IRISH NEWS

New Zealand Tablet, 7 August 1919, Page 31

IRISH NEWS

GENERAL. y. The Sinn Fein Press Bureau warns the constituencies to be ready for another * general election in the near future. It says the party expects, if proper preparation is made, to capture all the seats in Nationalist Ireland.

In Limerick, during the strike, the committee in charge issued permits for necessary work. Owing to a shortage of funds amongst the poor, it also issued paper money (bonds) which were cheerfully accepted in payment, The picture shows displayed notices showing they opened by permit. The committee is said to have formed the first Soviet Government in tire United Kingdom.

The death occurred at Mount Argus, Dublin, on April 20, of Father Arthur Devine, C.P., in his 70th year. He was ordained in Dublin 47 years ago, and spent most of his lifs in England and Scotland. He wrote several popular works on theology in English, and contributed .many articles to the Catholic Encyclopedia. For the past 12 years he was Professor of . Theology at Mount Argus. Some years ago he established a series of Sunday instructions on Irish for speakers of the language in the church attached to the college.

The Franciscan Fathers at Athlone are about to erect a new church there, their present little church being a humble building erected in the penal days. The new structure is to be dedicated to the Four Masters. The Four Masters, as all Irish scholars know (says an exchange), were four Franciscan friars, the chief of them being Michael O’Clery, who became a friar in Louvain, and was sent thence to Ireland in the perilous days of the seventeenth century to collect materials for the construction of an Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. After 15 years travelling throughout the country, O’Clery and his three collaborators (the quartet becoming known as the Four Masters) began in the Franciscan Convent of Donegal the compilation known as the Annals of the Four Masters, a work upon which all subsequent writers of Irish history have largely founded their narratives.

GOVERNMENT BY TANKS. “Government by tanks is only a temporary expedient, and the policy of drift cannot be indefinitely prolonged (says the London Daily News). . . . We shall have to give up either the hypocrisy of pretending to be concerned about freedom in Czecho- Slovakia, or the infamy of stamping on freedom in Ireland.’’

MOST REV. DR. FOGARTY ON THE SINN FEIN LEADERS. • Speaking at Ennis, Most Rev. Dr. Fogarty said: “We know them (the Sinn Fein leaders). They are men of the purest lives and most stainless character, animated with the grandest and most unselfish spirit. It is true that they have , a passionate love of Ireland and a fierce determination to establish their country’s right to freedom. But that spirit is a glory and not a crime. It is now the accepted principle of international policy that every civilised nation has an indefeasible right to choose its own form of . government ; that ‘no nation is to be held in subjection .by force.’ ’’

THE BISHOP OF KERRY ON THE: SELF-'” • DETERMINATION FUND. Most Rev. 'Dr. O’Sullivan,'-forwarding his anticonscription 3 fund subscription to ■ the Dail . Eireann National Self-Determination Fund, says that he knows of “no more useful purpose to’whieix it could be devoted,” and adds: —“At a time when our American friends are working so vigorously to secure the recognition of our;rights in this respect, it would be shameful for us to be behindhand ; and it must not be forgotten, that the most potent factor both in deserving and in securing victory for our cause must always be the spirit of the Irish at home.”

THE AMERICAN DELEGATES: FAREWELL MESSAGE. - The Irish-American Commissioners, prior to their departure from Ireland for Paris, issued the following message to. the Irish people: — “We are deeply appreciative of the universally generous welcome accorded us as the accredited representatives of the Irish race in America. The passion of the Irish people for freedom burns with .its age-old intensity, but we' find that, m addition to this, under the most disinterested and able leadership in Europe to-day, they are putting their ideals into practical form in a manner which must challenge the admiration -of 'the world-and secure & the favor and support of all right-thinking peoples. We are also profoundly impressed with the boundless opportunity fox* the industrial and commercial development. of Ireland, and its'potential- place in the race for world trade supremacy. As to the experience of the Commission with the armed forces of the British. Government on the outskirts of Westport, we*Have nothing to say at this time. Our statement will be made else” where. ?

IRISH WORKERS ORGANISING. There has boon lately an incredible development m Labor organisation in Ireland (says the Edinburgh Catholic Herald). The remotest rural districts have linked up wage-earners of all kinds, even the domestic sexants of the country farmer and village shopkeeper, into one great aggregation of organised bodies, of which the Labor and Transport Union is ’the- chief. This cirsuxustance has alarmed the Tories and.capitalists in Ireland more- than any political party activity that went before. “Garrison” ascendancy in Ireland, though professing a patriotism of the purplest Jingoism, was always at bottom a combine for the exploitation of the worker. .So it has taken violent alarm, and the recent deputation of Irish Unionists to Parliament stressed this fear and complaint emphatically. With Irish Unionists (to quote the words of a Dublin correspondent writing in t-ha- Manchester Guardian) “the Empire is regarded as a personal asset (and) wageearners should be clubbed by the Empire iii the sacred names of law, order, loyalty, Imperial integrity, and the rest.” Repressive measures are anticipated, but if these should arrive the Government,may have started a flame which will consume -it.and singe-, badly the whole existing system. For the international relation of workers in Ireland and outside of it is so strong that a, general strike in Britain might quite conceivably follow any further resort, of Dublin Castle to a policy of Sicilianism in Ireland.