Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 19 March 1914, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. Rev. Patrick Hogan, parish priest of the united parishes of Killimer and Knockina, near Kilrush, died at his residence, Killimer, on January 23, after something over a week’s illness. The Hon. A. Prendergast, who has been appointed to the Controllership of New York City, is the son of an Irish emigrant from Blackwater, County Wexford. Last year he visited his father's home and spent some weeks with friends and relations. At the annual meeting of the Enniskillen Urban District Council, Mr. George Whalley, the outgoing chairman, presiding, Mr. John F. Wray, LL.B., solicitor, Nationalist, was unanimously elected chairman for the ensuing year on the motion of Mr. Crumley, M.P., seconded by Mr. Thos. Maxwell. The announcement of* the election of Mr. F. R. O’Shaughnessy, A.R.C.Sc., F.1.C., to the Council of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland, has just been made. Mr. O’Shaughnessy, whose brother is principal of the Technical School at Waterford, was recently appointed Consulting Chemist to the Rea and Taine Drainage Board. A striking tribute to Catholic tolerance is paid by Mr. E. Ussher Roberts, a Protestant magistrate of Waterford, in a letter to the Waterford Evening News. His twenty years’ experience of the Counties Longford, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Westmeath, and Waterford goes to show that the best of feeling existed between Catholics and himself. He deprecates the reckless statements made as to Catholics, and says if there was any intolerance he would be the first to hear of it. A notable citizen of Derry has just passed away in the person of Chevalier Hannigan, Knight of St. Gregory. He was distinguished by the munificence of his contributions to religious and charitable purposes. The Chevalier subscribed several thousands towards the rebuilding of Long Tower Church, contributed generously to the fund for completing the Cathedral spire, and was a liberal supporter of the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Mr. W. M. Murphy, J.P., president of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, presided at the annual meeting of that body, and referred to the Labor troubles in the city. He said it was the highest form of patriotism, according to the Trades Council, to close up Jacob’s biscuit factory, Dixon’s soap factory, Paterson’s match factory, Perry’s box factory, and numerous others, and to drive out of the city all the industries that were left. If a determined stand had not been made against the would-be destroyers not one of these industries would be alive to-day. Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P., has published an article in a London Conservative paper saying that Mr. Asquith has offered Ulster Unionists practically everything they asked for, with the exception of one thing (which they don’t really want, unless for tactics’ sake) amputation from the rest of Ireland., That demand is persisted in merely in the hope that they may kill Home Rule, to which it would certainly prove a brain-blow. Mr. Healy expects to see Unionists accept additional ‘ safeguards ’ later on. A general election would settle nothing, and if the Tories got a majority they would find Ireland a hornets’ nest and America a dreadful diplomatic embarrassment. ' Mr. Healy advocates another Round Table Conference. The late Mr. J. Q. Pigot, of Dublin, a former Judge of the High Court at Calcutta, left personal estate valued at £32,347. He bequeathed—To the Superioress of the Community of the Visitation, Chambery, his copy of Tissot’s Life of Jesus Christ, the Liure D’Hcures, said to be of the fifteenth century, which he bought from the Hoepe of Milan, and certain illuminated books, and £3000; £IOO to the Administrator of Westland row parish, Dublin, for charitable purposes; £l5O to the Prior of the Caloed Carmelites,

Aungier street, Dublin, for charitable purposes; and to the Prior of the Discalced Carmelites, Clarendon street, Dublin. THE HOME RUT,E FUND. The Trustees of the Home Rule Fund have issued a manifesto thanking the people for their support, and stating that no appeal will be made for the fund for the pie sent year, except in case of unforseen emergency. The lists, however, were to be kept open until March 17 to permit of the completion of collections in hand. Contrast this with the appeals issuing almost every day from the Unionist organisations in Belfast and in London for funds, which apparently meet with little or no response. Home Rule is the cause of the people, who are ready to sacrifice for it. Unionism is the cause of privilege and monopoly, and is kept alive only by the subscriptions of the plutocrats. It makes no appeal to the heart of the people. BEQUESTS TO MESSRS. REDMOND. The question of the disposal of the estate of the late Miss Jane Dennistoun Kippen, Edinburgh, was considered in the Court of Session, Edinburgh - , on - January 24. Miss Kippen, it may be recalled, bequeathed her estate, which is valued at £IO,OOO, to Messrs. John Redmond and William Redmond, as representing the Nationalist Party, and Mr. Keir Hardie, as representing the Independent Labor Party. The immediate relatives of the deceased lady raised the claim that the Messrs. Redmond and Hardie had merely been appointed trustees for them. After hearing counsel for both sides, the Court decided that the will bequeathed the estate to these gentlemen, £SOOO going to the Messrs. Redmond and the other £SOOO to Mr. Hardie.

