Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 22 August 1912, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL.

The death has occurred of Mr. Edward Synan, of Charleville, County Cork. He was an old ’67 man, and prominent in all Nationalist movements for many years.

It appeared from a report read at a meeting of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland, that the number of the Society’s publications issued last year was over half a million.

Two Capuchin Fathers, at the instance of the parish priest, Rev. T. Griffin, gave recently a fortnight's mission in Irish at Ballyferriter, County Kerry. This is a new departure in the Irish language movement.

At a meeting of the Donegal County Committee of Agriculture, Most Rev. Dr. O’Donnell, Bishop, of Raphoe, was re-elected chairman. For the vice-chair-man, Mr., Joseph McArthur, J.P., who is a Protestant, was proposed by Very Rev. Canon McFadden, Glenties (the Priest of Gweedore), in a felicitous speech. The nomination was unanimously agreed to.

The Holy Father’s gift to the Dundalk Cathedral bazaar and fete, which is being organised to clear off the debt on parochial works, has given the keenest satisfaction to the Catholics of the town. The Pope’s prize is an old copy of Raphael’s famous masterpiece, The Madonna della Sedia,’ in a richly carved frame. Monsignor O’Riordan has presented a splendid oil painting for the same meritorious purpose. Mr. Churchill landed at Queenstown on July 1 with a number of Admiralty officials, and made an inspection of the Haulbowline dockyard. He afterwards received and replied to addresses from the Queenstown District Council and the local trade association. On the following day he visited Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney Stone. Speaking in the evening, he dealt with Queenstown as a naval base. Its position both as relative to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean was most important, he said, and he had strong hopes that the policy of the Admiralty might march hand in hand with the interests of the port and dockyard of Queenstown.

DERRY AND HOME RULE.

Maghera was the scene on June 29 of one of the finest meetings ever held in South Derry to press forward the demand for national self-government. The gathering was remarkable in more senses than one. The organisation was taken charge of by Protestants and Catholics in Mr. Gordon’s constituency, and the result was an assemblage of close on ten thousand people, composed of Liberals and Nationalists. The speakers included some of the best-known Protestant Home Rulers in South Derry, who stood side by side on the platform with trusted Nationalists from Derry, Antrim, and Tyrone. Though the organisers were obliged to announce a postponement of the meeting, and then fall back, on the date originally fixed, the fact did not seem to have any -material effect on the dimensions of the contingents, who came -from all parts of South Derry and the districts of Antrim and Tyrone, while the greatest enthusiasm characterised the proceedings from start to finish.

AN IMPOSING DEMONSTRATION.

. Five counties were represented in the great Nationalist muster—thirty thousand strong, at the lowest estimate in Clones on June 29. Nothing could have better indicated the strength of the sentiment in favor of Home Rule, which exists in this very extensive and important section of the province of Ulster than the size of the rally from Monaghan, Cavan, Armagh Fermanagh, and Leitrim, and the enthusiasm which permeated the proceedings from start to finish. It was a historical event, and the speeches delivered on the occasion by Mr. Joseph Devlin, M.P., Mr. R. Harcourt, M.P. (secretary of the English Home’ Rule Union), Mr. -W. .Redmond, M.P., and the local par-

liamentary representatives, Messrs. Lardner, Crumley, and Kennedy, were worthy of the occasion.

THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY OF IRELAND.

Very Rev. Canon Langan, D.D., P.P., who presided at the annual meeting of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland on June 27, in moving the adoption of the report, said it was an excellent one. An extraordinary number of the society’s publications had been issued during the —over half a million. Their books had been varied in character: some were historical; some were biographical'; and some related to Rationalism and Socialism, which were so prevalent amongst the working classes in England and on the Continent, and which, he was sorry to say, were coming into some parts of Ireland, The books catered for every taste and every class of reader. They owed the Most Rev. Dr. Donnelly their best thanks for his histories of Dublin parishes. There was not a single item in the report that .was not worthy of warm admiration. They could congratulate themselves upon, the immense advantages that the Catholic people derived from the spread of these beautiful publications in every parish and in every district in Ireland.

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE.

Owing to an alarming outbreak of foot and mouth disease, an embargo was placed upon Irish cattle by the English Board of Agriculture on June 29. Consignments of Irish cattle shipped before the embargo was made known were held up at Holyhead and other crossChannel ports. This cessation in the Irish cattle trade, which was- then at its height, was considered disastrous to all engaged in it, and caused consternation in all parts of the country. Twenty-four cattle affected with the dread disease were found on a farm in the vicinity of Swords, Co. Dublin, and the Department of Agriculture accordingly issued an order prohibiting all movements of cattle in the City and County of Dublin, and in Meath, Kildare, and Wicklow. This had the effect of preventing all fairs, markets, and sales in those counties at which cattle would be exposed. The order did not apply to . horses. The Irish Department of Agriculture contends that the trouble did not originate in Swords, and that the infection was brought there by cattle dealers from the large centres in the North of England. The disease may be conveyed by clothing or boots from herd to herd. As England depends chiefly on Ireland for its supply of beef, the stoppage of imports led at once to an advance in the price of meat. The estimated value of meat imports from Ireland into Great Britain any week is £400,000. The country has been practically free from the disease since 1883, when half a million cattle had to be destroyed. ‘

THE RECORD BEATEN.

