GOD SAVE IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 19 November 1914, Page 23

GOD SAVE IRELAND

(By William Canon Barky, D.D., in the Catholic Times

When that cry was raised in the House of Com' mons, on Friday, September 18, 1914, and was answered by Mr. Redmond with ‘ God save England !’ the quarrel which had lasted between Celt and Saxon for seven hundred and sixty years melted into the past. Ireland was indeed a nation. The Irish Brigade had won. The British Empire might from henceforth face barbarian hosts from Germany, undismayed because united. Our dear Tory friends, our Williamitea on the Boyne, never hitherto could grasp what now appears to be the simple fact, that Home Rule means ‘Rule Britannia!’ O foolish and slow of heart! Is not the principle clear and a commonplace that, if you treat any man as your enemy, your enemy he will be? And that no mortal can hold out against justice done to him ? The people of England have given their Irish fellow-subjects self- • government. It is now law; ‘Le Roi le veult,’ exclaimed an official voice, dissolving the old bad Union, founded on force and bribery, inaugurating the union of hearts to which a wronged and generous nation has pledged its word. This day, September tho eighteenth, will shine like * a captain jewel in the carcanet,’ a feast for times to come while the latest-born of free peoples in Europe goes forward to battle. England, Ireland, France make a grand confederacy. We do not forget Belgium, newly-baptised in her blood. The hour is inspiring. We have seen great things done and suffered. But no country has suffered more than the Green Isle in the Western Sea—Erin of the bards and the saints, of the scholars and the fairy hostings, of the soldiers, the pilgrims, the countless exiles that have carried her name into new continents, built up churches, thrown their strength into democracies-the people of Faith and Freedom! When Grattan rose on April 16, 1782, in order to move the Declaration of Independence, the address which he proposed came to an end in these words: The people of • this Kingdom have never expressed a desire to share the freedom of England without declaring a determination to share her fate likewise, standing or falling with the British nation.’ From Dean Swift to John Redmond. Grattan called on the spirit of Swift, the spirit of Molyneux, to rejoice that Ireland was now recognised as the nation they had ever asserted it to be, and bowing to that august figure, he cried aloud, ‘ Esto perpetual’ He saw its independence carried to the grave but he would not despair of its resurrection. He is justified to-day. We commemorate the long line of Irish patriots, from the 4 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff ’ to Flood and Grattan himself, to Burke and Sheridan, to O’Connell, Butt, Parnell, and we come at length to wise and brave John Redmond with his friends, nay, with his foes, too, in the hour of reconciliation all round. These Catholics and Protestants combining to make Ireland happy are of good omen. A cause which kindled fire in hearts so unlike as Swift, Burke, O’Connell, Parnell bore in their bosoms, must be something great and deep, which cannot be defeated. Home Rule is the answer to efforts renewed again and again, during well-nigh two hundred years. A nation' may be cut into pieces, like Poland, but it will not die. Grattan’s prayer was a prophecy, 4 Esto perpetua !’ This Christian Triumph. A small nation at home, a people widely-scattered but held together by their religion, as they never could have been otherwise, such are the Irish. Even Protestant Ulster will grant so much. Look at them in Australia, in the United States, in England. They have not Tost themselves among alien crowds. Why not? Surely, in the main, because they were Catholics. The .small nations are coming with credit out of the hideous hurly-burly, stirred up by German Caesarism. Not to be despised 1 are the heroisms tested ' by fiery trials of Servia, Greece, Belgium. The resurrection at either end of Europe, now promised to Ireland as well as Poland—the martyr-nations— me with; wonder as

if I were seeing a miracle. For it has not been accomplished merely by the strong arm it is a great moral —I will dare to say, a great Christiantriumph. To quote Grattan once more : ‘lt was not the sword of the volunteer, nor his muster, nor his spirit no, we must gratefully acknowledge that, after ail, it was the genius of the free British Constitution which enabled our leaders to convince the democracy that Ireland ought to govern herself. ■ Home After Victory. But Ireland has volunteers like those of 1782, men differing in religion, yet ready to stand shoulder by shoulder on the tremendous European battlefields, where they will vindicate that constitution at the cannon’s mouth and the point of the bayonet. Irishmen are doing it while I write these words. Not until history lays “down her pen will the Irish Guards be forgotten, who charged and took those death-dealing pieces of ordnance the other day. Mr. Redmond, the newspapers tell us, is gone to Dublin as a recruiting-sergeant. The telegraph has gone before him with ‘Le Roi le veult.’ Our Western Isle may look forward to prosperous times. She can feed her people, stock the markets of England, take up the business that never should have strayed to Denmark or Holland, check emigration, and manage her own affairs profitably, without depending on Westminster. From the Germans no section or party, neither Dublin nor Belfast, need expect anything but such treatment as the Belgian cities have undergone, and for a pretty similar reason. They have all disappointed the Prussian War-Lord. He ' had been assured by spies and ambassadors that if not Ulster then Munster would take up arms against the British Government. Instead, they are taking up arms against him. The first shot has ended their quarrels. Now when our countrymen of the Black North’ see how the old Irish Brigade has come to life again and is fighting England’s battles, yes, and winning them, I believe we shall not hear much more of any Amending Bill, except to give the Parliament in College Green larger powers. ‘ Blood is a very peculiar fluid,’ says the fiend in Goethe’s .poem. It is, and covenants which have been signed in it keep a marvellous binding authority. Home Rule is not a great renunciation. England gives up nothing that she could have retained with honor to her best traditions. Ireland under a native legislature, sending her volunteers to join in the war of freedom with her ancient ally France, with Catholic Belgium, Catholic Poland, is taking her due place in the sun. But was there ever a turn so little anticipated, or a Deus ex inachina more strange ? The Raiser has done many remarkable feats; none, however, will compare with his appearance out of the sky above our militant hosts and their instantaneous union against the invader. When they have put him to flight they will clasp hands as brothers on the field of victory.