Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 7 November 1912, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. The diocese of Raphoe mourns the loss of a kindly and beloved priest in the person of Rev. Michael Ward, Gortnahork, County Donegal. Mr. John Horan, a native of Scartaglin, County Kerry, died on September 15 at the age of 102 years. He had been ill for a very short time only. # Mr. D. H. Crawford, J.P., of Croghan House, Cavan, received fatal injuries by the accidental discharge of his-gun as he was leaving his house for the purpose of shooting. The death is announced of Sir George Morris, D.L., a prominent figure in Irish official life. Sir George was the brother of the first Lord Killanin (Sir Michael Morris) and the uncle of the present peer. A flax mill belonging to Mr.'.John Wilson, at Drumlone, near Maguires bridge, was destroyed by fire on September 13. The whole stock, plant, and buildings were destroyed, the damage amounting to several thousand pounds. * A notable feature of the Dublin potato market about the middle of September was the appearance of South American buyers. About 20 tons of Up-to-dates grown in Co. Dublin were purchased for shipment, and 'will probably be used for seed purposes. At a meeting of the shareholders of the Cork Free Press, a statement was read showing that the trading account for the year had resulted in a loss of over £4OOO. This is considerably less than last year’s loss. Mr. Wm. O’Brien, M.P., was elected a director. A number of Irish Catholic schoolboys on their way back from holidays in Ireland to Stonyhurst College had a narrow escape from death in a railway conflagration which occurred to the mail train from Holyhead on September 17. One of them fell from the train', and was seriously injured.

Mr. W. A. Redmond, M.P., and Mr. J. T. Donovan arrived in London on September 14 from Plymouth, where they had landed earlier in the day from the Orient liner Otranto. Messrs. Redmond and Donovan were met at Plymouth by Mr. Hanna, private secretary to Mr. John Redmond, and were accompanied by him on their journey to London. The subscriptions to the Irish Home Rule Fund were £16,320 up to the middle of September. This is practically double the collection of the previous year, and quadruples the average of the years 1908-1909, so that the taunt applies now less than ever that Irish Nationalists are not willing to pay for their politics. Mr. Win. O'Brien, M.P., has, it is stated, presented Mallow Cottage, Westport, together with the small park adjoining, to the Sisters of Mercy, West port, to be used by them for any purpose they think best. The house is a good one, fully furnished, and would make an ideal Cottage Hospital, Convalescent Home, or Sanatorium. After a visit to the coal mines of the new Irish Mining Company at Wolf hill, Queen’s County, Mr. Matthew Keating, M.P., who spent nine years in Wales as a collier, expressed admiration at the up-to-date arrangements, the quality of the coal produced, and the facility with which it is obtained. Mr. Keating also expressed the opinion that the Queen’s County coal, with the limestone which is abundant in the district, could be adapted to the' production of calcide carbide, as a factor in the supply of nitric acid, for which Great Britain is at present dependent entirely upon the Chilian nitrate fields.

Following the example of others, Ireland has now an insurance society for Catholic domestic servants. I he report of the organising committee states that domestics in Ireland have resolved to establish in Ireland a.special insurance society for their own particular benefit under the Insurance Act. They: append reasons for the step they have taken, and add that the reason

of the society being confined to Catholics only is because, non-Catholic girls'of the domestic class have already special societies of their own, and it is the express wish of the new society in no way to interfere with these.

The late Miss McTernan, of Mount Clare Hotel, Clare street, Dublin, bequeathed £IOOO. to the Superior Council of Ireland of the Society, of St. : Vincent de Paul, for the poor of the city. Deceased left £SOO for the sick poor of Westland row parish, and a similar sum for the advancement of five of the most destitute of the orphan boys in Greenmount Schools, Cork. After certain other bequests, Miss McTernan left the residue of her property to the Children's Hospital, Temple street, Dublin.

SAFE ODDS. Speaking at a great public demonstration in Kells, County Meath, on September 15,. Mr. Dillon said Unionist Belfast’s idea of civil war was to attack Catholics when the Orange attackers were 10 to 1. That was what the Orangemen regarded as safe odds. Their idea of civil war was by savagery, brutal ill-treatment, and intimidation to prevent Nationalists earning a. living. -vi£ Dealing with Home Rule, Mr. Dillon said that oh that question they could sweep Great Britain from the North of Scotland to Cornwall despite all the. bluster and bombast of Ulster, and the thousands of Ulster agents who were crawling over the country. If they could get a clear issue they would carry England for Home Rule by an overwhelming majority. On the Land question, he sa.d: * Once convince the landlord that Home Rule, is inevitable, and they could easily settle that question.’ When they got the landlords anxious to settle was the time to introduce a Land Act. Landlords who would not sell voluntarily at a reasonable price should get no bonus. ,

