THE STORY OF IRELAND

New Zealand Tablet, 21 July 1921, Page 7

THE STORY OF IRELAND

(By A. M. Sullivan.)

CHAPTER LXXXIL—IRELAND AFTER THE UNION. THE STORY OF ROBERT EMMET.

Hie peasants of Podolia, when no Russian myrmidon is nigh, chant aloud the national hymn of their captivity Poland is not dead yet.” Whoever reads the story of this western Poland—this “Poland of the seas”— will be powerfully struck with the one all-prominent fact of Ireland s indestructible vitality. Under circumstances where any other people would have succumbed for ever, where any other nation would have resigned itself to subjugation and accepted death, the Irish nation scorns to yield, ahd refuses to die.

It survived the four centuries of war from the second to the eighth Henry of England. It survived the exterminations of Elizabeth, by which Froude has been so profoundly appalled. It survived the butcheries of Cromwell, and the merciless persecutions of the Penal Times. It survived the bloody policy of Ninety-eight. Confiscations, such as are to be found in the history of no other country in Europe, again and again tore up society by the roots in Ireland, trampling the noble and the gentle into poverty and obscurity. The mind was sought to be quenched, the intellect extinguished, the manners debased and brutified. “The perverted ingenuity of. man” could no further go in the untiring endeavor to kill, out all aspirations for freedom, all instinct of nationality in the Irish breast. Yet this indestructible nation has risen under the blows of her murderous persecutors, triumphant and immortal. She has survived even England’s latest and most deadly blow, designed to be the final stroke Union.

Almost on the threshold of the new century, the conspiiacy of Robert Emmet startled the land like the sudden explosion of a mine. In the place assigned in Irish memoi y to the youthful and ill-fated leader of this enterprise, is powerfully illustrated the all-absorbing, all-indulging love of a people for those who purely give up life on the altar of Country. Many considerations might ' seem to invoke on Emmet the censure’ of stern judgment for the apparently criminal hopelessness of his scheme. Napoleon once said that “nothing consolidate?* a new dynasty like an unsuccessful insurrection”; and unquestionably Emmet’s emcute gave all possible consolidation to the “Union” ie<jime. It brought down on Ireland the terrible penalty of a five years suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and a. contemporaneous continuance of the bloody “Insurrection Act,” aggravating tenfold all the miseries of the country. Nevertheless, the Irish nation lpj S canonised his memory—has fondly placed his name on the roll of its patriot martyrs. His extreme youth, his pure and gentle nature, his lofty and noble aims, his beautiful and touching speech in the dock, and his tragic death' upon the scaffold, have been all-efficacious with his countrymen to shield his. memory from breath of blame. Robert Emmet was the youngest brother of Thomas Addis Emmet, one of the most distinguished and illustrious of the United Irish leaders. He formed the daring design of surprising the castle of Dublin, and, by the seizure of the capital, the inauguration of a rebellion throughout the provinces. Indeed it was, as Mr: McGee remarks,’; the plan of Roger O’More -and Lord Maguire in 1641, In this project he was joined by several of the leaders in the recent

insurrection, amongst them being Thomas Bussell, one of the bravest and “noblest characters that ever' appeared on the page of history, and Michael Dwyer, of Wicklow, who still, as for the past five years, held his ground in the defiles of Glenmalure and Imall, defying and defeating all attempts to capture him. But, beside the men whose names were openly revealed in connection with the plot, and these comprised some of the best and worthiest in the land, it is beyond question that there were others not discovered, filling high positions in Ireland, in England, and in France, who approved, counselled, and assisted in Emmet’s design.

Although the conspiracy embraced thousands of associates in Dublin alone, not a man betrayed the secret to the last; and Emmet went on with his preparations of arms and ammunition in two or three depots in the city. Even when one of these exploded accidentally, the Government failed to divine what was afoot, though their suspicions were excited. On the night of July 23, 1803, Emmet sallied forth from one of the depots at the head of less than a hundred men. But the whole scheme of arrangements —although it certainly was one of the most ingenious and perfect ever devised by the skill of man — like most other conspiracies of the kind, crumbled in all its parts at the moment of action. “There was failure everywhere” and to further insure defeat, a few hours before the moment fixed for the march upon the Castle, intelligence reached the Government from Kildare, that some outbreak was to take place that night, as bodies of the disaffected peasantry from that county had been observed making towards the city. The authorities were accordingly on 'the qui vive to some extent when Emmet reached the street. His expected musters had not appeared; his own band dwindled to a score; and, to him the most poignant affliction of all, an act of lawless bloodshed, the murder of Lord Justice Kilwarden, one of the most humane and honorable judges, stained the short-lived emeute. Incensed beyond expression by this act, and perceiving the ruin of his attempt, Emmet gave peremptory orders for its instantaneous abandonment. He himself hurried off towards Wicklow in time to countermand the rising there and in Wexford and Kildare. It is beyond question that his prompt and strenuous exertions, his aversion to the useless sacrifice of life, alone prevented a protracted struggle in those counties.

(To be continued.)