Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 6 March 1913, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. •■' The clerical friends in Dublin of the late Rev. J. Scanlan, Terenure, ■ have erected a magnificent Celtic cross over his grave in the grounds of his native parish church, Moycarkey, County Tipperary. Mr. T. J. Condon, M.P., and Miss Jennie Molony, of Labasheeda, County Clare, were married on January 20 at Branksome Church, Bournemouth. Mr. Condon is the parliamentary representative for East Tipperary. Dr. J. S. Vakil, a native of India, and a graduate of the University of Bombay, has been elected surgeon of the Fermanagh County Hospital by 4 votes to 3 given for Dr. John H. Beverland, Holywood, County Down. Very Rev. Canon Keown, P.P., who presided over the meeting of the committee of management, protested strongly against the appointment. Rev. Cornelius McEnroe, a distinguished member of the Vincentian Order, died at St. Joseph's, Blackrock, County Dublin, on January 9, at the age of 71 years. Father McEnroe was engaged in missionary work for the greater part of his life, giving retreats and missions in all parts of the country, being an impressive preacher and a scholar of wide culture. During the past season, so reported at the annual meeting by Mr. P. F. Reynolds (hon. secretary), 9875 free hot luncheons were provided for j;he poor children attending the several schools at Nenagh, by the Nenagh St. Vincent de Paul Society. In addition to this the same society gave out 100 cwts of coal, nearly as much flour, and also tea and money to poor families in the town. The death took place at Milltown Park, Dublin, early in January, of Father Thomas Taaffe, S.J., in his fiftieth year. _ The late Father Taaffe was a man of scholarly attainments, and had a most successful career as Professor of University courses at Mungret College, Limerick. Subsequently the distinguished Jesuit was engaged in teaching philosophy and theology at Stonyhurst, at St. Beuno's, North Wales, and latterly at Milltown Park. Acknowledging the presentation to him of 300 guineas from the people of Kilmoremoy and Ballina, the Very Rev. B. M. Quinn, P.P., V.F., Easkey, hi a letter to Mr. J. Flanagan, J.P., chairman of the committee, stated he had reason to be deeply grateful to the donors. He added that he appreciated no less gratefully the kindness of friends who worshipped at a different shrine in so generously associating themselves with the presentation.

A CONSERVATIVE’S COMPLAINT. Mi, Marshall Tillie, who was originally spoken of as a possible Conservative candidate for Derry, in an interview with a Daily Chronicle representative, in which he avowed the sentiments that had caused him to contemplate becoming an independent Unionist candidate, said: —• . an } n °k onl y an Irishman, lam a citizen of the United Kingdom, and if the Parliament of the United Kingdom, with the assent of the Crown, passes a Home Rule Bill into law, I am prepared to make the best of it, and this is why I have been boycotted. „ I refused to sign their silly “covenant” ; I refused to take any part in the proceedings by which Sir Edward Carson and his friends have made Ulster Unionism a laughing stock; and, above alland this has been the worst of all my crimes—out of the 1500 people I employ, at least 1000 are Roman Catholics.’ But do I understand you to say, Mr. Tillie ’ I remarked, ‘ that Derry Unionism thinks it wrong to employ Catholics?’ & Undoubtedly they do,’ was the reply, ‘and any man who does so freely and cares nothing about the religions or tne people he employs so long as they render him good service, is marked down. That’s why I intended to stand at this election, as a protest against this narrow bigotry and intolerance. I think it is time

