Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1913, Page 39

Irish News

The golden jubilee of Sister Magdalen Murphy was recently observed at the Presentation Convent, Killarney. ' *

Among recent visitors to Ireland was the Right Rev. Dr. Gunn, Bishop of Natchez, United States. The Bishop, who is a brother of Mr. Hugh Gunn, J.P., Clones, is a native of Pivemilestown, Tyrone.

Very Rev. P. P. Tighe, S.J., who for the past year has occupied the responsible position of Rector of Mungret College, Limerick, left for Sydney .on October 3, to the great regret of a large number of friends, many of whom assembled at Kingstown to see him off.

Master Patrick A. Hanratty, of Collon, Drogheda, has been awarded the Louth County Council University Scholarship, value £l5O. The successful student has been educated at St. Macarten’s College, Monaghan, and has gained several distinctions during his intermediate course.

Ulster, exclusive of Belfast, has a population of 1,233,646, and of these ,49 per cent, are Catholics. Including Belfast, the percentage falls to 44 per cent. Five out of the nine counties are overwhelmingly Catholic, and the majority of the Parliamentary representatives of the province are Home Rulers.

At Macroom Quarter Sessions on October 3 Judge Bird was presented with white gloves. The Clerk of the Crown and Peace, in making the presentation, said it was the seventh occasion within two years on which he had had the honor of performing a similar ceremony. His Honor, in replying, expressed satisfaction at the peaceful state of the district.

Referring to the recent attack on priests in connection with the Dublin labor unrest, in the Church of St. Nicholas of Myra, Rev. Father Coffey said that every priest at his ordination took an oath to be faithful to the doctrine of the Church and to teach and preach according to that doctrine. In this crisis the priests had merely done their, duty and defended the doctrine of the Catholic Church and endeavored to protect the people from the curse of error and infidelity and revolution.

Mr. Eugene O’Keefe, head of a big business firm in Toronto, who died on October 1, was born at Bandon, County Cork, in 1827, and entered Toronto Savings Bank as a junior clerk. He became acquainted with a number of financial institutions, and eventually became manager of one. Mr. O’Keefe was a devout Catholic and gave largely ,to the Church. He contributed generously to the new church in Toronto, and gave three hundred thousand dollars to the seminary for English-speaking priests at Toronto.

At the London Coliseum on October 4 a kinematograph film was exhibited showing Sir Edward Carson holding a review of Ulster troops. The audience watched it in complete silence to the end, and then hissed it. On the same evening, at the Cinema de Paris, Leicester Square, London, the same film was shown. The audience showed considerable resentment at Sir Edward Carson taking a salute, and they hissed him every time he appeared on the film. There was no applause.

Mr. Matt. Keating, M.P. for South Kilkenny, accompanied by Mrs. Keating, paid a visit to the schools of the Christian Brothers in Kilkenny recently. The visitors were received by Rev. Brother Wilders, Superior, and Rev. Brothers O’Farrell, Spillane, O’Brien, and Fitzpatrick. Having visited the different classes, the visitors were delighted by some fine Irish choruses, dances, etc., by the boys. Brother Wilders having spoken at some length in explanation of the visit, Mr. Keating addressed the large gathering of students. He put before them the high privilege they had in being educated in schools conducted by the Order of Irish Christian Brothers.

The Rev. Father O’Connor, Adm., preaching in St. Colman’s Cathedral, Queenstown, in reference to

the death of Canon Sheehan, reminded his hearers of the deceased priest’s intimate association with the town, his memorable pulpit discourses, and the extraordinary affection always entertained for him by the people of Queenstown. ‘lt has been our privilege here at Queenstown,’ the preacher went on, to have heard travellers from many lands who passed this way speak of the wide reputation which Canon Sheehan enjoyed with readers in all parts of the world. It was no uncommon incident to meet priests and people coming off the liners here to journey to Doneraile for the one purpose of being introduced to the author of My New Curate. . . . Great Doctor of the Church though he was, he had the humility of a child, while his holiness and saintly character impressed those who knew him in a marked manner. . . . His writings bear many sublime references to devotion to the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. His devotion to the Rosary found expression in several of his books, and it is remarkable that his passing away should be on Rosary Sunday, the feast for which he had such special affection.’

MANUFACTURING PETITIONS AGAINST HOME RULE. ■

At a meeting of South Westmeath Executive of the United Irish League at Moate, over , which Sir Walter Nugent, M.P., presided, the secretary, Mr. Joseph Tyrell, drew attention to the manner in which petitions against Home\ Rule were prepared in the district. In a portion of the King’s County, very near South Westmeath, a lady, of some social influence, proceeded to get up a petition against Home Rule. She was not very successful in procuring names, so she went into a local churchyard and copied all the names on the tombstones! These she included in the petition, which she forwarded as an expression of county opinion against Home Rule. In Moate district, a gentleman insisted on all his Catholic servants signing a petition against Home Rule. One man who refused to sign was turned out on the roadside. Conduct* of that kind, said the secretary, deserved to be exposed, and would be exposed in future.

