Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 12 October 1911, Page 2035

Irish News

CORK-^-Travels of an Australian Priest There arrived here during, the last week of August (writes a Queenstown correspondent) the Rev. E. Goidanich, priest, who has revisited his native town after an absence of over twenty years. During his stay here he has been the guest of the Right Rev. R. Browne, Bishop of Cloyne. Father Goidanich is now and has been for years past rector of an important and wide district in the land of the Southern Cross. We are accustomed at times to hear of brilliant cycle feats, but that of Fatner Goidanich will stand out as a splendid proof of his physical power and marvellous energy, and demonstrates in a marked manner what can be accomplished in the way of world travel on a bicycle when one has the will to avail of it. After his arrival at Naples from Australia his determination was to reach Rome, and after only a brief stay at Naples he started for the Eternal City, and cycled there, and had the privilege of having an audience with the Holy. Father. At Rome he spent a month, and after grasping much of the details of the City of the Popes he mounted his bicycle again on his way to the home of his boyhood. It was cycle riding after leaving Rome took him through Florepce, Turin, Ivrea, where he visited the shrine of the Blessed Thaddeus. Next he proceeded to Aosta, and thence over the Great St. Bernard Mountain, at the Hospice of which he spent a night, and to climb to which he had to carry his bicycle for many miles on his back, but the feat took nothing out of Father Goidanich. He then descended the valley, and came through Geneva, and all the cities and towns en route until he reached Paris, from which he cycled through to Calais, and thus travelled from Naples to Rome and from Rome all through to Calais without any aid but his bicycle and his own marvellous powers of endurance. Having crossed over to Dover, he next reached the North of Ireland before reaching Queenstown. DONEGAL—A Successful Mission Scenes of great enthusiasm marked the welcome home which greeted Rev. Father O’Doherty, Kilcar, County Donegal. Father O’Doherty had been to the United States, where he had been making an appeal for the funds necessary towards the extinction of the debt which hung over the new church in Kilcar. His mission had been most successful, and he returned home with money sufficient to wipe off the debt completely, lather O’Doherty, who was accompanied by several distinguished visitors from the States, was presented with an address of welcome, to which he feelingly replied in Irish — the language of the district. DUBLIN—Death of a Carmelite The death occurred on August 17 of Rev. J. B. Leybourn, a beloved member of the Carmelite community, Whitefriar street, Dublin, in the 74th year of his age and in the 47th of his religious life. Father Leybourn was one of the first of the Carmelite Fathers who founded missions of the Order in South Australia and Melbourne, whither he went in 1881. Church Spires An interesting story was told some years ago by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin with regard to the last visit of the late Cardinal Moran to Dublin. -On that occasion he was the guest of the Archbishop. When the two great ecclesiastics were enjoying a ‘ bird’s eye view ’ of Dublin from the highest point of the archiepiscopal palace the Cardinal remarked that it was very strange that all the big church spires were on the south side of the Liffey. The Archbishop confessed that this fact had never struck him before, but upon examination he found that the Cardinal was perfectly right. ' It was not long after this that the Archbishop was requested to preside at a meeting in support of the proposed extension by the Vincentian Fathers of the magnificent church at Phibsborough. His Grace took advantage of this occasion to tell the story of Cardinal Moran s comment, and appealed humorously to Father Geoghegan to remove this reproach to the north side

of Dublin. He promised that he would contribute more than he had originally intended, and asked . the Vincentians to undertake to have a splendid spire erected by the time of Cardinal Moran’s next visit to Dublin, which he trusted would be soon. Then, he said, he would be able to show that the north side of Dublin had a church spire to be proud of. This, suggestion was certainly taken up very earnestly by the Vincentian Fathers. The splendid steeple which now adorns their church is indeed one to be proud of. It towers over all the other spires in Dublin, and' evokes the admixation of all who see it. Cardinal Moran, had he been spared to see it, would have been delighted with this great monument of Catholicity in Dublin. ... The Parnell Monument Mi. St. Gauden s statue of Parnell, which has been elected at a cost of about .£9OOO, was unveiled iii Dublin on October 1. A vast gathering 1 witnessed a procession of the Nationalist societies through - the : city. Thousands of excursionists came from the west and north, but the strike necessitated the cancelling of the Munster excursions. Mr. Redmond, in unveiling the memorial, said''that Mr. Parnell had found the Irish peasants serfs, and had made them free men. . • Home Rule was now in the position it occupied before Mr. Parnell’s death, and in addition the House of Lords’ power to oppose it had gone. GALWAYAustralian Visitors On August 21 Sir Newton Moore, K.C.8., AgentGeneral of Western Australia, and Mr. T. Mollov Mayor of Perth, Western Australia, accompanied by Mr. R. L. Gilbert, one of the officials of the Emigration Office London arrived by motor in Galway, and were met at the Railway Hotel by a representative deputation. Questioned as to the possibilities of the All-Red Route in connection with which Galway is advocated as the termina! port on the Atlantic side. Sir Newton Moore said the question possessed most interest for the eastern coast of Australia, but it would also mean a great advantage to the Western portion of the Commonwealth, as it would effect a great saving in the matter -of time He also expressed his appreciation of the advantages possessed by Galway as a terminal port. In reply to queries on the Home Rule question, he said that there should be Home Rule all round, and that the Imperial Parliament instead of representing England, Ireland' and Scotland as - at present, should be representative also of all the Colonies. Under the present system Australia had a grievance by reason of the fact that she could be involved in a war by the Imperial Government without having any say in the matter. This would not be the case it Australia was represented in the Imperial Parliament which at present only represented England Ireand and Scotland. Western Australia had now a ’trade of eight millions a year with Great Britain whose goods got a preference of 5 per cent., and this cost the country one million annually. Mr. Molloy, Mayor of Perth who left Athlone for Western Australia in 1862, stated that he was delighted to see the great improvement that had taken place in Ireland. ~ KERRY Muckross Estate „„„ Mr William B. Rowan, of San Francisco, has purchased from Lord Ardilaun the Herbert Estate at t Arf ’ Hillarney, which contains the famous Abbey tLfrt T SS ’-, a t ariCe D of - 60 ’ 000 - 14 is understood that the family of Mr. Rowan’s son-in-law, Mr. Arthur Vincent, who is the second son of. Col. A. Vincent nf Summerhill, Co. Clare, will reside on the estate. ’ •; MONAGHANDeath of a Well-known Lady The death is reputed of Mrs. Catherine McKenna Moy Ernga!, Monaghan, mother of the Right Rev’ Dr. McKenna, Bishop of Clogher. 8 TIPPERARY— New Abbot of Roscrea _ The election of Lord Abbot of the Cistercian Monastery of Mount St. Joseph, Roscrea, in room of the late lamented Right Rev. Camillus Beardwood took place at the Monastery on August 21. The election took place m the presence of the Very Rev. , Dean Scanlan, P.P., V.G., Birr, and the Ven. Archdeacon Stuart, P.P., Roscrea. Only members of Mount. St. Joseph

