garranjames, parish of Mogeela, County Cork. DOWN— An Agricultural Bank The benefits conferred on the small farmer and trader by the establishment of agricultural banks has been practically exemplified by the success of the Mullaghbawn bank as disclosed at the annual meeting on May 2. • We are told that the secretary read the balance sheet and the auditors' report, and the latter was so eminently satisfactory that its adoption was passed unanimously. Two hundred and eight loans were granted during the year 1908. These totalled £1771 10s, the average amount being £8 10s 4d. A very satisfactory feature of the transactions of the bank is that out of the £1771 10s lent, £1500 is money deposited in the bank by parishioners. Thus the bank is conferring a double benefit to the people of the parish, and it speaks well for all concerned with the management of the bank that such a large amount as £1500 should be entrusted to their care by the people of the parish. The reserve fund now stands at £75, and is another tribute to the zeal and great care exercised in the management. At the end of the year there was only one outstanding loan, and it has since been paid. DUBLlN— Consecration of a Prelate On Sunday, May 15, the Most Rev. J. P. Dowling, 0.P., was consecrated Archbishop of Port-of -Spain by his Grace, the Archbishop of Dublin in St. Saviour's Church, Dominick street, Dublin. GALWAY— A Scheme of Scholarships Galway County Council, on the proposal of Mr. T. J. O'Malley, • has sanctioned a resolution adopting a ' scheme of scholarships, and providing a rate for same to enable talented boys and girls, natives of County Galway, to enter the University College, Galway, such scholarships to be open only to students who have taken Irish as a subject for matriculation in the college. Not Willing to Sell The Rev. Father O'Hara, Kiltimagh, speaking in East Mayo recently, said that there were 200 landlords in Galway who were not willing to sell their holdings to the tenants. They wanted compulsion, and what was true of Galway was true to some extent of other counties in Connaught. LIMERICK— A School of Commerce A school of commerce- in connection with the Technical School has been established in Limerick. Provided

that certain sums be subscribed locally, the Government has promised a subsidy for the first three years of its existence. - LONGFORD— A Windfall The New York correspondent of the London Ohserver, telegraphing on May 8, says the Philadelphia Court on the previous day dealt with the estate of John Dignam, who had a remarkable career. He emigrated from Ireland in 1854, and obtained employment in the United States as a grocer's boy. He eventually embarked in business on his own account, and became very' wealthy. He never married, and at his death it was found that he liad not made a will. The administrators of his estate, however, discovered that the heirs-at-law were three brothers and two sisters who lived in comparative poverty in Irer land. There had been no communication between Dignam and his family for half a century, and the brothers and sisters were quite unaware of the deceased's vast fortune. After "paying all administration expenses and the incidental lawyers' fees, the court ordered upwards of £30,000 to be paid to "each of the brothers and sisters. The brothers are named Peter, Paul, and Patrick, while the sisters are Mrs. Ellen Mulligan and Mrs. Margaret Smyth, and they are all 'over 70 years of age and reside in County Longford. MAYO — Improvement of Holdings Mr. John Dillon, M.P., speaking recently at Swinford, said : — One • other work that ought to be done in this district has been done already round the town of Ballaghadereen, where I live. I know nothing in Ireland more encouraging and more inspiriting than to see the way our people are taking advantage of the little help that has been given to them to improve their holdings. There are hundreds, I may say thousands, of cottages round Ballaghadereen as neat and tidy homes as any in the country. "What has done it? The Congested Districts Board and Father O'Hara and his parish committees, and coming along the road to-day I saw in every direction outhouses, neatness and tidiness, and in some places even orchards being planted by the sides of the houses; and I say that never has so good a work been attempted amongst any people, and never had any people so well responded to the little help they got. They are sending vans round the country to explain to you how to keep yourselves free from tuberculosis. I don't object to that; but, for my part, I have a great deal more faith in the new houses, where there are good windows and dry, elevated floors. What was it that made the people die of tuberculosis and other disease? It was the damp and rottenness of the houses, -and want of decent windows, and the rotten thatch; and now on every side you see improvement. Take these O'Connell tenants. The Board has been criticised frequently for keeping these estates too long on their hands. I don't agree with that criticism. I think the Board, on every estate it gets, ought to build at least half a dozen modern houses with these new, dry, elevated floors. Then, after they had done that, I would let the people build their own houses, and give them money to do it. But they ought to show them' the way to, build these really healthy and good houses. This, in my opinion, is the great work before us in East ( Mayo. MONAQHAN— Agricultural Development At a recent meeting of the Monaghan Committee of Agriculture, the Technical Instruction Committee recommended the continuance of the two lace instructors at a salary of £45 a year each, the two manual instructors at £120 and £125 respectively, and the- domestic economy - instructress at £80. The balance from previous years ■ they recommended to be used for the purpose of employing a commercial teacher for the urban districts and for any other purposes required. The scheme was unanimously adopted. ROSCOMMON— A Patriotic Task Mr. J. D. Hayden, M.P., who presided at a lecture in Roscommon, ■ under the auspices of the Town Tenants' Association, by Mr. Lindsay Crawford, on l Ulster and Nationality,' said no man could devote himself to a more patriotic task than that to wKich Mr. Crawfprd had devoted himself for some years past, that of bringing together Irishmen who, although they may differ in some respects, yet had the feeling that Ireland was their common - country. Mr. Crawford, in the of his remarks, referred to the retirement of Mr. O'Brien, and said that Mr. Redmond had now the way left clear for him to pull _ the country together, and had an opportunity which no Irish leader had of bringing Protestant Ulster into tho movement by a statesmanlike 1 and conciliatory attitude towards those outside his party. For himself Mr. Crawford said he would prefer that the country should retain the friendship and services of men like Lord Dunraven, Sir Horace Plunkett, and the landlords who had shown

a sincere desire to help the country rather than the studied friendship of Mr. Asquith, whose miserable interpretation of Irish spirit, as shown in the Council Bill, did not promise much for Ireland. TIPPERARY— ThurIes Cathedral There have just been erected in the Thurles Cathedral two new altar rails enclosing the side altars, one of which has been presented by the Most Rev. Dr. Ryan, Archbishop of Philadelphia, a native of Thurles, and the other is in memory of the late Mr. James Quirke, of Thurles. WEX FORD— Statistics of the County The administrative county is divided into 10 baronies, and contains 144 parishes and 1600 townlands, having a population in 1901 of 104,104 — males, 51,756; females, 52,348 (Catholics, 95,435; Episcopalians, 7859; Presbyteiians, 271; Methodists, 342 ;. others, 197), or 22,122 families, occupying 21,608 houses; also 1540 uninhabited. It is in Ferns diocese, with a small portion in that of Dublin. Towns having more than 500 inhabitants in 1901 — Wexford, 11,168; New Ross, 5847; Enniscorthy, 5448. The county returns two members to Parliament; registered electors, 1902 — North Division, 9953; South Division, 8715; with 14 polling places. The county comprises 576,757 acres, of which 192,149 acres are under crops. A Local Industry The Hon. James McGee, Clerk to the Privy Council at Ottawa, Canada, and brother to D'Arcy McGee, the poet and historian, who was assassinated in 1868, has sent one thousand dollars to the Mayor of Wexford to assist in establishing a bacon factory in his native town. GENERAL The Hibernian Socieny and the Irish Party The trustees of the United Irish Parliamentary anil National Fund have received a sum of £105 from the H.A.C.B. Society. The corresponding secretary of the Hibernian Society, writing from Adelaide under date March 31, says — ' I am forwarding herewith draft for £105 (one hundred guineas), being a further instalment of the £1000 tribute promised by the Hibernians of Australia and New Zeaand at the biennial meeting held in Adelaide, in 1905. This brings the total subscribed to date and sent your gallant Party, £705. You will understand that the visit of Messrs. Devlin and Donovan, M.P.'s, to our shores, in 1906, caused the Hibernians' tribute to be suspended in order that the success ,of their mission in a financial sense should be absolutely assured.' Comparisons in Toleration In the course of a speech at Bolton, England, on May 9 Mr. John Redmond gave some examples of how minorities are treated in different parts of Ireland. He said: — I will take two samples, one from the Protestant part • of Ireland in the North and the other from the South, which is overwhelmingly Catholic^ I take four Protestant counties — Armagh, Antrim, Fermanagh, and Tyrone. They have a population of 537,479 souls. The Catholics number 40 per cent, of the whole, because you must remember, ladies and gentlemen, that there is no part of Ulster which is so overwhelmingly Protestant, as the South and the most of Ireland are overwhelmingly Catholic. As a matter of fact, take Ulster as a whole — the population is about equally divided between Protestants and Catholics, and, if you leave out Belfast, the rest of the province would show a majority of Catholics. I have taken four of what are called Protestant counties with a population of over half a million, of which 40 per cent, are Catholics. Of course, County Councils are entirely in the hands of the Protestant majority, and I find that amongst salaried appointments, large and small, in the /lands of the elected Councils of these four Protestant counties, that although the Catholics are 40 per cent, of the population, they only hold 12 per cent, of the appoint-, ments. Let them turn to the other side of the picture. Here are four rebel counties of the South-west. They are four which would be called Papist counties, where the - spirit of intolerance would oppress the small Protestant minority. Let us take Galway, Cork, Westmeath, and King's County. They have a population of 718,970, and of the huge population only 7 'per cent, are Protestant. Yet I find that this 7 per cent, hold 23 per cent, of the salaried appointments. I might push this further. Let_ 'me take one Catholic county by itself. In County Cayan the Protestants are 20 per cent, of the whole population, but under the intolerant and tyrannical will of the Cavan County Council, elected by a majority of Catholics, 20 per cent, of the Protestants enjoy 47 per cent, of the salaried appointments.