Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 4 December 1913, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. His Grace Archbishop Walsh has contributed £IOO to the fund for the relief of women and children suffering hunger from the Dublin strike. The Derry Revision Court has resulted in a clear majority of Catholics being placed on the register. With the assistance of Protestant Home Rulers, of which there are a considerable number, the city is solid for the national cause.

Speaking at Croydon on October 11, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, M.P., said Irishmen would not give up the ground they had gained after generations of struggling, and would never consent to restore the omnipotence of the House of Lords.

Edward Collins, aged 101, whose father fought in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, was buried at Maughold, Isle of Man, on October 12. Fleeing from Ireland, Collins's father took refuge in the Isle of Man. Members of the family had associations with Daniel O'Connell.

In the Hanley Memorial Hall, Castlerea, County Roscommon, the friends of Rev. Father Lavin presented him with an illuminated address and testimonial on s the occasion of his departure to take up missionary work in Perth, Western Australia.

The total number of emigrants (natives of the country) who left Ireland ' during the nine completed months ended September 30 was 26,406, as compared with 24,469 in the corresponding period of 1912, an increase of 1937. Ulster this year has suffered most from emigration (10,660),) and Leinster least (3174).

Mr. Patrick Guiney, M.P. for North Cork, died on Sunday, October 12, at his residence at Newmarket, County Cork, after a brief illness. Mr. Guiney, who was a farmer, was an O'Brienite, and was elected for North Cork, in January, 1910, by a majority of 1090 over the Nationalist candidate. At the last General Election he was unopposed. Mr. Guiney was 46 years of age.

Speaking in the Church of St. Joseph, Baltinglass, when he administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to close on 200 children, his Lordship the Most Rev. Dr. Foley, before administering the total abstinence pledge to the children, referred to the drink question, and expressed the opinion that, whatever might be stated to the contrary, there was certainly not so much drunkenness in the country as there had been formerly.

A. Daily News representative has ascertained that the Irish Channel train ferry in connection with the All-Red Route via Blacksod has passed beyond the theoretical stage, and the Government have promised a contribution of £135,000 towards the railway from Collooney to Blacksod, the running length of which will be 88 miles, and that work will be started on the railway and on the harbor construction at Blacksod before the end of the year, local labor being employed as far as possible.

A new Catholic Parochial Hall was opened recently in Omagh. Erected at considerable expense by the parishioners, it also reflects great credit on the Right Rev. Mgr. O'Doherty, V.F., who has been instrumental in its being built. The Rev. P. O'Mullan, Castlederg, in the course of his inaugural lecture on .' The uses a hall like this might be put to,' said that at no time was there more need for an educated Catholic laity than at the present period. He advised his hearers to have nothing to do with Socialism, which, he said, threatened to upset society.

The Rev. : Patrick Browne, M.A., D.Sc, has been appointed to the Chair of Mathematics and Mathematical Physics at Maynooth College. Father Browne has had a distinguished course in the National University, attaining distinctions in more than one department. His student's course there closed with the winning of the Travelling Studentship in Mathematics, an

honor awarded him about ( three years ago. Since then he has been studying in the University of Paris under some of the most eminent Mathematicians of Europe. In Paris he took his D.Sc. Degree with very extraordinary distinction, and, it is understood, he is being allowed by the Trustees of Maynooth to complete his Mathematical studies on the Continent.

NEW ARCHBISHOP OF CASHEL. In it announced, on reliable authority in Ireland (says the Universe ), that the Very Rev. Dr. Harty, Professor of Theology and Canon Law in Maynooth College, will succeed to the Cashel Archbishopric. The appointment is considered certain, although official notification has not yet been made. Dr. Harty was born at Murroe, County Limerick, in 1867, and was educated at St. Patrick’s College, Thurles, and Maynooth, and subsequently studied at the Gregorian University, Rome. He was ordained in 1894, and was appointed Professor of Dogmatic Theology in Maynooth in the following year. He has been one of the editor's of The Irish Theological Quarterly since its foundation, and has acted as hon. secretary of the Maynooth Union since 1904.

THE LIMERICK MEETING. The Home Rule demonstration which took place at Limerick on Sunday, October 12, was one of the largest and most representative held in Munster since the days of O'Connell. Counting heads merely, it was without a parallel in recent years; but when its representative character is considered, it establishes a record; Every city and county in Munster was specially represented, and never has any Irish leader received so many addresses from public bodies as were presented to Mr. Redmond. Some of the Unionist , leaders and newspapers asserted that the South and West of Ireland were weakening in the demand for Home Rule. The Limerick demonstration was the answer to these suggestions. The Unionists know now that the determination of Munster to have Home Rule is stronger than ever, and Mr. Redmond and the Irish Party have had it demonstrated to them afresh that Munster is with them heart and soul in the final stages of the Home Rule struggle.

