Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 9 October 1913, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. At Foynes the steamer Assos recently embarked four hundred horses for transport to Greece, where they are to be used for military purposes. It is announced that Messrs. Arthur Guinness, Son, and Co., of Dublin, have acquired 100 acres at the Barton end of Trafford Park, Manchester, for a branch brewery to serve English and Scottish customers. An immense gathering of people attended at Kilcolman, when the Right Rev. Dr. O’Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, laid the foundation stone of a new church in honor of St. Colman, the patron of the parish. The Very Rev. Canon Holohan, Rosbercon, South Kilkenny, celebrated the golden jubilee of his priesthood on August 16, and was the recipient of numerous congratulations and gifts from all over the diocese. The Hon. J. M. Sullivan, who has been appointed United States Minister to the Dominion of Canada by President Wilson, is a County Kerry man. He is related to Mr. J. Sullivan, M.P., also to Dr. W- Sullivan, Killarney. " , A fund has been opened in Macroom, County Cork, for a memorial to the martyred Bishop of Ross, Frater Boetius Egan, who was hanged before Carrigadrohid Castle in 1650, for having advised the garrison not to surrender. Canon Murphy of Macroom has recently pointed out a little stone in Aghina Cemetery as marking the grave of the martyred prelate. In the Chesterfield election one of the Unionist speakers, in assailing Home Rule, said that the priests in Sligo prevented the election of Protestants to public bodies there for nine years. Mr. Dolon, of Chesterfield, immediately wired to the Catholic Bishop in Sligo, and received reply: Statement an absolute untruth. No foundation whatever.’ The Bishop threatens libel, failing apology from the Tory romancer. Mr. Redmond gave splendid example to his followers during the past session. The Freeman says he never asked a man to do what he was not prepared to do himself, and, except when political fixtures took him out of London, he voted in every single division of the session. Out of 279 divisions last session, Mr. O’Brien voted in 13, Mr. Healy in 12, Mr. Maurice Healy in 7, and Mr. Walsh and Mr. Guiney, O’Brienite luminaries, in 4 divisions and 3 respectively. The Parliamentary correspondent of the Manchester Guardian pays a strong tribute to the fidelity of the Irish members during the past session: ‘All through the session, sometimes from the noonday blaze of one day to the dawn of the next, the sentinels of the Home Rule cause have remained in their places or within call, constant witnesses, despite their long spell of selfimposed silence, to the greatness of the task which they have now brought to its last stage but one.’ Very Rev. Canon Morrissy, P.P., Banteer, received several presentations from his flock on the occasion of his golden jubilee. In the course of his reply he said: * I thank God to be spared to see the original owners of the land, whose possessions were so often confiscated, and for whose extermination so many laws were enacted, once more rooted in the soil, with a home Parliament. Thanks to the great Liberal Party, supported by the unpurchasable, incorruptible Irish members, under the leadership of Mr. J. E. Redmond.’ His Eminence Cardinal Logue solemnly blessed and laid the foundation stone of the new Catholic church to be erected at Pomeroy. There was a very large attendance of clergy from the archdiocese of Armagh. At the collection for the new church, his Eminence subscribed .£2O, and the other sums subscribed amounted to over £258. The people of the town, Father McDonald said, had already given more than they had promised, and were now giving fresh subscriptions, while he had received generous aid from eminent New Yorkers. . n.-

