Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 18 March 1915, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL, The Irish emigration returns have so fallen that the population within the year 1914 increased by 8000. Mrs. Mary McCann, who has died in the Catholic Home, Newry, on her 100th birthday, was in early life a servant to Lord Russell of Killowen, and had been in the home over thirty years. Messrs. Stephen Gwynn, M.P., and Professor Kettle, who lately joined the Imperial Army, are now attached to the 16th Irish Division under Sir Lawrence Parsons at Fermoy. This force is the ‘ Irish Brigade.’ Another Irish Nationalist who has accepted a commission in the Army is Mr. W. D. Harbinson, who has been appointed a lieutenant in the Army Ordnance Department. Mr. Harbinson, who is one of the bestknown of Irish Protestant Home Rulers, is a barrister by profession. Mr. T. P. O’Connor signs a circular just published, and addressed to the members of the United Irish League in Great Britain, advocating that that organisation should be continued, that it may ‘ stand by the liberties of Ireland as long as there is any danger from any quarter in the future as in the past.’ At the County Sessions in Dublin the Recorder was presented with white gloves, there being no cases for trial. lie remarked that the present was the first occasion since that courthouse was built that this had happened, it being thirty years since lus predecessor in the old court received the gloves, lie congratulated the grand jury on the peaceful condition of the country. Writing to the J / o/iai/ha u Democrat, his Lordship Dr. McKenna, Bishop of Clogher, heartily thanks the priests and people of his diocese for their magnificent response to his appeal for the Belgian relief fund. Ills Lordship says: 1 As the total, £ll3l is lid, witnesses, the response from the diocese to my appeal has been of the most generous character. ILs spontaneity has been as remarkable as its generosity. Lieutenant T. J. Leahy, of the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, has been promoted captain. lie was the only officer of the Dublins mentioned in Sir John French’s despatches, and received the French Legion of Honor, and recently the Military Cross. lie is the son of Mr. T. J. Leahy, J.P., Woodfort, Mallow, Co. Cork. lie was educated at Beaumont and Sandhurst, whence he passed into the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers in 1909. Mr. Francis McCullagh, the Irish war correspondent, has just been gazetted to a commission, and is now in training with his regiment in the west of England. Another well-known Irish war correspondent, Colonel R. J. McHugh, has been in command of his battalion of Territorial artillery since the war commenced. The death of Surgeon-General William Henry McNamara, C.M.G., has occurred suddenly in his sixty-ninth year. Born in Limerick, he was educated at Queen’s College, Cork, and the Ledwick School of Medicine, Dublin. He served in the Egyptian Expedition of 1882. As Principal Medical Officer of the British Brigade he was with the Nile Expedition of 1898, and was mentioned in despatches. During the South African War he became Principal Medical Officer on the lines of communication, and was twice mentioned in despatches and received the Queen’s and King’s medal. lie was created C.M.G. in 1900 and retired in 1906. , Apropos of Lord Midleton’s attack on Irishmen in the House of Lords, Mr. Swift Mac Neill, in a letter to the press, says his Lordship’s enmity to Ireland seems to be an inherited quality. The Irish Bill against Papists’ in 1719, into which the Irish Privy Council introduced a clause changing the penalty of branding for priests into that of unspeakably savage mutilation, was sent to England for ratification with the name of Alan Brodrick, first Viscount Midleton, and other [signatures appended. The Bill did not eventually become law.