that this old and cruel ascendancy spirit was attacked, and attacked by those who believe in Protestantism and Conservatism. It has poisoned the whole of our national life in the work of Ireland for centuries.' v & . IRISH PARTY'S VINDICATION* The passage of the Third Home Rule Bill through the House of Commons is the vindication of the Irish Party. It represents the high-water: mark of Irish political achievement since the Act of Union. The Bill gives Ireland a better constitution than Grattan's Parliament. It gives Ireland a National Parliament with a responsible Executive which Grattan's Parliament had not, and the absence of which made the enactment of the paper Union so easy for Pitt and Castlereagh. No Catholic could sit in Grattan's Parliament. In Redmond's Parliament every class and creed will be represented, and every safeguard that the wit of man can devise has been provided to prevent persecution or injustice for conscience' sake. Everything Irish as distinct from Imperial comes immediately or in a few years under Irish control. Ireland's national flag will wave side by side with the Imperial banner over the Irish Parliament. The whole basis of the. Bill is the recognition of Ireland's distinct and separate nationality, and of the right of the Irish people to manage their own national affairs. The financial settlement under the Bill is far and away superior to that proposed under the Bill of 1886 (which, be it remembered, was never discussed in Committee, as it was rejected on the Second Reading) or under the Bill of 1893. Under those Bills Ireland was to pay sums varying from 2£ to 3J millions a year for Imperial purposes. Under the present Bill every penny of Irish revenue is credited to Ireland; the deficit of 1 £ to 2 millions a year at present existing between Irish revenue and Irish expenditure is made good out of the Imperial Treasury and in addition a sum of £500,000 a year, to be fixed permanently at £200,000 a year, is provided out of the Imperial Treasury to assist the Irish Exchequer. The best proofs of the soundness of the finance of the Bill are that every crank in Ireland denounces it, and that, whilst British Unionists denounce it as robbery of England, Irish Unionists condemn it as a hard bargain for Ireland. PRESENTATION TO AN AUSTRALIAN PRELATE On Sunday evening, January 12, in the Temperance Hall, Kilmessan, Meath, the Right Rev. Dr. Shiel, Bishop-elect of Rockhampton, was presented by the parishioners of Kilmessan with a beautiful crozier and an appropriate address. The Rev. D. Morrissey, P.P., Kilmessan, presided, and the Rev. Father Lynch, read the address welcoming his Lordship to his native parish. Already, though young in years, the Holy Father had considered him worthy to be promoted to the Church's hierarchy. The crozier which they presented him with was the work of Irish hands. In a little while he would return to far-off Australia, and would again pour ruby drops of redemption over souls that are parched and perishing. Many of them would be their own kith and kin, and the crozier would remind him that he had friends at home who prayed God's blessing on his work, and who prayed that long may he be spared to widen the Empire of the Precious Blood. Rev. Father Morrissey, P.P., Kilmessan, in handing the crozier to his Lordship, in feeling terms expressed the pleasure he felt at being able to make such a suitable presentation on behalf of the parishioners to such a distinguished prelate. Dr. I Shiel had left his home in his early days and had gone to foreign lands. .;:.•/. At the time his Lordship left Ireland it was considered a greater sacrifice to do so than it was at the present time. In the course of his reply Dr. Shiel said:A crozier was the episcopal insignia of the purely episcopal office, and perhaps they might wish to know briefly something of the pastoral fields over which that staff would guide him and the flock which he was to gather with it. Well, if he had literally to walk upon all the diocese which was about to be committed to his charge he was afraid the point of the crozier would soon be worn down. The diocese over which he was to reign covers an /area of 335,000 square miles, over ten times the area of Ire-

» - - - ~ » ' —,. : ~ c land. In Ireland they had 29 bishops; in Rockhampton diocese there was only one Bishop. The population of the diocese was not in proportion to its extent/Were it so he was afraid it would be sadly neglected. Proceeding, his Lordship said he was in accord with the people staying at home and keeping the flag flying. He hoped they would have the flag flying soon. By all means let them stop at home, but if any of them did make up their minds to go abroad he would recomment Australia, as there was no country in the world which afforded a better opportunity for a man of energy and resource to make a bright and happy home. THE FRANCHISE IN DERRY. Writing some days before the election in Derry, the Freeman's Journal described one of the tricks by which the Tory Party in Derry succeeded in preventing a Nationalist majority on the city's electoral roll: ' The chicane to which the law lends itself has deprived that majority of -representation in the Imperial Parliament for over a dozen years. A Nationalist working man in Derry whose weekly rent falls into arrears for even a single week loses his vote inevitably. He gets a summons on Monday morning, and an order for his ejectment follows next court day. He is never evicted. His landlord does not want an empty tenement or the loss of a tenant but the tenant's vote is legitimate spoil, and every opportunity is taken for this kind of political plunder. That is how it has happened that the Unionists are able to talk of Ulster as a province with a Unionist majority in Parliament. The Unionists are lucky in the date of the vacancy. Had it occurred in time to take the election upon the old register the defeat of their candidate would have been certain. But the house agents and the so-called "Registration Acts" despoiled a sufficient number of citizens of their votes last October to make the issue doubtful. Besides this little device the Derry Unionists know another trick almost as effective. There are some houses in Derry which, like miners' cottages in Great Britain, are leased to working men on particular . jobs. When these houses are owned by Unionists, a Nationalist working man getting a job and a tenancy m such a house as a condition of his employment is obliged to forego having his own name put down as the tenant. His wife, his daughter, or his son, if the son be a minor, is entered as tenant instead, and so no Nationalist vote is created. But so far as either the whole population or the number of householders in Derry is concerned, the Catholics and Nationalists are in a distinct majority, and Derry City would be normally a Nationalist seat if ordinary conditions were allowed to prevail.' EMIGRATION. The Irish emigration returns for December show a decrease of 70 as compared with December in 1911. During the twelve months 29,344 Irish people left , Ireland. In 1911 the number was 30,573. The decrease of 1229 is satisfactory. Last year the outflow from Ireland was, with two exceptions, the smallest in any year since 1890. In 1908 the emigrants numbered 23,295, and in 1909 the figure was 28,676. No fewer than 11,852 persons left Ulster last year, a number far in excess of those who emigrated from any of the other provinces. The emigrants from Leinster numbered 3855, and from Munster 7167, so Ulster sent out more than these two provinces combined.