Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 30 May 1912, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. The late Mr. Thomas O'Donoghue, of Dingle, Co. Kerry, who died last October, left personal estate valued at £130,357. Sir Nugent Everard, Bart., was, for the tenth time, elected chairman of the Meath Agricultural Society at the annual meeting. The death has taken place at Clonmel of the Rev. Thomas Hannigan, Powerstown. The deceased, who had reached the venerable age of 88, was sixty years in the sacred ministry, being for thirty years parish priest of Powerstown. The report of the auditor of the Local Government Board on the recent audit of the accounts of the Kerry County Council, speaks of the position as satisfactory, and says that the administrative expenditure is kept to the lowest economical limit. .' . >. ; The total sum granted by the Road Board to the Irish County Councils for the improvement of Irish roads is £51,968. Cork is the county in receipt of the largest amount —viz., £9750; Galway is next with £4700, and Antrim'third with £4194. Cardinal Logue, presiding at a meeting held in Drogheda to promote the Gaelic League in County Louth, said the spread of the league would tend to bring the people of Ireland back to their primitive simplicity and primitive devotion to the Church. His Eminence commended the practice pursued in County Donegal, where in many households it was a strict rule that for a certain hour every day nothing but Irish should be spoken. In the census returns for the City and County of Derry, just issued, it is shown that the population fell from 144,404 in 1901 to 140,625 in 1911. The religious professions of the people were as . follow: —Catholics — County, 41,478; city, 22,932. Episcopalians County, 20,028; city, "7148. Presbyterians—County, 32,236; city, 8700. Methodists—County, 756; city, 1183. There was a majority of Catholics in the city over all other denominations of 5066. The Catholics in the county amount to 41.5 of the population. < -- THE PARLIAMENTARY FUND. The third list of subscriptions to the Home,Rule fund was published on April 6. The fund then amounted to £7012 12s Bd. Amongst the acknowledgments were the following amounts:Alderman Cotton, M.P., Dublin (making £100), £SO; Surgeon McArdle, Dublin, £SO; V. Kilbride, Dublin (making £6O 10s), £SO; T. S. McCann, K.C. (making £35), £25; A. M. Sulivan, K.C. (making £SO), £25; Right Hon. M. F. Cox, M.D. (making" 25 guineas), £2l; J. R. O'Connell, LL.D., Dublin, £2l; John L. Scallaiij Dublin, £2O; Dr. D. J. Coffey, Dublin (making £25), £ls; Sir Joseph O'Carroll (making £10), £5; Joseph A. Glynn, Dublin, £10; T. P: Power, £lO 10s; Dr. Geo. Sigerson, Dublin, £10; Jonathan Pirn, Dublin, £10; Surgeon A. Blayney, Dublin, £lO 10s; L. H. Rosenthal, 8.L., Dublin, £lO. AN OLD MAN'S HOARD. Beneath the kitchen floor of an old man's cottage at Garvagh, County Derry, the police have found a sum of £560 carefully concealed in a dilapidated old paint-box. The discovery followed on the death of the owner, an octogenarian, named Alexander, who recently returned to his native village after amassing a considerable sum of money in Australia. The old man was found dead in bed. He had lived in absolute seclusion, and no one knew of any likely hiding-place where he might have concealed his wealth. In the circumstances the police instituted a search immediately after the funeral, and under the floor of the "kitchen they found the man's fortune. The £560 was in deposit receipts, bank notes, and sovereigns.

V : . THE BEST IN, EUROPE. > \ \ At Somerset County Council meeting at Wells the other day, Lord Strachey moved a motion, which was agreed to, that it was desirable that the facilities given ..to Irish local authorities for providing cottages in rural districts be extended to English local authorities.. He said the housing accommodation of labourers in Ireland had been described as the best in Europe. He thought what' was good for Ireland ought to be good enough for England. SERIOUS FIRE IN MEATH. Damage to the extent of over £40,000 was caused by a fire which occurred on the night of April 4 at Gibbstown Castle, the palatial residence of Mr. Thomas Gerrard, D.L V in Co. Meath. The cause of the fire is unknown. It was first noticed in the roof of the main building by one of the maids, who gave the alarm. It is thought that the flames—which spread with considerable rapidity communicated to the lower part of the building by means of a lift shaft. Willing workers on the spot did their utmost to check the spread of the fire, but their efforts met with little success. The Dublin Fire Brigade had been summoned, and arrived in about 80 minutes, in which time they covered over 36 miles. A plentiful supply of water was, fortunately, at hand, and the brigade worked energetically until they had beaten the flames, but by that time the roof and the top and second floors, with their valuable contents, had been destroyed. The castle was erected in 1870 at a cost of £200,000, and, it is stated, the premises were insured for half a million sterling. The building was the finest of its kind in the County of Meath, and contained 63 bedrooms. It is situated five miles from Navan. NEW AUXILIARY BISHOP OF TUAM. >- The Holy See has appointed the Right Rev. Canon M. Higgins, D.D., P.P., V.F., Cummer, Auxiliary Bishop to his Grace the Archbishop of Tuam. Dr. Higgins, who. is a native of Castlebar, was ordained twenty-four years ago. v He pursued his early studies in St. Jarlath's College, Tuam, from which he went to Maynooth, where he finished a distinguished course. He served on various missions throughout the diocese, and in 1904 be became Doctor of Divinity and subsequently appointed a Canon. He was appointed President of St. Jarlath's College, and under his able supervision the college jumped to the front amongst Diocesan Colleges in Ireland, and after six years' occupation of the office he in 1910 was appointed parish priest of Cummer, in room of the late Father McHugh. Dr. Higgins, in addition to being Auxiliary Bishop to his Grace, becomes pastor of the extensive parish of Castlebar. His selection was made on the submission, in accordance with the rule, of three names to the Holy See. His elevation to the important office has afforded entire satisfaction to the clergy throughout the Tuam diocese and amongst the laity, with whom Dr. Higgins is exceedingly popular.