Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 26 June 1913, Page 39

Irish News

..... GENERAL. Deep regret is felt in County Sligo at the death of Mr. J. Conroy, of Drimhillock, an extensive landowner and ez-District Councillor. , The Cork Corporation has decided to confer the freedom of the city, of which he is a native, on the new Lord Chancellor, Mr. Ignatius O'Brien. ' There is widespread regret in Tipperary at the death of Rev. William J. Kinane, Sologhead and Oola. Deceased was a brother of Very Rev. Dean Kinane, P.P., Y.G., Cashel. The interment took place on May 4 of Mrs. Jane Jones, of Ballintubber, who had attained the - great age of 101 years. At Kilmacowen, Sligo, the death took place a few days previously of Mr. John Devaney, who had reached the age of 103. Negotiations for the sale of the estate of the late Sir Nicholas R. O’Conor in Roscommon and Galway have been completed. The trustees have surrendered the grass lands, and the graziers have cleared off their stock. • To celebrate the occasion there was a torchlight parade on the night of May 1 in the Coristoona partion of the estate. Sir Thomas O’Shaughnessy, President of the Canadian Pacific Railway, was entertained to dinner, at the House of Commons on May 1 by Sir Walter Nugent on behalf of the Irish Party. The company present included Mr. Dillon, Mr. Redmond, Mr. Devlin, Mr. Gwynn, as also Lord Granard and Mr. Lewis Harcourt. A few days later a similar compliment was paid' Sir Joseph and Lady Ward, and Miss Ward, among the other guests present being Mr. Lloyd George and Mr. Devlin. ’ ° Mr. Patrick Cahill, optician’ to his Holiness the Pope, has received a command from Rome to make a new pair of spectacles for his Holiness. In a letter from the _ Cardinal Secretary of State to Mr. Cahill his Eminence says there is no need to alter the power of the lenses, but to make them the same as the last pair supplied. The public will be pleased to hear this, exemplifying as it does the wonderful vitality, of his Holiness after his recent illness. Mr. Cahill has also been honored with an order from Cardinal Merry del Val for two pairs of gold rimless pince-nez. Both orders are being carried out in Dublin, under the supervision of'an eminent Irish oculist. ORATORY AT CASTLE BELLINGHAM. His Eminence Cardinal Logue opened on May 3 an oratory at Castle Bellingham, County Louth, recently built by Sir Henry Bellingham, Bart., and dedicated it to St. Catherine of Alexandria, the patron saint of the Bellingham family in pre-Reformation times. _ The chapel, which is unique in design and color, is replete with treasures from Italy, Spain, France, Russia, and the Holy Land. The altar has a high baldacchino of crimson damask and quaint Neapolitan ornaments of beaten gold and silver. The walls are panelled in oak from the estate, supplemented by old carvings that formerly belonged to pews in Protestant churches. The work was done by local labor. SOUTH AUSTRALIAN VISITORS IN*CORK. An Australian party were entertained at luncheon at the Imperial Hotel, Cork, on May 2, by the Lord Mayor, who had associated with him a number of prominent citizens. Mr. Peake, Prime Minister of South Australia, in response to the toast of the Commonwealth, said he noticed at present their : minds were occupied with national self-government, which they would get in the near future. The majority of Australians were with them in their demand for freedom to manage their own affairs. He believed it would tend towards the prosperity of Ireland. He was sorry he could not go to the North of Ireland to speak to Ulstermen, for if he could he would tell them that they were making a great mistake in opposing Home Rule.