FROM WILLIAM 111. TO THE UNION. In the eyes of the Dean of. Canterbury, judging by his language at Dover, the Treaty of Limerick, which William 111. signed—-and violated—inaugurated a golden age in Ireland. Let us (Catholic Times ) set forth a few of the enactments of the period, in addition to those specified in an article in this issue. No ‘ Papist ’ was permitted to marry a Protestant, and any priest celebrating such a marriage was to be hanged. Two justices of the peace could compel any ‘ Papist ’ above eighteen years of age to disclose every particular which had come to his knowledge respecting 4 Popish ’ priests, the celebration of Mass, or ‘ Papist schools. If he refused to answer he was liable to imprisonment for a year. Nobody could hold property in trust for a Catholic, Juries in all the trials arising out of these penal statutes were to consist of Protestants. No 4 Papist ’ could take more than two apprentices except in the linen trade. All the Catholic clergy were obliged to give in their names and the names of their residences at the Quarter Sessions and to keep no curates. In any trial under statutes designed for the strengthening of the Protestant interest a 4 Papist ’ juror might be peremptorily challenged. Considering the extent of the responsibility, of the Anglican Church for such a horrible code o/ persecution, it is surprising that at the present day any ministers of that Church should have the hardihood to challenge enquiry into her policy in the matter of tolerance. THE BOGUS JESUIT OATH AGAIN. The following letter from the Very Rev. Father Nolan, S.J., Provincial, appeared in a recent issue of the Cork Constitution : 4 Sir, —My attention has been drawn to-day to a letter from a Mr. John Willis, J.P., published in your issue of Wednesday, January 21. In this letter Mr. Willis quotes an oath, purported to be taker! by the Jesuit Order, a part of which he gives as published in the Christian Advocate , October 11, 1912, and never since contradicted.

‘ Neither the oath referred to nor any similar oath has ever been taken by a Jesuit, and as to the statement that the existence of such an oath among Jesuits has never been contradicted, Mr. Willis has but to refer to the Standard, March 21, 1910, in -which an oath, substantially the same, is denied and refuted by Rev. William Delany, S.J., and Rev. John Gerard, S.J. Father Gerard points out that the bogus oath was published in Germany in 1891 and in subsequent years, but was denounced by the Evangelical Bund (the Protestant Alliance of Germany) as a ‘ clumsy fraud ' ‘ eine plumpe Falschung ’), and the Berliner Tagliche Eundschau, the organ of the Bund, after stating that it had been urged to publish the form of oath, declared that ‘ it could not, and would not do so, the document being known as a fabrication by all wellinformed persons,’ and the ißundschau accordingly appealed to Protestants to be more circumspect and not to use weapons which only serve the cause of the enemy and “ draw water to the Ultramontane Mill ” (March 29, 1899). ‘ Since then Father Gerard has traced back the history of the “ Form of Oath,” and found that it originally appeared in Foxes and Firebrands, and was concocted by Robert Ware, a contemporary and fellowworker with Titus Oates. ‘ As Mr. Willis, I observe, is a magistrate, and has been thus appointed to administer and maintain justice, I shall be glad to give him an opportunity of testing in open court whether such, or similar oath, is taken by a Jesuit if he will only bring the charge against any individual Jesuit.’ The Constitution added the following footnote to the letter: —‘Needless to say, we hold no brief from the Jesuit Order, but we do in the interest of providing things honest in the sight of men, and when we printed Mr. Willis’ letter we gave it as our clear opinion that the oath he ascribed to the Jesuits, as well as to the oath ascribed by Mr. Carr to the Hibernians, was nonsense, and had no existence. This view is now confirmed by the Provincial of the Jesuit Order in Ireland. Mr. Willis is undoubtedly an honorable gentleman, and he has stated that his authority is the Christian Advocate of October 12, 1912. The Advocate is a well-known paper of high standing, and, as we have unwittingly been drawn into the matter, it now clearly devolves upon the Advocate to show what authority it had for ascribing such a shocking oath to the Jesuit Order at all.’