DOCTORS AND INSURANCE. The friendly societies in Ireland are up in arms against the action of the doctors regarding the Insurance Act, and are forming a combine to act jointly in the fight against the profession. Mr. Joseph Hutchinson, General Secretary Irish National Foresters, has informed an Irish Independent representative that the societies in Ireland were determined to fight the doctors on the point at issue. ‘ About one-third of the doctors doing friendly society practice refused to renew their contracts at the end of their terms;’ he said, ‘ but the societies intend to fight it out with the doctors and to give only the terms in force heretofore. I say the doctors in Ireland had no right to go into this thing at all ; they are simply dragged at the Unionist tail of the medical profession in Great Britain. They were glad to take those terms before. It did not pay them exactly; but such work opened up a practice for them. The societies are all going to act jointly in this matter. We’re going to combine to protect the friendly societies against the exorbitant demands of the doctors. Action has already been taken in Limerick, where they have formed a Federation of Friendly Societies, and issued a circular on behalf of the Ancient Order of Foresters, A.0.H., 1.N.F., Independent Order of Oddfellows, and Drapers’ Assistants’ Association, agreeing to stand together in that district to safeguard their interests in considers tion of the new medical regulations notified to all friendly societies, etc., in Ireland. We are founding » Federation here (Dublin), too, on the! same lines, and in Belfast and other districts similar action will be taken.’ DEATH OP FATHER RUSSELL, S.J-. Rev. Matthew Russell, S.J., of St. Francis Xavier’s, Dublin, died in a private hospital in the capital on September 12, in his 79th year. The younger son of the late Mr. Arthur Russell, of Seafield House, Killowen, Newry, Father Russell was born in that town on July 13, 1833. His education was received at St. Vincent’s College, Castleknock, County Dublin, and afterwards at St. Patrick’s, Maynooth, of which the late Very Rev. Dr. Charles Russell,

his uncle, then a Professor in the college, was afterwards to become the distinguished President. . This Dr.- Charles Russell, it is of interest to note, was the ‘dear friend ’ named in Cardinal Newman’s Apologia , who most helped that great Englishman to become a Catholic. Matthew Russell joined the Jesuit novitiate in 1857. He was ordained in 1864, three years before the completion of his clerical course, a concession which was made in his case owing to the fervent desire expressed by his mother, then in failing health, that she might live to see her son a priest. After his ordination, and up till 1873, school and church work in the city of Limerick fully occupied his energies. Since then his life-work had been centred- at St. Francis Xavier’s, Gardiner street, Dublin, and at University College, Stephen’s Green. Father Russell was the editor of the Irish Monthly for about forty years, but besides attending to his ordinary work as a priest and to his editorial work he wrote voluminously. His last work-which will be published shortly —was Lord Killowen and His Three Sisters. The famous Lord Charles Russsell, who became Lord Chief Justice of England, was Father Russell’s elder brother. His three sisters, like himself, embraced the religious life, joining the Order of Mercy, in which all three have distinguished themselves.

MR. DEVLIN’S CHALLENGE. Tremendous crowds attended a great Nationalist demonstration, which was held in the Courthouse Square in Nenagh in beautiful weather on September 15. Special trains brought contingents from Dublin, Limerick, Birr, and Cashel. The town was profusely decorated with flags and banners, while numerous bauds played national airs through the streets. Mr. Devlin, M.P., had a most cordial welcome on arriving the previous night, being received by the Urban Council and the members of the local Nationalist organisation, while the town was illuminated in his honor. Mr. Devlin in the course of his address said some of their critics had been saying that the cause of Home Rule was dying, that their enthusiasm had evaporated, and that the struggles and sacrifices of their fathers had been forgotten in a material and degenerate age. If there were any Unionists who thought that the Nationalists had wavered in their faith, let them put that faith to the test. They were ready in every county in three Provinces, and in every county in half thb other Province, to resign their seats to-morrow, and give their opponents, their critics, their assailants and enemies the opportunity of testing the intense devotion which the generation of to-day have to the principles for which their fathers fought and died. ‘I go further,’ he said, ‘ and I offer this challenge, not for Tipperary but for Belfastthat if in this modern age great issues and public controversies are to be tested in their value by the ordered judgment of the people, then here to-day —a fortnight before Ulster Day—offer to resign my seat, if Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Bonar Law, or any of the farcical revolutionaries of the new-born Day are prepared to take the challenge up. Mr. Devlin went on to say that Unionism never took root in three Provinces; its roots were dying in the other Province. Seventeen out of the 33 Ulster constituencies stood beside their countrymen in the march to freedom, and the others were fast losing their allegiance to the men who had used the Ulster farmers and laborers for the base purposes which inspired the Ulster Unionist Party.