CRITICISM OF THE UNIONIST POLICY. Addressing a large Nationalist demonstration in Dundalk on October 5, Mr. Joseph Devlin, M.P. for West Belfast, said that the speeches of the Liberal Ministers during the past few weeks, the tone of the Liberal Press, and even the tone of {the Tory Press, made it clear that the conflict between Carsonism and Constitutionalism would be like the conflict between the earthenware pitcher and the iron pot. Sir Edward Carson and his party would be broken into fragments in the encounter. Let the Homo Rule Bill be passed into law, .and let the Unionists be given to understand that whilst no attempt would be made to interfere with their civil and religious liberties,- all resistance on their part would be severely dealt with, and the whole movement would collapse like a-house of cards. Nationalists would never agree to the exclusion of four of the Ulster counties. The flag of Home Rule should not wave over a divided Ireland.

PROTESTANT HOME RULERS. There is reason to believe that before very long some formal expression will be given to the views of the thousands of Protestants in Ulster who are favoring Home Rule, but who, for fear of f the consequences,’ have not hitherto thought it advisable to make their views publicly known (says the Irish Press Agency). Captain White, son of General Sir George White, the hero of Ladysmith, has pointed to the advisability of such an expression of Ulster Protestant Home Rule opinion, and Sir Roger Casement has been writing to the same effect in the Westminster Gazette. It is an actual fact that in Belfast and district Protestants in increasing numbers are daily declaring themselves in favor of Home Rule; and it is also an actual fact that all the vast expenditure of Unionist funds in Ulster has absolutely failed to attach the sympathy of the

vast majority of the responsible citizens of. Belfast to tlie Carsonite campaign. The only feeling ' amongst Belfast Home Rulers, Protestant and Catholic, is that the Home Rule Bill should be pushed through, and they are confident that nothing need be feared from any section of responsible Ulstermen as a result. The Protestant Home Rulers in Belfast know exactly what the situation is. They would be the first victims of the Carsonites. But they are no more afraid ■ than are the Catholics. Their only fear is that any concession whatever may be made to the Carsonites, the object of whose bluffing is to levy blackmail on Irish Nationality. Their organ, the Ulster Guardian says: 'We are alarmed lest the blackmail levied may not only weaken respect for law and order generally, but also impair the future success of Home Rule, and ruin the prospect of a united Ireland.’

A REMARKABLE CURE. It is announced that Miss Grace Moloney, of Co. Clare, who was recently cured of a tubercular knee at Lourdes, has gone back to complete her studies at the Dominican Convent, Taylor’s Hill, Galway. Our representative (says the Universe has learned of the remarkable cure of a little crippled boy —the twelve-year-old son of James Barnes, a general labourer, living at 19 Sanderson street (off the Oldpark road), Belfast. From the information available it appears that the boy’s mother, on reading of the Irish pilgrimage to Lourdes and its results, went to one of the nurses who had accompanied the pilgrims and procured from heron Monday, September 22—a bottle of the water taken from the Grotto. This she'applied nightly, and on the following Friday morning the boy caused a sensation by suddenly discarding his crutches and walking with apparent ease. The boy had been an invalid for five years, a blow on the knee developing into hip disease and rendering him powerless to move about without the aid of crutches. In relating to his father the story of his cure the boy said: ‘ I was sitting on the kerbstone watching the workman passing, when all of a sudden I thought I heard someone whisper to me to rise and walk. I just then jumped up and ran away, leaving my crutches behind me.’ The incident was witnessed by a large number of people who were in the street at the time, and they all expressed amazement at such a marvellous occurrence. As a result of leaning on his crutches for five years young Barnes still stoops, but he has certainly recovered the use of his limbs.

THE CONFERENCE PROPOSALS. Mr. W. A. Redmond, one of Ulster’s Nationalist representatives in the Imperial Parliament, addressed a meeting of the East Tyrone Executive of the United Irish League in St. Patrick’s Hall, Coalisland, on October 5. After returning thanks for a generous contribution, amounting to almost £3OO, to the Home Rule fund, he said it was gratifying to know that the .citadel of East Tyrone, which they had held for Ireland despite all the attacks of Toryism, was now rendered impregnable. Dealing with the Loreburn suggestion, he said the Nationalists were never opposed to a conference that would in any way further the Irish cause. They were perfectly willing to go into a conference on one condition, that the Irish question must be settled by establishment of an Irish Parliament, with an Irish Executive. What has happened to, weaken their cause within the last few months that they should go into a conference with their opponents, and not get credit for what they had achieved ? If their opponents agreed to an Irish Parliament, they were willing to go into a conference, and there and then determine the Bill that would be acceptable. There was no need for fear, but if safeguards were wanting, they were willing to grant them in order that their Protestant fellow countrymen might take part with their Catholic neighbors in the conduct of an Irish Parliament.