IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 11 October 1917, Page 29

IRISH NEWS

GENERAL. Truth, writing recently of the Cabinet's latest accession, says: "Sir Edward Carson . . . has had a good try at rebellion, then ruled the Royal Navy without ever going to sea, and now sits amongst- the great War Lords of the Empire. Surely a career unrivalled in the annals of fact or fancy !" The Irish Catholic understands on "reliable authority" that as a result of negotiations between the Holy See and the British Government, it has been decided that an Irish military bishop shall be appointed to act as Catholic Chaplain-General with the Irish troops. The prelate to be appointed will also have jurisdiction in the case of Irish Catholic soldiers serving in English and Scotch regiments. Mr. Dillon, speaking in the House of Commons on the Reconstruction of Ministry Bill, warned the Government that if any trouble should arise in Ireland now and the Government should meet it with severity, the state of Irish feeling will be immensely intensified by the fact that such conditions synchronised with the transfer of Sir Edward Carson from the Admiralty to a position where he will have active part in the government of Ireland. Mr. John Redmond, in writing an introduction to a war volume by Michael McDonagh, says that from the beginning the Irish Party has regarded the present war as a war of liberation and a struggle for the rights and liberties of humanity. They still hold the unshaken opinion that Ireland's highest interests lie in the speedy and overwhelming victory of the Allies. There is a genuine enthusiasm in Ireland for the Allied cause, and for the first time the overwhelming sentiment of the Irish people is with the Empire. The Irish race is represented in this war by at least half a million voluntary soldiers. Irishmen don't boast of the valor of the Irish regiments, which is taken as a matter of course, and is merely maintaining the tradition of the Irish race. The Rector of the Irish College, Rome (Mgr. O'Riordan) has written to Alderman Byrne. Parliamentary representative for the Dublin Harbor Division, thanking him very sincerely for what he has done, "so quickly and so thoroughly," in taking steps to secure that the students of that institution shall be safeguarded against conscription. Alderman Byrne obtained from the War Office recently a statement that before British subjects resident in Italy could be called up for compulsory service in the Italian Army it would be necessary that an agreement would be arrived at which would ensure that the British Ambassador in Rome shall grant exemption in any case where a British subject proves that he is, not domiciled in Italy, and that before proceeding there he was ordinarily resident in some part of the Empire other than Great Britain. Private Robert J. Wilkinson, R.A.M.C., of 60 Egmont Street, Belfast, who recently returned on leave from the front, bears a message of condolence to Mrs. Willie Redmond on the death of the gallant Major, on behalf of the 108th Field Ambulance ("Ulster Division), to whom fell the sorrowful duty of conveying "the mortally wounded hero from the field. Private Wilkinson was one of the stretcher-bearers on the tragic occasion, and was deeply affected by Major Redmond's dying words. "I'm done," he said at one point. The

last words of the fallen leader which Private Wilkinson says he will never forget were: " I'm proud I fought hand-in-hand and side by side with the Ulster Division —Carson's men. I hope the Lord will send peace to all denominations." This parting message of Christian charity was uttered as he was being placed semiconscious in the ambulance. Mr. J. D. Nugent, M.P., in a letter to the press, recalls the circumstances of three of the worst cases of dependents of victims of the Dublin rising who have not yet been granted compensation. They are Mrs. Mary Connolly, 31 Beresford Street, whose husband was taken away by the military, and was afterwards found dead— been left with eight children to support, whose ages range from 18 to two years. Mrs. Teresa Hickey, 66 Mount joy Street, had both her husband and son killed. Mrs. Kathleen Healy, 32 North King Street, the body of whose, husband was found buried in the cellar of the house, 177 North King Street, where he had been taken by the military, has four in family, the eldest being 17 and the youngest eight. These, of course, he says, are only three of several cases. Apparently the cry of widows and orphans bereaved in this tragic fashion may arouse the sympathy of ordinary mortals, but it is not sufficient to move the Dublin Castle authorities or the Treasury to have some measure of justice done to them. Truth, in its Dublin correspondence, says that the association of Herr Von Kuhlmann, the new Foreign - Secretary of the Kaiser, with the Carson enterprise in Ulster is neither absurd nor far-fetched, as some Tory papers have been eager to imply. It says:—"Kuhlmann was in the North (of Ireland) at the time, whilst the German Ambassador, as announced in all the fashionable papers, was amongst the brilliant circle—which Sir E. Carson was the centreassembled in his honor by Lady Londonderry at Mount Stewart, County Down. The presence of these distinguished officials in far-away Ireland on the special occasion of Sir Edward Carson's histrionic appearances in Ulster could hardly have been fortuitous." It was far from that. Von Kuhlmann was undoubtedly sent by the Kaiser to Ulster to ascertain the reality of "Ulster's" preparations to resist Home Rule by force and to foster and encourage such sentiment. The reports of Von Kuhlmann and Lichnowsky led the Kaiser to believe that civil war in Ireland was inevitable. He "banked" on that and plunged into the war. And now Carson is in the Cabinet and Casement in the felon's quicklime. MAJOR WILLIE REDMOND. \ Major MacAulay Fitzgibbon, who is home on short leave, at a meeting in Greystones, County Wicklow, when a resolution of sympathy was passed on the death of Major William Redmond, M.P., said:"We knew each other for some thirty years, but at the. beginning of the present war we were brother officers; in fact, we were the oldest officers in the Irish Brigade. Though his age would have exempted him from active service, he was from the first determined to go to the : front. Many a time I said to him, ' Redmond, the War Office will never give you leave to go to the front,' and well I remember his answer: ' No War Office will keep me from going to the front; where my boys go I will go.' To give another instance of his unselfish character I may tell you that though his rank entitled; him to ride when out with his men, he refused the privilege, say-

ing, 'My men walk; I can walk, therefore I ought to walk.' He asked no sacrifice from his men which he was not ready to make himself. He was a man of noble and generous character, with an open mind on every subject. When I read of his gallant death I was deeply affected. I felt I had lost a true friend. Major Redmond was on the Staff, and need not have gone on that morning, but he got leave to go with the men of his old regiment, and he was the first to go over the top." THE IRISH CONVENTION. The Irish Convention met on Wednesday, August 8, in the Regent House, Trinity College, Dublin, for its third sitting. The chairman (Sir Horace Plunkett) presided. The minutes having been read and signed, the draft Standing Orders prepared by the Preliminary Procedure Committee were submitted to the Convention, and after discussion and amendment were unanimously adopted. After an adjournment the chairman addressed the Convention on the task before them, and described the steps that had already been taken by the secretariat to establish an information bureau. He referred to various schemes for the government of Ireland already in existence, and suggested a procedure by which they might at once be sifted, thoroughly examined, and subsequently brought before the Convention for discussion. This suggestion was considered at some length, and finally it-was proposed by the chairman, seconded by the Bishop of Raphoe (Most Rev. Dr. O'Donnell), and unanimously resolved, that a standing committee of not more than 20 persons (five to form a quorum) be appointed to consult with the chairman as to the general procedure to be adopted by the Convention, and to exercise such powers as may from time to time be delegated to it by the Convention. • After some discussion as to the constitution of the committee, it was decided on the motion of the (Protestant) Archbishop of Armagh, seconded by the Catholic Archbishop of Cashel, that the committee which had been appointed on the choice of a chairman should be reappointed to advise the Convention on the choice of the standing committee.