The 1< re email’s Journal reports a conference of Irish users of dyes, held in the Mansion House, Dublin, to consider a scheme for establishing a dye-industry 'in the United Kingdom. Mr. C. Diamond, a director of the English Sewing Cotton Company and a member ol the British Committee appointed to co-operate with the Board of Trade in carrying out the establishment of a dye-industry in the United Kingdom, attended to discuss the scheme. The annual meeting of the Directory of the United Irish League of Ireland was held in Dublin on January 18, when Mr. Redmond was elected president for the ensuing year. Mr. Devlin, who is secretary of the organisation, stated in his report that Ireland had contributed more than her fair quota of men to the Empire’s fighting line. 'There is not a shadow of foundation for the charges of cowardice or indifference made by Unionists against the Irish people with regard to recruiting. Resolutions were adopted declaring the continued existence of the National organisation in Ireland as being vitally essential till the crisis is past, and also expressing approval of the policy of the Irish leader and the Irish Party with regard to the war. A manifesto just issued by Mr. Devlin, M.P., the National President, and Mr. Nugent, the National Secretary of the A.0.H., to the members of that organisation, makes public some particulars of the enormous growth of the A. 0.11. in recent years. Ten years ago there were close upon 200 branches of the Order, and the membership was less than 5000. Now there are over 1800 branches, with an aggregate membership (including insurance members) of close upon 300,000. The invested assets of the Order are estimated at a quarter of a million. In sick and maternity benefits the insurance section has paid during the last two years, in Ireland, close on ,£195,000 : in Scotland, such payments have exceeded £45,000, and in England and Wales the figure is over £36,000. PRIVATE STEPHEN GWYNN, M.P. A most successful meeting in support of the recruiting movement was held at Navan, on Sunday, January 17, under the chairmanship of Sir Nugent Everard, 11.M.L. Amongst those also present were: Ihe Earl of Fingall, Lady Fingall, Lieutenant Lord Killeen, Lady Everard, the lion. Charles Plunkett, Lady Mary Plunkett, Lieutenant T. M. Kettle, and Private Stephen Gwynn, M.P. Speeches were delivered in support of the movement by the chairman, the Earl of I ingall, Lieutenant Kettle, and Mr. Stephen Gwynn, M.P. The last mentioned, in the course of his address, said, that once the neutrality of Belgium was violated by Germany he had no two opinions regarding the justice of the war. It was the duty of every man to see that the Belgian people regained the rights to their own land and their own freedom. If they as men held that opinion it was their duty to support them. The day upon which the Home Rule Bill was passed he wrote to the British Government to ask the only favor he ever asked any Government for himself, and that was that they would set aside the question of his being over the military age. He did not say that every man in Ireland should enlist. Keeping the land working in Ireland at present was, he believed, part of the military service of the country. In Galway, out of about 15,000 persons, 1000 men had left to support the cause of the Allies, and out of 120 houses in the Claddagh, 160 fishermen were now in the navy. If they took the city of Galway, and he thought that the same was true of every other part of Ireland, they would find that practically every available man in the professional and landlord classes had offered his service for the front. Though they had differences with the landlords in the past, they should recognise fairly that the landlord class had borne its part like men. No class in Europe had given more or finer sons to the war than that class. THE CAUSE OF NATIONALITY AND LIBERTY. Mr. Joseph Devlin, M.P., paid a visit on January 18 to the units of the Irish Brigade who were' then

training at Fermoy. The occasion was something more than a formal visit, however, for kind friends and wellwishers of the men had. been engaged for some time past in a project designed to convey in practical fashion their appreciation of the men’s action and example and their regard for their welfare and comfort. This solicitude found expression in the organising of a presentation of gifts to include every member of the four regiments of the Brigade quartered at the. Fermoy -namely, the Connaught Rangers, the Royal Irish Regiment, the Leinsters, and the Munster Fusiliers. Prior to the presentation of the gifts, Mr. Devlin, M.P., delivered short addresses to each of the corps. Speaking to the men of the Royal Irish Regiment, who were the first he visited, the member for West Belfast had a few heartening words to say. The object of my visit (he explained) is a very simple one. When the first batch of recruits from the National Volunteers left Belfast for Fermoy, I promised them that I would take an early opportunity of paying them a visit, and I am here in fulfilment of that promise. A number of your friends and mineladies and gentlemen in London, Dublin, and Belfastwhen they heard that I was to visit you, set about organising the little gifts of. pipes, tobacco, cigarettes, and mufflers which I have brought with me. These gifts may be small, but lam sure you will accept them in the spirit in which they are offered to you, as a mark of sincere friendship for you personally, and of appreciation of your patriotism and selfsacrifice in coming forward to defend the cause of liberty and humanity. On the battlefields of Belgium and of France, the Irish soldiers have covered themselves with glory. They have displayed the historic valor of their race. And I feel sure that you, too, every man of you, when the time comes, will acquit yourselves in a manner which will send a thrill of pride through the old race and the old land which we all love so well. We have here, in the Irish Brigades, men from Belfast and Derry, and other parts of Ulster, of whom we Ulstermen are justly proud, and who have placed us under a deep obligation to them for volunteering to fight, in order to preserve the shores of our country and the lives and properties of our people from the horrors of invasion. But we have here also men from other parts of Ireland, from Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, and some, both officers and men, from Great Britain —the ever-faithful exiles of Ireland —and of all of them Ireland is proud, and to all of them she feels grateful. They typify and they realise in themselves that unity of all Irishmen in this great National crisis. May that union, made strong by common service and common sacrifice, and cemented in blood on the battlefields of Europe, be maintained and continued when the war is over, when the roar of the cannon has ceased, and when the sword has been sheathed in victory. The Irish Brigades of to-day arc fighting, not only for the security and safety of these islands, but for the cause of nationality and liberty the world over. We shall watch your fortunes with eager interest. We know that, in a war like this, our victory may be delayed, but it cannot be prevented. Already all the hopes of the enemy have been disappointed. Their dreams of an empire of force established on the ruins of European liberty have vanished. The Irish Brigade will help, with the other units of the new army which will shortly be going to the front, to complete their disillusion.