Community who are in Orders took part in the election, which resulted in'the, selection of the present Prior, the Rev. Father Justin McCarthy. Father Justin was born near Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, on October 31 1861, and entered Mount St. Joseph ’s in 1881. GENERAL The Late Cardinal, Moran,. Ireland (says a Dublin ' correspondent) deeply deplores the death of the great prelate who has passed away so unexpectedly under the Southern Cross. A distinguished Churchman, he was also an ardent and unflinching patriot, whose purse and pen supported the National movement in season and out of season. Ireland’s envoys to Australia were, on their various missions to that distant land, received with open arms by Cardinal Moran. He was a towe*' of strength to them and left nothing in his power undone to make - their undertaking successful. Mr. John Redmond, M.P., was but voicing the feelings of the country when he sent the following message to Monsignor O’Haran, the late Cardinal’s secretary:— ‘ In Ireland’s name the Irish Party send an expression of deepest sorrow on the death of patriotic prelate; a cedar has fallen upon Lebanon.’ The Carlow Board of Guardians passed* the following resolution unanimously: —‘ That the news to hand of the death of.his Eminence Cardinal Moran, a native of County Carlow, which has bereaved.the Church of one of its princes and has saddened the hearts of Irishmen the world over, imposes on us the solemn duty of recording our deepest sorrow in this great Catholic and National bereavement, through which the Sacred College has lost one of its most illustrious members and the Ireland of his birth a champion as potent and as outspoken as sacred cause has ever had.’ The Corporation of Kilkenny City, in which his Eminence resided when Bishop of Ossory, also passed a resolution deploring his death and expressing sympathy with his relatives. Praise for Irish Pupils I have, just spent three enjoyable weeks in the West and South-west of Ireland (writes an English correspondent of the Irish News). Being interested in educational matters at home, I paid visits to a large number of primary schools in three counties—Galway. Cork, and Kerry—and though much is to be desired in respect of accommodation, etc., and the method of teaching some subjects, I found all the children very intelligentsome exceptionally intellectual. The pupils of schools in which the old tongue of Ireland was taught appeared especially bright. At one place 1 offered a few little prizes ’ for the best piece of composition on a local ‘subject,’ and I chose about twelve youngsters between the ages of 11 and 14 as competitors. The results were surprising, I could not decide between four vigorously written examples of English writing I had almost said ‘ literature ’; and all the essays were of a high order of merit. Some of • the boys could have written just as well in Irish, I was told ; but I did not want to advertise my own inferiority by asking them to do so. The correspondent bears out some remarks made on the teaching of Composition in National Schools by Dr. Starkie in the University Extension Lecture at Belfast. The Resident Commissioner said; ‘ln 1900 the subject was practically nonexistent. In 1911, it may be said, with equal truth, that it is now regarded by the inspectors and the teachers as the central feature of the programme. By no other subject, to an equal extent, is the character of a school estimated. For eight years, I have supervised the written work with anxious care. I have examined the composition exercises in more than 2000 schools and so I have a right to expect that my testimony shall be accepted as authoritative, when I say that at present the composition in the most .efficient Irish schools has reached a level not yet attained in England or Scotland; indeed, it may be asserted without exaggeration that, in respect of the teaching in this allimportant subject,, the best primary schools in Ireland are superior to the intermediate schools. I have read compositions by boys and girls in the wilds of Kerry and Cork that would not disgrace students of university