Irish News

New Zealand Tablet, 8 February 1917, Page 39

Irish News

GENERAL. ~ Dr. O’Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, is now 75 years of age. He is a Tipperary man, born at Holy Cross, which was also the native place of the late Archbishop Ryan, of Philadelphia, who erected a simple freestone Celtic cross over his fathers . remains : in the old Abbey.. Dr. O’Dwyer is- the only son . of the late John Keating O’Dwyer. He was educated at Maynooth. and was ordained in 1867. While a curate at St. Michael’s, Limerick, in 1886, he was appointed Bishop of Limerick. On Sunday, December 10, his Grace the Most Rev. Dr. Harty, Archbishop of Cashel, ordained to the priesthood the following : — Rev. Michael Mullen, Achonry ; Rev. Jeremiah Piggott, Cloyne; Rev. Timothy Hurley, Kerry Rev. Patrick Casey, Elphin; Rev. Mathew O’Carroll, Kilmore; Rev. Denis Noonan, Plymouth; Rev. John Bradley, Auckland, N.Z. Of these Fathers Mullen, Piggott, Hurley, and O’Carroll have volunteered to act as military chaplains, and will proceed to the front after a short training. - The paragraph is no way authorised which recently appeared in the press that after the Irish tour of Sir" Maurice Levy munition works, employing 50,000 workers, would be established in Ireland. ‘No scheme such as is alluded to is contemplated,’ wrote Captain F. Downie, Director of Munitions in Ireland, in reply to a letter from the Mayor of Drogheda asking for a share of the work for that town. ‘ It was the same old story,’ said the Mayor, when the letter was read at the Corporation meeting. ‘ All they want from us is men to fight for them,’ said Mr. Callan. The report of the Irish Intermediate Education Board says that of £40,000 lodged in February, £39,836 was distributed to the schools in March, and £163 allocated for expenses due to additional duties. The total number of schools was 347, five of which earned no grant. Two with 26 pupils and no duly qualified lay teachers were under Catholic management, and three with 28 pupils and one duly qualified lay teacher were not. Sixteen schools were not under the Board during 1914-15. Of these fifteen with 294 pupils and two duly qualified lay teachers were under Catholic management, and one with fifteen pupils and no duly qualified lav teacher was not. The total of pupils as defined by the salaries grant on January 29, 1915, was 18,503, 225 with 12,742 pupils being under Catholic, and 122 with 5761 pupils under nou-Catholic management. In the former were 125 duly qualified 'lay teachers, and in the later 273. THE BISHOP OF RAPHOE ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION. _ In the course of an important and closely-reasoned article on ‘ The Irish Political Situation ’ published by the Freeman recently, the Right Rev. Dr. O’Donnell, Bishop of Raphoe, writes: — ‘ln Ireland we have had a fair share of disruptive tendencies, and something more than a fair share of disruptive language. But the marvel is that, after the inevitable failure of two ill-starred short cuts in one year, rebellion and partition,, so much genuine cohesion should remain. The country, on the whole, is still at Mr. Redmond’s back, because in existing circumstances the Nationalist Party, supported by the National Organisation, is the one power that can make headway for Ireland on the path of freedom.’ However one tries to survey the 4 situation, no matter from what angle or viewpoint the facts of the case are considered, only one conclusion is possible to the logical mind; and Dr. O’Donnell has stated it simply and clearly. Not for the first, or for the hundredth, time his Lordship of Raphoe takes his place amongst the intellectual leaders of the people; his words have never failed to inspire and encourage the men of the Irish nation. The Bishop refers at the end to the famous resolution passed by the leaders and representatives of Australian public opinion at Sydney

on the 4th of .September—a resolution whose importance has been t repeatedly insisted upon • in ! j these ; columns ; —and declares that the Australian suggestion, offered under conditions of ‘ special urgency,’ was * a masterstroke in the Imperial as well as the Irish interest.’ And he adds: ‘ Delay is worse for England than for Ireland.’ The need of the hour is to drive this fact home to the minds of the persons responsible for the. government of England and Ireland now. - A WAY TO UNITY AND VICTORY. We gave in : our last, issue’an'account of the Rediem for the Irish Guards who had : fallen Von the Field of Honor, held in Westminster Cathedral. A letter in the Morning Post, from the pen of Colonel Sir Mark Sykes, suggests that; perhaps those prayers may be a help to the living as well as to the dead. . He says :—‘ I have just been standing amid some thousands of Irishmen, who came at : once , to pay tribute, to mourn, and to pray for the repose of the souls of those other thousands of their countrymen and faith who have died in Flanders under the banner of St. George. Those Irishmen surrendered their lives for the cause of European liberty; they died to save the lesser peoples from the tyranny of the Hammer of Thor. They died that nationalitiessmall, weak, oppressed, and conquered— each live their own life, speak their own tongue, and develop their own individual souls. They died in endeavoring to avenge the crimes committed against the lesser nations, .whose very : existence is threatened by the savage power of the enemy. A Prince of our Royal House attended also, and as I looked about me during the Requiem and saw the tears standing in the eyes of those thousands of Irishmen, each wearing the King’s coat, many scarred with honorable wounds gained in the King’s service, many bearing on their breasts distinctions granted ; them by the King’s will, I could not help wondering, “Are there none here whose hearts are searched and sorely tried when they think of the relations which subsist between this country’ and Ireland?’’ ’ Sir Mark, after noting the provocative tone of the leaders in the paper he was addressing, continues:he martial instinct and the intense enthusiasm of the Irish people are the two British assets which; by hesitation, prejudice, and folly, we have succeeded in stifling and curbing until almost all that is left of it are the little crosses which mark the Irish graves in .trance and Flanders. But though opportunities be missed, it is never too late to take fresh ones; no man or woman stood in Westminster Cathedral amidst that, gallant Irish company, with the prayer for rest , and peace in their hearts, and the dying notes of the British National Anthem falling on their ears, but must have felt that there was a way to Unity and Victory. Our enemy, base though be his aims and vile his ambitions, understands that concentration and unity of purpose is his only hope. Can we not realise even at this late hour that no sacrifice is too great to obtain the full moral and material effort which our Empire can only Put forth if it is not distracted by dead and gone politics, prejudices, and hatreds V A DESERVED REBUKE. A very severe rebuke was administered to Punch for a recent cartoon. Said the Nation — ‘ Punch is not often the exponent of the kind of stupidity which sends a flaming bomb into the midst of your own ranks. Yet this is the act of the artist who this week represents a truculent Mr. Redmond, with a shillelagh sticking out of his coat pocket, menacing a begging British lion with a lighted bomb, labelled “Rebellion” and bawling out to him; “Trust.” That is, indeed, a comprehensive misdescription of the Irish situation. But it is also the symbol of a coarse thanklessness such as even the political thinking of a caricaturist (who, as Punch has often shown, can be a great politician to boot) should not yield. Mr. Redmond’s efforts to help England almost ruined his power in Ireland.' This is ■his. reward. Thank heaven, it does not come from anything- one can describe as the country’s heart or as its intelligence.’