Unionists sometimes state (says a Dublin correspondent) that the majority of the Irish people take but little interest in the Home Rule question. * The subscriptions to the National Fund from every county in Ireland are the very best answer to this most unfounded assertion, for people do - not subscribe to a cause which they care nothing about. On June 29 the fund reached the fine total of £12,689, a much larger sum than that subscribed at the corresponding period of any year since it was inaugurated. It is interesting to note that, Ulster, even the famous north-east corner, is well represented in the weekly lists of subscriptions. Fox instance, in the last one published we find Lurgan down for the very creditable sum of £95 5s 3d; Ballymena for £lO 3s 6d; Saul and Bailee, Co. Down, for £2O, and so on. This proves that many of the people of the now famous corner, share the desire of the majority of the Irish people, for Home Rule.

Gaelic Week.

The Oireachtas opened in the Rotunda, Dublin, on July 1, under promising auspices. The combining of the annual literary and musical festival with the Gaelic League Carnival was a wise step, as shown by the

greatly-increased number of competitors. There were over double the number of entries received last year and considerably more than the highest received since the .festival was inaugurated. The attendance, too, was much larger on this occasion than in past years. In the evening there was an excellent concert and reception of delegates from other Celtic nations. They were welcomed by Dr. Douglas Hyde, who spoke in Irish. Mr. Alastair' McLaren, on behalf of the Scottish Gaels, returned thanks in his native language. Rev. Canon O’Connell, Lecturer in Irish, Queen’s University, Belfast, delivered the Oireachtas oration, and Mr. Piaras Beaslai recited the Oireachtas Ode, which was composed by himself. It was received with enthusiasm. On the following evening the Gaelic Bardic Society held a session at the Gresham Hotel, the Rev. Father Dineen, M.R.1.A., in the chair. Amongst those who contributed papers or poems were the Rev. C. Brennan, of Tralee, ‘ Conan Maol,’ ‘ Torna,’ and Mr. Piaras Beaslai.

ADVOCATING REBELLION.

• At a Unionist demonstration on July 26, at Blenheim Park, the seat of the Duke of Marlborough (who presided), Mr. Bonar Law, leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, said the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) had touched the lowest depths of humiliation in accepting the welcome of the Corporation of Dublin, which had refused to welcome the King. As the Government was a revolutionary committee, which had fraudulently seized upon _ despotic power by means of single chamber rule, the Unionists would use whatever means seemed most effective to compel them to face the people they had deceived. ‘ I warn the Government,’ exclaimed Mr. Bonar Law, ‘ that if an attempt be made to use troops against Ulster the Government will be starting a civil war that will shake the Empire to its foundations.’ He promised to support the Protestants of Ulster in any lengths to which they might go in their opposition to Home Rule in Ireland. In a letter to the chairman of the Liberal organisation at Dundee, Mr. Churchill, referring to Home Rule, dealt at some length with Mr. Bonar Law’s threats, ‘not because Mr. Law is likely to carry them out or because there will be no remedy if he did.’ Mr. Churchill adds; ‘ Mr. Law declares that there is no length to which Orangemen might not go in resisting, not tyranny or ill-usage, mark you, but Home Rule, which he does not support, arguing that it was not an issue at the last election. This is untrue. Mr. Law’s . doctrines are fatal to the evolution that has been proceeding for the last two generations towards consolidation and reconciliation, tending to make Home Rule within the Empire and enabling all its people to establish their rights and respect their creeds, their honor and their traditions, and enabling all to stand together with their high comradeship and freedom unbroken in the hour of trial. Mr. Law’s doctrines are

not only pernicious in regard to .external but he counsels violence. Mutiny may not be unattractive to many millions of the very poor suffering in the toilers’ slums at Home, who, harkening thereto, may, be lured to their own and public disaster. Mr. Law’s doctrines as embodied in his Blenheim speech are Mr. Tillett’s at Tower Hill; but Mr. Tillett’s men were starving. The talk of civil war emanates from one side alone; but were Home Rule frustrated Mr. Law within 12 months would possibly be sending the Nationalists to servitude or the gallows, and be holding the provinces in the grip of a Coercion Act. in the name of the same law and order which he now recklessly tramples. The Government will pursue its path patiently and soberly until its work is done. The transference of power to its successors will not be effected by violent means, and will not occur until Mr. Law divests himself of doctrines disqualifying him for official responsibilitiesdoctrines whereby every lawless or disruptive movement in any part of the Empire can be justified, and whence every street bully with a brickbat and every crazy fanatic fumbling with a pistol may derive inspiration.’