A PERTINENT QUESTION. Mr. W. R. Foster, of Ilfracombe, writes as follows in the British Weekly of October 9:—'Much is being said of the fear that under Home Rule Protestants of Ireland will be persecuted by their Roman Catholic neighbors. Apparently, this is one of the most powerful factors in the Carsonite agitation. But it is a very strange thing that some of the strongest opposition to Home Rule comes from members of the Roman Church. During one of the recent elections, a meeting was held here at which Lord Clifford of Chudleigh was a chief speaker. He is a prominent Roman Catholic and a Tory opponent of Home Rule. When questions were invited, I sent up the following, in writing: “If Home Rule becomes law, will the Roman Catholics persecute the Protestants?" The chairman read the question, and passed it to Lord Clifford, who read if and then laid it on the table unanswered. . Apparently his lordship did not dare to answer the question, for if he had said Yes,' he would have condemned his own Church ; if he had said "No,” he would have knocked the bottom out of the Tory charge. Subsequently I wrote to the Duke of Norfolk, as the lay head of the English Roman Catholics, asking the same question. His reply was marked “private," and your readers may judge from this fact whether his Grace accepted the allegation or not.’

A LIBEL ON SLIGO. Mr. P.. Dolan, of Chesterfield, has done good service in the interests of Catholics and Irish Nationalists by exposing a misstatement regarding the people of Sligo made publicly by Mr. F. A. Walker, a local solicitor. Mr. Walker, speaking at a Conservative meeting in the Congregational Hall in support of the

Conservative candidate at the by-election, sought to show that there would be no freedom for Protestants in Ireland tinder Home Rule. He specially mentioned Sligo and said it was so priest-ridden that not a single Protestant was. on the Town Council and that the election of one had been prevented by the priests for nine years. Mr. Dolan challenged the statement and was warmly applauded by a large number of Nonconformists. A telegram which he sent, to the Sligo clergy brought from Canon Dooly, Administrator, the reply, ' Statement absolute untruth. No foundation whatever.' This was followed by a letter from the Canon emphatically denying the statement and thanking Mr. Dolan on behalf of the Bishop and clergy. The Canon in another letter referred Mr. Dolan to the editor of the Sligo Times, Mr. R. J. Smylie, who is a Protestant and a member of the Sligo Corporation. Mr. Smylie was written to by Mr. Dolan, and in his paper nas described Mr. Walker's statement as a libel on Sligo. Mr. Smylie says he offered himself as a candidate for the Sligo Corporation two years ago, went forward as a Protestant, and was elected by the Catholics.

THE LATE CANON SHEEHAN. Amidst manifestations of sincere regret and affection on the part of his parishioners, the clergy of the diocese of Cloyne, and public representatives from many parts, the remains of the distinguished author-priest, the Very Rev. Canon P. A. Sheehan, P.P., D.D., were interred in the churchyard at Doneraile, some thirty miles from the city of Cork. Almost the entire body of the diocesan clergy were present—as well as priests from Cork and elsewhere—at the Office and Requiem Mass, which were celebrated by the Right Rev. Dr. Brown, Bishop of Cloyne. His Lordship preached an eloquent panegyric on the life-work of the deceased Canon. They knew him gentle and kind, said his Lordship. He was the same to every class of people. No one ever heard him utter an uncharitable word, and he listened not to idle gossip. He cared nothing for money. His purse was ever open to the poor -and the deserving. He might have made a fortune by his works, but it never crossed his mind to do so. The little that he did make he gave for the benefit of various charities. The world of society sought him, • but he would not go. ‘ Last year,’ continued his Lordship, ‘ I happened to be in Vienna at the Congress. There was a Bishop there from Switzerland, and in the course of a conversation he said: “ I may have peculiar views, but I do not like to have the inner life, the home life, of priests brought into novels. I think it a too holy and sacred thing for that. But there is one exception/’ he said. “I have read Canon Sheehan’s books through and through, and he is the one man who ever treated that subject in a manner I thought proper.” ’ The remains were carried through the town and the convent grounds, followed by an immense concourse of people, and were then interred in a vault in the parish churchyard. A large number of wreaths were laid on the grave.