Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 18 February 1915, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL.

Very Rev. Canon Molyneux, pastor of Bally bunion (County Kerry), has passed away at the advanced age of 78 years. • ' V ’ Mrs. McGahey, Derry, has six sons serving in the Army, five of them in the Inniskilling Fusiliers, and the sixth with the Canadians. Cardinal Logue has received an acknowledgment from the Auxiliary Bishop of Malines of the sum of £1715, the contributions of the people of the archdiocese of Armagh for distressed Belgians.

Right Rev. Dr. Mangan has forwarded £1343 15s 9d to Mgr. De Wachter, Auxiliary-Bishop of Malines, being the offering of the people of Kerry diocese in relief of distressed Belgians.

One of the best known and most venerable figures amongst the clergy of the diocese of Killaloe has passed away in the person of the Very Rev. John Canon McCormack, Templederry, at the ripe age of 87 years. A Limerick sergeant, who served with the Connaught Rangers, in a letter to a friend says there'never was an Irish Brigade who had shed more lustre on their country than would Mr. Redmond’s Volunteers whom the writer is now training at Fermoy (County Cork). Damage estimated at between £3OOO and £4OOO was caused by a fire which completely destroyed the cornmills of Mr. J. R. McKee, Railway road, Coleraine, recently; and an almost equally destructive outbreak damaged the premises of Mrs. T. J. Scott, Queen street, Lurgan.

Mr.'John Redmond has received a cable from Mr. John G. Coyne, chairman, Mr. Robert J. Waddell and Mr. John P. Hayes, secretaries', of the Metropolitan District Convention of the U.1.L.. held at New York, heartily congratulating the party on its recent triumphs, and endorsing Mr. Redmond’s 1 victorious ’ leadership and his control of the I.N.V.

I-' At a recruiting meeting in support of the Irish Brigade in Kingstown (County Dublin), one of the speakers, Mr. E. H. Andrews, J.P., remarked that they had been very successful in their recruiting for the historic regiment of the Dublin Fusiliers, and at the present time that regiment had nine battalions, each of which was over one thousand men strong, and two more battalions were in course of formation.

* That the Irishmen in Wales have responded readily to the call of patriotism is clearly shown by the test of figures (says an exchange). From Cardiff alone considerably over 1000 have joined the colors. Four hundred have gone from St.’David’s parish ; 270 from St. Patrick’s parish; 190 from Splott, and 120 from St. Paul’s. From other parts of Wales the answer of Irishmen has been equally creditable. No less than 273 have joined from Dpwlais ; 274 from Swansea ; 220 from Merthyr; 59 from Mountain Ash, and 120 from Barry. Except four, all the able-bodied Irishmen in Ebbw Vale have enlisted.

AN IMPORTANT INFLUENCE.

The Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Maredsous in Belgium, who were dispossessed of their abbey and church by German troops, are about to settle in Ireland. They see no prospect of returning to Maredsous for many years, and Abbot Marmion, himself of Irish birth, has taken the lease of a castle near Waterford, where he and his monks will make a new foundation. The transference of the activities of this great monastic house to Ireland will be a great blessing to the surrounding district. In addition to their literary and educational work, the monks have, carried on extensive farming operations, and support a large school of arts and crafts where boys are trained in such technical crafts as woodcarving, gold and silver metal work, church embroidery, etc. The settlement of the monks will have an important influence upon the economic prosperity of the neighborhood in which they make their home.

IRISH GUARDS’. EXAMPLE.

Under date December in a private letter. Father John Gwynn, S.J., who is serving as chaplain with the Irish Guards at the front, writes describing an incident which will rejoice the heart of every friend of that splendid regiment : ‘We had a fine Benediction yesterday in a little village church in the afternoon. t There must have been seven hundred or more present. There was Rosary first, and then I gave the men a ; short sermon, to which they all listened with an attention which helped me very much. After that they sang “Hail Glorious St. Patrick.” It seemed strange to hear the walls of this little village church resound to the rich, soft voices of Irish soldiers. The “O Salutaris,” “Tantum Ergo,” and “Adoremus” were all sung by the men, to the great amazement and edification of the villagers, who crowded to the end of the church to witness the novel sight. The cure of the village told me that his people were immensely edified ,by the conduct of “les Irlandais,” and that their presence for the few days was as good as a mission.’

