Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 26 March 1914, Page 39

Irish News

V' v . fj'. GENERAL. ;. ' Mr. Ivor Revan, presiding at the annual meeting of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, said the figures were record ones in the bank’s and the expansion was a general one in all departments. Four Donegal fishermen who disappeared after a storm in Boylagh Bay have been rescued from an uninhabited rock called Roanish, twenty miles out. .Their survival after a fortnight’s starvation is regarded as marvellous. A double-decked Dublin tramcar suddenly left the tracks at Merrion Square on Sunday, February 6, and, after swaying to and fro, fell on its side, becoming a complete wreck. Over twenty passengers were injured, some seriously, but fortunately no life was lost. ' American papers to hand report the death of Mrs. Nora Sullivan at Potsdam, N.Y., at the great age of 110. She was born in Cahirciveen, and was employed in the household of Daniel O’Connell in his home in Derrynane Abbey before she went to erica, seventyfive years ago. Twenty-one herring drifters belonging to Inverness, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, and Banff, arrived at Derry on Saturday, January 31, with 1200 crans caught off the Donegal coast, the herrings being of exceptionally good quality. Large contingents were sent to Liverpool and Glasgow. The price was from 8s to 12s 6d per cran. Mr. John Lalor Fitzpatrick, Tenakill House, Mountrath, has been appointed to the Commission of the Peace for Queen’s County. Mr. Fitzpatrick, who is a grandson of the late Richard Lalor, one time M.P. for Queen’s County, has taken a prominent part in the Home Rule movement, and in the struggle for the abolition of landlordism. - In the course of a letter to Mr. D. Boyle, M.P., acknowledging the receipt of a cheque for £7O for the Home Rule Fund from the people of Ballina, Mr. John Redmond, M.P., says this most generous contribution, which includes- subscriptions of many Protestants, affords most gratifying evidence of the strength and solidarity of the national movement in North Mayo. The quarterly meeting of the Catholic Truth Society of Ireland was held recently at 24 Upper O’Connell street, Dublin, Very Rev. Dr. Keane, 0.P., presiding. The report showed that several new books had been issued during the quarter and that others were going to press. Sympathetic’ references were made to the deaths of Very Rev. Canon Sheehan and Dr. P. W. Joyce, to both of whom the society owed much. Speaking at a. public meeting in support of the Home Rule Bill, atj Salford, Mr. E. Haviland Burke, M.P., said he knew of nothing more misleading than the misuse of the word ‘Ulster' by the Unionist leaders, for in five out of -the nine Ulster counties the Catholics numbered from 55 per cent, to 81 per cent, of the population, and, in addition to/that, the Nationalists had' an actual majority in the representation of the province in Parliament. ’ Over 1000 men were enrolled as members of the Irish National Volunteers after a public-meeting at Dungloe, West Donegal, at which Mr. J. E. Boyle, J.P., who presided, said they should face the fact that the Carsonites were arming, and this should be an incentive to the Irish Volunteers to defend their rights. Mr. Pearse, 8.L., Dublin, said the object of the Irish Volunteers was to make it impossible for any Unionist Government to repeal the Home Rule Bill.’ 7* \ ” IRISH IN THE SCHOOLS. , , :-r ■: In the Gresham Hotel, Dublin, on Friday, February 6, a deputation interested in-the- question of Irish in primary" schools, * representing - the " Central

Council of Catholic Clerical. Managers, the General Council of county Councils, the National Teachers’ Organisation, the Gaelic League, and the Confederation of Irish Colleges, waited on Mr. John Redmond, M.P., ana placed before him a scheme embodying the principle recently adopted by the National Board for " Having Irish taught as an ordinary subject during the hours constituting a school attendance, and sought the aid of the Irish Party to have the funds already available for the teaching of Irish as an extra subject used for this purpose, the general and financial provision and the regulations in regard to Irish to be such as to make the scheme attractive to teachers and pupils The deputation was fully satisfied with the interview, and felt a deep debt of gratitude to Mr. Redmond for his’ cordial reception of the delegates and the practical interest which he took in the proposals. . DUBLIN CHILDREN’S DISTRESS FUND. A 1 The Dublin Children’s Distress Fund (founded at the instance of his Grace the Archbishop) has now been in existence for three months, and has during that period succeeded in preventing much of the suffering that would, without the help it has afforded, have fallen to the lot of the poor school children of the city as a consequence of the labor troubles. Up to the 27th ult., the committee . expended in the purchase of clothing the sum or £2525, and in grants to local committees for supplying food to school children, *£2438, a total ‘ expenditure of £4963. Tho following figures, showing .the number of articles of clothing distributed up to the same date will give some idea of the magnitude of the needs of the children, which the committee found it necessary to supply:—Boys’" clothing—l2oo suits, 1173 jerseys, 1173 knickers, 1598 shirts, and 2843 pairs of boots and" c stockings. Girls’ clothing-2329 dresses, 2214 sets of underclothing, and 3098 pairs of boots' and stockings. The demands made upon the fund for the provision of meals by the local committee are not so great as they were before Christmas, but there is no probability that this work can be discontinued for a long time to come. In the meantime many hundreds of children have been left unprovided with clothing owing to lack of funds. NATIONAL EDUCATION. The concluding volume of the minutes of evidence taken before the Committee of Inquiry into Primary Education in Ireland was issued on Thursday, February 5. Miss C. M. Mahon, president of the National Teachers’ Organisation, dealt with the relations of the Commissioners to the teachers. On the death of Mr. Bedington the vacancy of Resident Commissioner was filled, she said, by a man whose administration, unfortunately for himself, for the Board, for the teachers, and for education, had been one long period of civil war between the teachers and himself, broken only by occasional truces, during which hostilities were merely suspended, only to break out anew with increased violence on every new provocation. On every occasion the teachers were backed by the country, and Dr. Starkie by his Board. The Board, standing on its Charter, defied the whole Irish people,. clergy, "laity, and teachers combined, and it was a humiliating position to see Irish teachers-forced to fly across the Channel, or rush to Dublin Castle to throw themselves on the mercy of English Ministers, to claim as subjects of an English King protection from injustice, and redress of wrongs inflicted by a Board of 20 Irishmen at home. This,they have had to do time and again for the last thirteen year.!. ; f The final report of the Committee of Inquiry contains severe criticisms of the Inspectorate, whose chief faults, it is alleged, are lack of system, organisation, and discipline. -Tha Committee - were of the opinion . that much of the teachers’ discontent was due to those drawbacks, and they were also of the opinion that thesystem : of merit marks should be abolished. , - s

