IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 3 July 1919, Page 31

IRISH NEWS

* ißs n. ~mo -GfiNEßiAi;..' ":■:'' %> t««ffi ,aiotfmw The death has taken plate at Lim&Sck of f Johii Cuss'en,' a laborer, at :the age of ; 105 years, .■•x-y^x i l' **%] The | j Southern Star, Skibbereen, Ca. I Cork,,< has re-appeared after a suspension of oyer 30 weeks.- 1 For 1 anything it has done to help to seeur©' the independence of the country, it says, it. is unrepentant.' _" "; ."T^' The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has- decided ,:; to present ;to r the Corporation .of oi Limerick-: aportrait of the great soldier, ft Marshal MacMahon. The MacMahon family ° went to ' France 4x from "'. Limerick ' Co. about 1750. \ '."'.'. "^.'." ; --' . tsv Anniversary Masses for the late John -Redmondwere celebrated in many churches in Ireland. 'A' demonstration was held at' Wexford at which Mr. Joseph Devlin was the principal speaker. Mr.. Dillon, through illness,- was unable to be present. sn-i lu •.-ior-j '"■.WiL.;J - Seventeen persons ; - were fined at : Queenstown ' or-' collecting for the Irish Language Fund, without a military permit, on St. Patrick's Day. " One of the magistrates described the cases as. vexatious and frivolous. : Similar fines were imposed in: Charleville for 1 the same 1 offence. ? '" V'. J i; ." ;,J, .,';,:VV; '"'" The Irish Newspaper Society, which represent? every shade of political opinion. in Ireland, has adopted the following resolution -.—" That it is' the='"opinion' of the Irish Newspaper Society that' the Press Censorship in Ireland should be terminated. : concurrently with the abolition of the censorship in England...,. . --•.'.■■> cxh .'.v.As a result of the recent wholesale gaol-breaking by the Sinn Fein prisoners both England and in Ireland, the Lord Lieutenant has set. up a Commission of Inquiry. Mr. Justice Kenny is chairman Major Briscoe, Commissioner of Prisons in. England, and Mr. McGaiin, a former Governor of- Irish'prisons, are the > other "members. The commission will enquire, as to the escape of prisoners from H.M. gaols .-in Cork .and Dublin; the aiders and. abettors, if any; the precautions necessary to prevent- future' escapes : provisions as to amelioration of the condition of prisoners, etc. In an article on the Irish .Censorship the Manchester Guardian says it will .probably.be information to most people that a censorship exists on news to and from Ireland. The authorities may ; pretend there is some justification, but there can. : be no sufficient justification. Perhaps the idea is that feeling in Ireland would be further inflamed by full uncensored reports, or perhaps it is thought that while England is engaged : in settling the affairs of half the world, it would be better to push the Irish skeleton back into its cupboard whenever it peeps out. Whatever the motive, the policy is futile, wrong,, and dangerous. The position is too grave, the explosive matter too near ignition point to make suppression tolerable.

QUEEN STOWN CATHEDRAL. It was announced by Most' Rev. Dr. Browne, in his Lenten Pastoral, that the Cathedral of Queenstown, diocese of Cloyne, now completed, would be consecrated next August, and he re-told its history sine© the building was first conceived by Most Rev. Dr. Keane, in 1860. - . -nt;: In the first 10 years the Queenstown fund reached "£15,000, and when Dr.. Keane died in 1874 the expenditure amounted to over £20,486.,. Most Rev. Dr. Mc-

uartny tnentooK up tne worn; energetically during ms 19 years' episcopacy, * and e the Cathedral 4 was''opened for Diyine worship in June, 1879. Up. to 1892 the whole outlay exceeded £100,000.' ,; Dr. McCarthy got £15,000 from the ■ clergy, £30,000! from the laity of the diocese, r £14,000 from Irishmen abroad, £7OOO from other Irish dioceses, £B6OO from legacies, and £BOOO. as , a result of a further appeal to the "diocese.! Dr v Browne then: related his share in the work, which involved a further cost from 1 1895 to 1901 c of £36,961, and finally the completion of the/tower., and spire for £19,660, half of which, was contributed by the. Bishop and clergy of the diocese, and -half by the laity, the outlay since 1895 being over:£B3,oooj/which/ was secured in the same way as before—-£7628 from the United: States, £12,555 from bequests and donations, £3277 from outside Irish dioceses, and the balance from the "diocesan clergy and laity. •• '■■'.:• - ,;, ; -'.= 1 ';;// : ;/;; / ./'"" / WAR ON CHILDREN. . . ,"■ {. E j The British operations in Ireland, having been extended -from the men to the women, have now been extended ! from the women to . the . children (says An Saoghcd Gaedhcalach of March 1, as passed by censor). A few days ago a boy of 11 was kidnapped from his home in Tipperary by the police, was taken to Dublin under a strong armed, escort, and has not since been Heard of. His parents have been refused all information, and the Independent was informed by "a leading, detective'', that "it would not be in the public interest to give away the address of the lad." We know that public interest. There were people in this country who were horror-struck at what they called the "kidnapping" of French and Belgian children by the Germans, although : for that kidnapping they had no evidence except. English inspired reports. Here is a case of kidnapping -in Ireland, an authenticated case, a political kidnapping on ail fours with the alleged kidnappings in Belgian and in France. Yet we have observed in them no horror at the crime: nor has there been even a paragraph in the Irish Time*. ./...,

, One can get accustomed to almost anything. 1 ' In the four and a-half years since British Government in Ireland began to show itself clearly as the brutality it is, outrage has been piled on outrage, so rapidly that; one. hardly gets time to keep pace with them. And most of us have got so accustomed to living in the perpetual shadow of the armed escort, the court-martial, and. the prison, that these things have entered into the. consciousness of all of us as one of the normal things; of -life. It is difficult now to remember any life in which things were more free, in which British repression in Ireland was carried on within the limits of civil government and was-consequently somewhat hampered in its operations. The spirit of materialism;' of jobbery, invaded, all Irish life, and men began to fear, to, fear lest they lost their jobs, to fear lest they went to prison, to fear lest they ceased to be comfortable. As a cynical dramatist put it some eight or nine years ago, "Who the hell cares about liberty?" «Not many, then ; but out of the travail of the few has come to the many the old passion for liberty. But here is a totally new development. Here is a child of 11 years old, of a nervous disposition, at, an age when a child needs everything which in prison he will ' not get,; dragged away from his parents, from his.home, "under strongly armed escort, last seen at Limerick Junction Station crying bitterly. J''...-' '"■'■' '-'":/'•■