LIBELLING IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 30 March 1916, Page 49

LIBELLING IRELAND

r The following appeared in the Auckland Star of March 17: — lf'&:.'£?•'X' ''. ''."'.''-.-' ;■:'- ~'/i'■ ;''"I: ; :': '/■' 1 ; Sir,ln the Starjoi Friday, November 12 last, Mr. J. H. Hannan had published a letter from Lady Carysfort, in which' this lady stated of Arklow:—' (1) You need not * trouble " about Arklow—it is', rolling in money, especially the publicans (2) the best of the artisans are.gone, leaving all the worst, who do nothing but strike and hinder the work of munitions; (3) the worst part of the whole country is the soldiers' wives left behind have very v .large i separation ':■ allowances, and they are drinking 'them all away; on Friday they may get 295, and on Monday the , children are starving. Of course, there are exceptions, but the accounts of those working among them are too sad. We have very few wives in Arklow, and I believe only one drinks.' j ;- . ' I challenged these statements in the Star of the following evening, and said: ' I shall send this diatribe to Mr. John T. Donovan, M.P. for West Wicftlow, with a request to him to bring this lady to task.' He has done so, and with what result I shall leave your readers to judge.—l am, etc., "'..-. ....". M J. Sheahan. •~- Mr. Donovan, in his letter to the Dublin Freeman's Journal of January 20, 1916, wrote:—' I pass over for the present Lady Carysfort's uncharitable references to the people and publicans of Arklow, and also those unfounded statements in Mr. Hannan's letter, as, I have no doubt, the leading citizens of Arklow will give an emphatic repudiation of these scandalous reflections upon their town and the character of its people when the tetters are published.' The Freeman's Journal, when the letters from the Auckland Star were published, sent a special correspondent to Arklow, who interviewed Mr. J. P. XJdal, manager of Kynoch-Arklow, Ltd., who said: 'I have not heard of a strike in Arklow. There is no strikefeeling in ' the place. There is a sort of feeling in the place, as far as I can see, of an anxiety to get as much out of it as we can. As to the statement that "the best artisans are gone, leaving all the worst to do nothing but strike and hinder the work of munitions," the complaint is one that I certainly should never have voiced.' And Mr. XJdal added: ', As far as lam concerned, there has been no strike here. ', 4^ Mr. Goodall, who has been in charge for a long time of the explosive section of the factory, in ..reply to the Freeman's representative, said: 'lt is quite untrue; the whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. We have had no trouble with drink since the war started, or before it. It is very untrue to state that the worst men are left behind". As far as the workmen are concerned, I find that, in my experience, Irish labor is equal to any labor that it is possible to find.' Rev. John Manning, C.C., Arklow, was next interviewed. He stated, regarding the allegations of drinking . amongst women: ' Probably there is one that Lady Carysfort mentions in the letter in the New Zealand paper, but I doubt even that. lam amongst the people from week-end to week-end, from morning till night, and a drunken woman is a curiosity in A*Mow except an occasional tramp. There are no rows or troubles in publichouses, everyone is.amenable. During Christmas holidays, when the men had five days during necessary cleaning and repairing at Kynoch's, there was nothing abnormal or noticeable in the street, either in drink or the slightest attempt at rowdyism. : There are a; couple of hundred women getting their separation allowance weekly from the Arjny and Navy, and we may defy any town in the world to £ produce such af record—there is hardly a drunken woman v Mr. D. Condren, J.P., chairman! of Wicklow County Council, said: ' There is an .average of two convictions for drunkenness in a population sof 7000 at the fortnightly petty sessions, whilst the district also includes a country area of 18 square miles; At least 50 per cent, of these convictions were not against munition workers at all/; J •.;-;;-: ;"'■. * '. '■"-■■■■ ■-' "•" -■•■■ ■■

•. Mr, ,G. Fogarty, Arklow, also verified r the previous statements, and added that when the late Mr. Arthur Chamberlain started Kynoch’s factory in Arklowin 1895 Lord Carysfort gave him no assistance. •’ | Finally, the editor of the , ‘- Freeman , . commenting on the foregoing, wrote;—‘Who are these people ? (the drunken soldiers’ wives). . Not Lady Everard and those associated with . her; not the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children,, who . were .specially asked by the War Office to look, after, the interests'! of soldiers children, and whose chief' organiser in Ireland, as a . result of systematic investigation, \ describes statements such as Lady Carysfort circulates at the. other end of the world as ‘a -gross slander on the soldiers’ wives.” The Dublin Police Magistrate, ■ Mr. Macinerney, stated that during the eighteen months of the war only four convictions of soldiers’ wives took place. The population of Dublin police area is 450,000. ' Other magistrates throughout the country ; have had the same story of the absence of drink, and/Lady Carysfoyt’s libel on her country is as false and unfounded as her libel on .her own town.’ f