FIGHTING FOR HEARTH AND HOME.

Lord Emly, in accepting an invitation to be present at the great Volunteer demonstration in Limerick on Sunday, December 20, wrote as follows:—‘ I have much pleasure in accepting the kind invitation of the organising committee of the National Volunteers to be present at the meeting to be held in Limerick on Sunday, the 20th. lam one of those who believe that the place of every Irishman fit for military service is on the battlefields of Belgium or on the decks of the “Great Fleet.’’ Our men on those battleships and in those trenches are fighting for hearth and home —aye, and for. Home Rule, too. What if the “thin red line’’ were overborne by numbers ! What if the enemy were to elude the North Sea sentries! —what, then, about Home Rule? Of course, I quite realise that many, however willing, cannot go to the front. They should endeavor to acquire such efficiency as would enable the military authorities to utilise their services for the purpose of home defence.’

BELGIAN RELIEF FUND.

The collection in the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin for the Belgian relief fund has realised £1659 10s 6d. Most Rev. Dr. Foley, in a letter acknowledging the response by the priests and people to his appeal for the help of the suffering people of Belgium, says: — ‘.lt is curious to find that even amongst the people of our own country, which has not completely recovered from the ravages of her equally barbarous invaders, there are some who have not hesitated to belittle the sufferings that have been endured, and the sacrifices that have been made by that brave little nation, which, by her heroic resistance, no less than by her unmerited misfortunes, has won for herself the admiration and sympathy of every right-minded man. It is plain from the response that has been made to my appeal, and to similar appeals all over the country, that these heartless cranks are “few and far between,” and for this we have good reason to be grateful.’

DEATH OF A VENERABLE RELIGIOUS.

The death occurred on December 19 at the Convent of Mercy, Carysfort, Blackrock, of Mother Mary Liguori Keenan, one of the oldest of the Irish Sisters of Mercy, and a sister of the late Sir Patrick Keenan. She was in her 81st year, and her whole life had been filled with charitable activities. When it is remembered that Mother Mary Ligouri Keenan was local Superioress at the Mater Misericordiae Hospital in 1861, it will be seen how much her long life-work was connected with the great enterprises of charity which mark the progress of this justly renowned Irish congregation not only in Ireland but throughout the English-speaking world.

A HOPEFUL OUTLOOK.

This Christmas (says the Freeman’s Journal) wo are, to all intents dnd purposes, a free people. It is more than 114 years since that could be said in any

sense at all To-day. we-can say it in a sense in which the Irishman of the eighteenth century • could not use the words. We have won our new legislative charter. The accidental suspension of its operation * matters nothing. It is a charter such as the Protestant patriots of Grattan’s Parliament did not enjoy, and never dreamed of possessing. It is a charter which the Catholic Irish never, even in Grattan’s time, had an inkling of. For the first time we possess a real charter of legislative freedom, comprehending the whole of the people of Ireland without distinction, and conferring for the first time in our history full representative self-govern-ment. The dreams, aye, even more than the dreams of successive generations of good Irish patriots, of hundreds upon hundreds of Irish political martyrs, have come true, and are facts this Christmas. Ireland, since the Saxon came, has never had such cause for joy at Christmastide as in this year, with all its surrounding tragedy and tumult. At the end of the war Home Rule will begin automatically. It is not too much to hope that the war will end before 1915 is very old. We have had five awful months of it, and it seems scarcely possible that Europe can afford to suffer five other months of the same kind. We can, therefore, with some confidence look forward to the speedy opening of our Parliament, to next Christmas spent in peace, and with Home Rule in full working order.

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND.

At a meeting of the Senate of the National University, on December 11, the Archbishop of Dublin presiding, Alexander Anderson, M.A., D.Sc., LL.D., President of the University College, Galway, was elected Vice-Chancellor of the University for a period of two years. Sir Bertram C. A. Windle, M.A., M.D. D.Sc., LL.D., F.R.S., President of the University College, Cork, was elected as representative of the University on the General Medical Council for a period of three years. The Right Rev. Mgr. J. F. Hogan, D.D., President of St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, was elected Pro. Vice-Chancellor for such period as that college shall be the recognised college of the University. Joseph Mangan, M.A., F.R.C.Sc.T., M.R.1.A., as appointed Professor of Natural History in the University College, Galway.