PRAISE FOR THE IRISH PARTY. , . Truth, the great English weekly, is no less brilliant and influential now.than when its founder, the late Mr. Henry Labouchere, a true friend of Ireland,? was its editor. In a recent issue' it had the following tribute to the Irish Party: The Nationalist Party retire to their native heath at the end of the session, the admired of all Parliamentary beholders. The amazing regularity of their attendance, their instinctive knowledge of a “snap” in prospect, and their impregnable party discipline have made them the respective joy and despair of Mr. Illingworth and Mr. Pike Pease. The honors of Parliamentary warfare are certainly theirs.’ THE CARSON COMEDY. In the course of a humorous sketch of Sir Edward Carson, as leader of the Ulster rebels, London Truth says:—The mischief with Carson has been from the beginning that ho has failed to get himself hated. ' Millions of people would like to murder Lloyd George—who bothers about old Carson? It is very hard on him that he should be so popular, and if I could do anything to stir up the required animus against him, nothing would give .me greater pleasure. People are fond of Carson because he is such a typical Irishman. Redmond and Devlin are more or less Anglicised, and under Home Rule they will turn Ireland, into a kind of annexe to Sussex. But in Carson you have not only the brogue but the very essence of the national ; Spirit that has made the Ancient Order of Hibernians what it is. Carson’s whole case is that we English do not appreciate his native land. His accusation against- Redmond is that Redmond is too friendly with the British Government. If Redmond goes to Windsor and wears gold lace, Carson will see to it that Ulster at any rate preserves the separatist tradition which was immortalised by patriots like Parnell and by the Invincibles. Carson clings to the drum and brass band, the flags and processions, the annual rioting, and the pugnacious prayer meetings, which remind him of times he had when he was a boy. The thought of Ireland being smoothed out like velvet by that model of . old-fashioned Toryism the hon. and learned, member for Waterford is intolerable. - - Yet no one knows better than Carson that the linen lords of Belfast do not want- a provisional Government. Covenanters have at times faced sudden death, but this slow mortification by loss of orders from the South and : —this dwindling of dividends— heartrending to the Presbyterian conscience. Carson’s speeches always give me the impression of having been first submitted to his solicitors. His is a limited liability rebellion. He firmly plants his toe as near to the line as makes the difference, but not an inch further. Like the Seven Bishops, he wants to get himself prosecuted, but under circumstances where acquittal is certain, . which, he thinks, would put the Government in an awkward position. His difficulty at the moment is that he must keep on with the thunder without the other fun commencing. The audience shouts encore, but Carson looks in vain for the Adelphi policeman to take up the cue. Week by eek his threats receive less notice in the press, for where so much is said news editors ask that something should begin to happen. The Ulster Republic may be a great peril, but at present it is not even paying its own old-age pensions. Indeed, Carson himself is no longer an extremist. The days are over when he chivied his political opponents into jail for making Home Rule speeches, and he is now the friend of Catholic Universities. - DEATH OF A COUNTY DOWN PRIEST. f In the North of Ireland general regret is felt at the. death of Very Rev. Murtagh Hamill, P.P., Kilkeel, County Down, which took place in hte Mater Hospital, Belfast, on August 18. Father Hamill was s one of the senior priests of the diocese of Down and Connor, and though he had labored zealously for more than forty years in the service of the Church, still he had always been a man of physique so robust and health’ so vigorous that the news of his death came as

a shock even to those who knew him best. Father Hamill was bom at Crosskeys, in the parish of Duneane, in the year 1846, and is a younger brother of the Very Rev. James Hamill, P.P., Whitehopse, the venerated senior priest and Vicar-General of the diocese. He pursued his earlier studies at St. Malachy’s College, Belfast, He entered the class of First Year’s Philosophy in Maynooth College on January 15, 1869, and was ordained in Maynooth by Dr. Lynch, Bishop of Kildare, on May 30, 1871. After ministering in many parishes of the diocese he was appointed in 1906 pastor of Kilkeel, where, he was greatly esteemed. During his seven years in Kilkeel Father Hamill labored in season and out of season for the welfare of his flock. Quite recently he had been engaged in various works for the improvement of the churches in his parish, and had brought these works to a successful conclusion. He erected three beautiful altars in the rural church at Atticoll, and added a belfry and bell I to the church; renovated and decorated the interior of St. Colman’s, the parish church at Mass Forth, Kilkeel; and completed the tower of this same church and erected therein a beautiful bell, tho tones of which he was not destined long to hear.' THE DERRY RIOTS. Commenting upon the Derry riots, the Westminster Gazette states: —Ireland may be a place where things happen differently, but it really cannot be as topsyturvy as the Times would have us believe. A correspondent of that journal thinks that the Constabulary has almost exhausted its usefulness, and in Derry has failed in its duty. He tells of the Protestant ’prentice boys’ procession which ‘ did, undoubtedly, before being attacked, display a certain amount of bravado.’ It was firing revolver shots in the air and playing party tunes long before it had reache? Waterloo square, where the first disturbance took place.’ Now, we put it to ourselves, what would be the duty of the police in London if a procession of unemployed, say, began to fire revolver shots in the Strand ? The police would have, as quickly as possible, to break up the procession and capture the people With revolvers. Transfer the scene to Ireland, and what does the Times tell us ? ' The police failed in their first duty, which was to protect the processionists against assault.’ ‘lf, in a place like Derry, party processions of this kind are to be allowed at all, the rowdies on the opposite side must be hemmed into their own quarters.’ When the law is broken in Ireland the argument seems to be, you must not arrest the law-breaker, but you must devote all your energies to holding down the man who is threatened by the revolver of the law-breaker. CENTENARY OF A CHURCH. August 17, the centenary of the opening of the parochial Church of St. Mary’s, Westport, was celebrated with great and impressive solemnity. The occasion was on© of very exceptional interest, and must ever remain a memorable day in the annals of Catholicity in the great archdiocese. As the eloquent preacher of the day, the Most Rev. Dr. Higgins, pointed out, it was not to be wondered at that at this unique event in the history of their church, the Catholic people of Westport should have mad© such special efforts to beautify and adorn the holy edifice, which a hundred years after its foundation stands to-day as firm and solid and substantial as when first dedicated to the worship of God. It was to the zeal of the Most Rev. Oliver Kelly in 1813, then the administrator, of the parish, and subsequently Archbishop, that they owed this church, of which the people of Westport had always been so justly proud. His Lordship dwelt upon the fact that if the church could speak it could tell them of the extraordinary progress the Catholic religion had made during these 100 years. The church has recently undergone extensive* improvements, and the sacred edifice is now one of the most perfectly ©quipped in the country.

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