Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 18 December 1913, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. On the last Sunday in October the new Church of the Sacred Heart, Boho, County Fermanagh, was solemnly dedicated by Right Rev. Dr. McKenna, Bishop of Clogher. Out of the eleven successful candidates for the Dublin Corporation scholarships of £4O a year, tenable for three years, no less than nine are pupils of the Christian Brothers' Schools, North Richmond street.

Right Hon. R. G. Glendinning, formerly "Liberal Member for one of the Antrim divisions, declared at a recent meeting in Rishton, in Lancashire, that fifteen per cent, at least of the Protestants of Ulster were Home Rulers. He himself is one. Rev. Brother Thomas, M.A., 8.E., AssistantGeneral of the De La Salle Training College, has returned to Waterford. He has been on a tour of inspection of the schools and colleges of the United States. After a brief rest he will continue his work in the Indian, Australian, and South African Provinces. In view of the near approach of ' a critical period in the history of Ireland and the Irish Church,' the Most Rev. Dr. Sheehan has ordered the recital of a special prayer to the Holy Ghost at the Masses in every part of his diocese, that the Almighty may enlighten and direct our public men so that they may do what is bes£ for the spiritual and temporal interests of our people.' Mr. St. John Ervine, the popular Irish dramatist, in a letter to the London Times, opposes the exclusion of Ulster from the Home Rule Bill. He says that his Unionist relatives in Belfast are as proud of beingIrish as any inhabitants of Munster, Connaught, or Leinster, and he himself would certainly rather be governed by the College of Cardinals than allow himself to be denationalised. In a letter to Lord Chief Baron Palles, who presided at a meeting held in Dublin to arrange for the celebration of the centenary of Clongowes College, Mr. John Redmond said if he had been able to attend he would proudly have borne testimony of his gratitude to the old college where he spent so many years. The Chief Baron said he himself owed to the college anything that he was or had. A number of electors having written to Mr. Redmond expressing the opinion that the vacancy in County Cork North should be contested by a supporter of the Irish Nationalist Party, Mr. Redmond replied that he had come to the clear conclusion that, in the interests of the Nationalist cause, it was best not to contest the constituency. On being asked to receive a deputation with regard to the matter, he declined. Our Irish exchanges report the death of Rev. Thomas Wheeler, S.J., who passed away at Upper Gardiner street, Dublin, in his 65th year. Born near Mullingar in 1848, he belonged to a family that gave many of its members to the service of the Church. His elder brother was the Rev. James Wheeler, parish priest of Stamullen; Iris younger brother was the lamented Father Joseph Wheeler, 0.P., who died some years ago. His uncle was the Right Rev. Dr. Carbury, 0.P., Bishop of Hamilton, Canada.

The Orangemen of Belfast have a great fear of Catholic intolerance when Home Rule is given. It is an interesting commentary on this complaint to consider the distribution of offices in the city of Belfast. The Board of Guardians pay £16,800 in salaries, of which Catholics get £6BO. The Harbor Board pays £11,269, and the one Catholic official gets £250. The Water Board has on its pay roll one Catholic, whose wages are £65, out of a total of £SBOO. Of the 25 medical officers not one is a Catholic. There are 100,000 Catholics in Belfast, more than a fourth of the population.

The Kilkenny County Council has awarded a scholarship value £SO, tenable for three years at the

National University, to Miss Mary Ellen Keenan, Graiguenamanagh, a pupil' of the Dominican Nuns, Sion Hill, Dublin. (

There recently passed away at Glin, County Limerick, Mrs. Helen Fitzgerald, relict of Mr. Francis Fitzgerald, J.P. She was the dispenser of unbounded charity to the poor of the district, by whom her death is deeply regretted.

Countess Plunkett, a prominent Cathoilc lady in Dublin, has written to the press saying that she is prepared to take charge of any Dublin children whose parents are unable to take proper care of them during the continuance of the strike and lock-out. Such children, she says, she will house comfortably at Sandymount, where they can be visited by their parents.

Archbishop Walsh, in a speech made at a meeting of the St. Vincent de Paul Society in Dublin, made a detailed statement showing the work which is being done'by the various charitable institutions in Dublin for the spiritual and temporal welfare of poor children. If it should prove necessary (said his Grace), these institutions were prepared to do more, so that there was no need to send children out of the country.

NEW VICAR-APOSTOLIC OF ZANZIBAR. At Blackrock College, Dublin, on October 28, the Rev. John Gerald Neville, D.D., C.S.,Sp., was consecrated Bishop. Dr. Neville is Bishop of Carrhoe and Vicar-Apostolic of Zanzibar. The consecration ceremony was performed by the Right Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe, assisted by the Right Rev. Dr. Gilmartin and the Right Rev. Dr. Morrisroe. The new Bishop was born in Dublin in 1858, and entered Blackrock College as a boarder at the age of twelve years. He was in the college from 1870 till 1886, when he was ordained a priest. From that year till 1903 he occupied various positions in the college. In 1903 he went to Trinidad, and remained there for seven years. In 1910 he was appointed to the Central Council of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost in Paris, which position he occupied up to the present year. Bishop Neville is the first Bishop who has been consecrated at Blackrock College. A PROTESTANT M.P. AND HIS CONSTITUENTS. Mr. Swift Mac Neil, M.P., at a crowded meeting in the Parr Hall, Warrington, presided over by Mr. A. H. Crosfield, said that in the Ulster agitation an unwarrantable use had been made of the King's name for merely party political purposes. Such a thing was treason to the King and a scandal to the Constitution. No one who had any knowledge of Ireland could suppose that any man of the Protestant faith or any other faith would be hurt or persecuted or ostracised because of his faith. The man who, with a knowledge of Ireland, said so was a conscious liar. He was a Protestant himself, and a great deal better Protestant than Sir Edward Carson. There was no secret about his Protestantism, and for 27 years the most Catholic constituency in Ireland had kept him as their member, and elected him when he was absent through illness, and had prayed for him in their Catholic churches. Protestantism in certain small minds meant belonging to the privileged classes. Those who tried to keep alive the Irish difficulty by setting Protestant against Catholic and Catholic against Protestant did so because they knew it would raise a tremendous barrier to the salutary work of national salvation which would go on in the House of Commons after the Irish difficulty had been removed. THE WEST BELFAST SEAT. The Revision Sessions for the City of Belfast have come to a conclusion, and it is now possible to estimate in general terms (says the Irish Weekly) the outcome of the past month's sittings, during which the powerful Unionist organisation brought its whole strength to bear upon the Nationalist position in the West Division. A careful and exhaustive examination of the register in the light of the revision indicates that the

fortress of Nationality in Belfast remains impregnable, notwithstanding the desperate efforts of the combined Tory forces to bring about its downfall. An expert scrutiny of the register as it stands makes full allowance for appealed cases, reveals a solid and unbeatable majority, gauged purely on the sectarian basis. But apart from this, it is well known to all who have taken part in electoral work in the division that a large body of democratic Protestants, who are calculated upon by the Unionists in arriving at their total, are quite out of sympathy with the present propaganda. There is also to be reckoned with the percentage of Protestants who are unswerving supporters of the progressive cause, and are recognised, even in Unionist circles, as certain voters against an ascendancy candidate. It is now estimated that in an election on the new register the present Member for West Belfast would retain his seat by a majority of at least one thousand.