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION. In the course of an address at the forty-eighth annual congress of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation held at Kilkenny, the president (Mr. G. O’Callaghan) said: For the present financial year £2,489,425 will be given from the common purse to education in Scotland, while for a similar purpose £1,734, 554 must satisfy all our needs in Ireland, thus showing that the former country is preferentially treated to the extent of about three-quarters of a million of money. If the sums voted for secondary education be taken into account', however, Ireland has to be satisfied to run her primary education system on something like half a million a year less than Scotland. This year there is a ray of comfort and hope, for the estimates for Irish public education show an increase of £78,230, but at the same time, the Scotch estimates have about £150,000 added to them. While the extra ; grant given to Ireland falls short by about £300,000' of our just share, yet, satisfaction must be expressed that it is given at all and that I am not in the unhappy position of some of my predecessors, who had to record a deceased vote. For

the first time, too, the amounts voted for certain purposes in Ireland are exactly the same as those given under similar conditions to Scotland, but notwithstanding all that has been done, we are poorer to-day by about £400,000 than Scotland, of almost the same size, and with a slightly larger population, for education. While there is better reason to complain of the financial starvation of primary education, the administration of the system calls as loudly for redress and criticism. A board of twenty men eminent in various walks of life, but still irresponsible, and, to a very great extent, out of .touch with the wants, aspirations and ideals of the Irish people, manages and controls what ought to be ,and is, the most important public department in this country. This board, at the present time, is invested with the power of spending £1,734,554 of public money, and yet the public has nothing whatever to say to its constitution, nor its conduct. "For the expenditure of this amount of money, and for the other duties connected with our educational system, a staff of 119 is employed in the office at. Marlborough street, at a cost, for this year, of £28,226, while the. board has the services of 82 inspectors, whose salaries total the nice sum of £35,018, and the travelling expenses of these gentlemen reach the enormous amount of £15,260. The Scotch department, which will spend this year £2,489,425, uses on administration only £25,214, and has a staff of 117, while the salaries are £32,805, and the travelling allowances £9530 for 70 inspectors. It can thus be seen that administration and inspection cost £10,955 more in Ireland than in Scotland, and this though secondary education is included in the expenditure for the latter country, and that three-quarters of a million more has to be accounted for. Surely economy is not looked, upon as a virtue by the Commissioners of National Education, although of prime necessity where money is urgently required for more important and more useful purposes. CONVERSION OF PROMINENT UNIONISTS. Mr. 11. W. Massingham, writing in the Morning Leader on the Home Rule Bill, says: The Tory remedy —twenty years of resolute government — exploded. The Tories themselves abandoned it before its course was run, and went back to the old cynical device of sops and blandishments, combined with a practical land policy and an abandonment of the spirit though not the forms of coercion. With what result? Ireland-hr not a whit less Nationalist than she was, and she is 1 much more of a Nation. Again, the beautiful Irish genius has blossomed out in fresh forms of life, and the stupid calumny of the conqueror that the conquered has ceased to exist as a people, or to deserve freedom, is deprived of the pale shadow of truth that it might be said to possess at the most depressed periods of Irish history. During the last ten years the Irish people have done far more for their regeneration, economic and social, than England or Scotland or Wales has done. But they are not less set upon putting the only possible crown and finish to the work. It is only Orange Ulster- that remains destitute of every stamp of nationality—of art, poetry, culture, self-reliance. . . . We faced the two alternatives in South Africa. We nearly lost it. If the country had not then been governed by a simple, downright Scot, with a will of his own, a clear insight into the principles of Liberalism, and a strong personal belief in them, we should have attempted to govern South Africa as we governed Ireland. With what result? Would South Africa have been part of the British Empire to-day I doubt it. And if it is answered that we have the physical power to keep Iceland down, then the Liberal makes the instinctive reply that'the British Empire is not held together by force, and never will be; that force is poison in its constitutional system and that its application to the most brilliant and intellectually fertile race in the Empire is the deadliest of all poisons. , But, indeed, Unionism is dissolving of itself. Look at the men who have left it. Lord Dudlev is no longer a Unionist, nor Lord Grey, nor Lord DunW n ' Er^ erick Pollock, nor-last, but not east-Sir Horace Plunkett. How many more-that mi \l menwho knW Ireland OT the colonies —will follow these converts to freedom«