Th & , Edinburgh Catholic Herald of February 7 says:—lt is a fairly sound canon in politics as in war to judge of any action of your own by your adversary’s opinion of it. The Saturday Review, discussing Mr. O’Brien’s resignation of his seat in Cork, says that the ‘plain Englishman ’ will, at any rate, perfectly understand why Mr. Redmond has declined the combat. * Mr. Redmond has declined because he knows to a certainty that by opposing Mr. O’Brien he would lose his money and the election.’ .So far as there can be certainty in human things the certainty is ■■ quite the other way. Mr. O’Brien has resigned because six O’Brienite nominees have just been beaten in municipal elections in Cork. If the portent gives any certainty at all, it is certainly that in a Parliamentary election the voters who in six wards have turned out Mr. O’Brien’s nominees' would, in the single Parliamentary constituency, turn out Mr. O’Brien himself. That, however, is as it may be. The significant point for Irish Nationalists to note' is the somewhat incautious admission of the Saturday Review regarding Mr Redmond’s refusal to tread on Mr. O’Brien’s coat-tails. This is how the Unionist organ regards the matter;- ‘ This shows well what Cork thinks of the Home Rule Bill, of the Government, and of the proposal to wrench the loyalists of Ulster out of the Union. We do not want to make too much of the incident, or to pretend that it is a great “moral victory’’ for the cause of the Union; but it is distinctly useful in its way.’ Anything which is ‘ distinctly useful ’ to ‘ the cause of the Union ’ must be distinctly hurtful to Home Rule, 'and if Mr. O’Brien should examine his political conscience there is something in this Unionist admission to give him matter for scrutiny. It is significant, by the way, to observe that the Saturday Review, discussing Mr. O’Brien’s conciliation proposals, as he has lately set them forth in detail-, remarks' that his proposal ‘ is too ingenious by half, and unhappily it does not meet the first, c the indispensable demand of Ulster to-day-—that on no terms will she agree to become a dependent of Irish Nationalism.’ ■ Here, then, are Mr. O’Brien’s conciliation proposals scouted with scorn already by the organ of Tory intellect. / THE WRITING OF IRISH HISTORY. In the January number of the British Review Padraic Colum makes an eloquent plea for ’the proper > study of early Irish authorities on the part of writers who attempt to compare the early Irish civilisation with that of other countries. He states that up to the ; present the study of Irish history has been done in ‘impotent glances.’ Most of the history written for English consumption is written from English State papers. ‘ But what would be said,’ he writes, ‘ of a history of Bohemia written by one who never acknowledged that there was a distinct Bohemian language and r made no reference to any document but a German State paper V Even the well instructed amongst writers upon Irish ; historical topics, he says, have been taught to ignore ■ the native document and the native tradition, and in the mind of . the general student there is a curious ignorance of the historical value of the actual Irish records. He quotes from a recent writer in the British Review, who speaks of the Annals of the Four Masters , the Annals of Ulster, and the Book of Ilowth as being all three lacking in authority. The Book of Ilowth (says Mr. Colum) should not be classed as an Irish record, at all, 1 as it is an’English compilation throughout/ The Annals of the Four Masters were certainly composed in the seventeenth century, and incorporate the actual text of . earlier annals., Hr. Douglas Hyde says off this record, that in it * we have in condensed form the pith and substance of the old books of Ireland which were then in, exisfence.’ Then, with regard to the Annals of . Ulster, the greatest Gaelic scholars regard

them as the strata in which the development of the Irish language from the seventh to the fifteenth century is shown. - ’■ It is this contempt for Irish authority, comments Mr. Opium, that naturally leads' to a - complete * misunderstanding of Irish • conditions and Irish character. Mr. Colum illustrates this by taking and analysing the statement made that the name Burke is the same as O’Rourke. Bourke was originally a Norman name, ‘de Burgo, ’and anyone with any knowledge of the pride of the ancient Irish could not state that a clan would deliberately change its ancient name for that of a foreigner. . Mr. Colum’s position and plea is this, that ‘ Irish history— up to the seventeenth century at all events—should be written only by people who have a knowledge of Gaelic conditions and an appreciation of Gaelic psychology under these conditions. The history of the Irish people up to that period should, I believe, be written in Irish, and be made known to the world as the histories of Russia, Hungary, and -Bohemia' are made known— translation. A score of scholars, Irish, German, French, and English, are engaged upon the material for such a historystudying manuscripts, editing texts, elucidating the older forms of the language, disentangling a disguised mythology, and an artificial history from the actual record of Irish development. These scholars are often out of touch with the English journals and reviews and cannot correct statements that are at variance with the facts as they know them. And the Irish publicists who feel it their duty to make some corrections have to assume a greater authority than they really possess. In the present state of Irish historical research the effective argument often cannot be used it is one for specialists and students and not for general readers. Under such circumstances is it fair of writers who are hardly acquainted with the authorities to enter into a disquisition upon Irish history V