Speeches were also delivered by : Mr. O’Loujjhlin, Speaker of the South Australian Legislative Assembly Sir James Long, Mr. J. T. Donovan, sand others; FARMERS AND LAND PURCHASE. Some interesting points in regard to Land Purchase are suggested by the statement that the annuities whichfell due under the various Land Purchase Acts have been promptly paid and that the total of arrears in December last showed no increase over the normal amount. This is significant in view of the heavy damage which the inclement summer caused to tillage,, and in view of the serious loss which the embargo on Irish cattle (owing to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease) inflicted on - those who derive profit from, pasture land. It seems to indicate that farming is profitable and'to show that those writers were in error who (like Dr. Moritz Bonn) expressed a fear lest one bad season or a succession of bad seasons should leave the tenant purchasers unable to pay the instalments as they fell due. As a. fact the Land Acts prior to 1903-sought to provide for such an emergency by what is known -as - the decadal reduction ' —an arrangement under which, after ten years, the amount of capital already paid off by the tenant purchaser is deducted from the total debt and provision is made to meet the outstanding liability by a reduced annuity extending over a longer period. The Act of 1903. did not arrange for i a decadal reduction, and the omission was considered a grave error but it appears from the prompt payments that arrangement was not necessary. SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION IN BELFAST. An extraordinary situation with regard to the' insufficiency of the present school accommodation in Belfast-was brought to light at the recent meeting of the Corporation of that progressive city. A deputation representing the Protestant churches in Belfast waited on the Corporation and informed them that additional school space is urgently needed for at least 15,000 pupils. They urged the necessity of building an adequate number of National Schools in those districts in the city where school accommodation is deficient, such schools to be under municipal management and to afford facilities for daily religious instruction, with right of entry for the appointed representatives , of any denomination to give religious instruction to the pupils of their own communion. A sum of £IOO,OOO would be required to build the necessary number of schools, and the deputation asked the Corporation to provide a part of this sum, or in other words submit the ratepayers to an annual charge of £2OOO a year on the rates. The Catholic members of the Corporation clearly pointed out the glaring anomaly involved in the proposed plan as viewed from the Catholic standpoint. The Catholics of Belfast, who number one-fourth of the population of the city—and by no means the wealthiest portion— provided 72 schools, accommodating 18,000 children, and erected at a cost to the Catholic body of £IBO,OOO. They are now asked as ratepayers to contribute to the cost of building schools for children of other religions because the wealthy Protestants of Belfast have plainly neglected their duty in the matter. What the poorer Catholics have done out of their meagre resources in the cause of their children s education should surely be done, and done readily, by their much'wealthier Protestant neighbors for children of their own religion. AN INTERESTING INCIDENT. One extremely interesting incident occurred during the stay in Dublin of Mr. Peake (Premier of South Australia) and Mr. O’Loughlin (Speaker of the South Australian Legislative Assembly). One " evening a young newsboy, who was on the footpath in front of Hie Gresham Hotel selling copies of the Evening graph, approached Mr. O'Loughlin to sell him a copy of the paper. Mr. O'Loughlin was astonished when the young lad started a conversation about Australia and said he would like to go there, and asked would Mr. O’Loughlin take him. Mr. O’Loughlin got interested in the boy, and said he would be glad to

take him to th© Southern Hemisphere, but he was ■ confident 'his mother would not allow him to go. The • boy replied that he was certain his mother would not object. . Next morning the boy was early at the Gresham; Hotel, washed and scrubbed as, possibly, -ho had never been before, but still barefooted He inquired for Mr. O’Loughlin, and/finding , him, said his mother was prepared to allow him to go to Australia. Mr. O’Loughlin- was still doubtful as to the accuracy of the lad’s statement, and said, f But your mother does not know who I'am.’ Oh, indeed she does/ the youth promptly replied. ‘ She saw your photograph in the Freeman this morning, and she says you must be a very good man.’ Mr. Q’Loughlin may have been flattered by the lady’s good opinion, and said if she, came to the hotel he would be pleased to see her. The mother and boy turned up at the Gresham in the evening, and as a result of an interview with them Mr. O’Loughlin arranged to pay the expenses of the young fellow to Australia, and give him a start in life under the Southern Cross. v A PATRIOTIC MEDICAL MAN. This country (says the Irish Weekly) had no truer, more unselfish, or more devoted son and champion than Dr. Patrick J. Timmins, the patriotic native of Newtownb'utler, whose death at Boston we announce "with heartfelt regret. Dr. Timmins left Ireland so long ago as 1871, when he was 24 years old. He settled in Bostonthe city which contains more Irishmen than Belfast or Dublin ; and when he adopted the - medical profession he became a leader amongst his colleagues, and one of the most successful and prosperous spractitioners in the United States. Pew men were so popular in ‘New England’s’ capital; very few men indeed did more in the United States to make the name of Ireland honored, and to win hosts of sympathisers for the national cause. He was a leader of every movement for the regeneration of his native country; and his frequent visits to Irelandespecially to the North, where his good name and high reputation were causes of justifiable pride to his old friends and neighbors in County Fermanagh— frequent. Nearly six years ago he travelled throughout Ireland in the company of Mr. T. B. Fitzpatrick, treasurer of the United Irish League, and Mr. John O’Callaghan, the brilliant secretary of that organisation. Dr. Timmins’ death occurred on the eve of the fruition of his dearest hopes; but his memory will be honored for long years in the country he loved so well and served so faithfully, DONERAILE AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. Among those who received birthday congratulations on St. Patrick’s Day was Canon "Patrick Sheehan, born sixty-one years ago. Doneraile, where he has lived the retired life of a country parish priest since 1895 and written all his books, has a very interesting literary association. Near at hand are the ruins of Kilcolman Castle, where Spenser wrote his poetry and showed the draft of the Faerie Queen to Raleigh. It is Spenser, by the way, who puts on record the testimony of a Protestant of the Elizabethan garrison to the superiority of the * Popish priests ’ over the ‘ ministers of the Gospel ’ as he observed them in the Ireland of his day. The passage (of which the spelling is here modernised) is found in the poet’s Irish correspondence:—‘lt is a great wonder to see the odds which is between the zeal of Popish priests and the ministers of the Gospel, for they spare not to come out of Spain, from Rome, and from Rheims, by long toil and dungeons travelling hither, and here they know peril of death awaiteth them, and no reward or riches is to -be found, only to / draw the people unto the Church of Rome; whereas some of our idle ministers, having a way for credit and estimation thereby opened to them, without pains and without peril, will neither for the same nor for any love of God, nor for any good they may do, be drawn forth from their warm nests, to look out into God’s " harvest. ’