A part of the Irish is asking our voice and our gold to help
independence for the whole of the Irish. Independence is not desired
by the whole of the Irish. Irishmen of Ulster have plainly said so.
Everybody knows this. Roman Catholics themselves are not unanimous. Only
some of them desire independence. These, known as Sinn Fein, appeal to
us for deliverance from their conqueror and oppressor; they dwell upon
the oppression of England beneath which Ireland is now crushed. They
refer to England’s brutal and unjustifiable conquest of the Irish nation
seven hundred and forty-eight years ago.
What is the truth, what are the facts?
By his bull “Laudabiliter,” in 1155, Pope Adrian the Fourth invited the
King of England to take charge of Ireland. In 1172 Pope Alexander the
Third confirmed this by several letters, at present preserved in the
Black Book of the Exchequer. Accordingly, Henry the Second went
to Ireland. All the archbishops and bishops of Ireland met him at
Waterford, received him as king and lord of Ireland, vowing loyal
obedience to him and his successors, and acknowledging fealty to them
forever. These prelates were followed by the kings of Cork, Limerick,
Ossory, Meath, and by Reginald of Waterford. Roderick O’Connor, King of
Connaught, joined them in 1175. All these accepted Henry the Second
of England as their Lord and King, swearing to be loyal to him and his
successors forever.
Such was England’s brutal and unjustifiable conquest of Ireland.
Ireland was not a nation, it was a tribal chaos. The Irish nation of
that day is a legend, a myth, built by poetic imagination. During the
centuries succeeding Henry the Second, were many eras of violence and
bloodshed. In reading the story, it is hard to say which side committed
the most crimes. During those same centuries, violence and bloodshed and
oppression existed everywhere in Europe. Undoubtedly England was very
oppressive to Ireland at times; but since the days of Gladstone she has
steadily endeavored to relieve Ireland, with the result that today
she is oppressing Ireland rather less than our Federal Government
is oppressing Massachusetts, or South Carolina, or any State. By
the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, Ireland was placed in a position so
advantageous, so utterly the reverse of oppression, that Dillon, the
present leader, hastened to obstruct the operation of the Act, lest
the Irish genius for grievance might perish from starvation. Examine the
state of things for yourself, I cannot swell this book with the details;
they are as accessible to you as the few facts about the conquest which
I have just narrated. Examine the facts, but even without examining
them, ask yourself this question: With Canada, Australia, and all those
other colonies that I have named above, satisfied with England’s rule,
hastening to her assistance, and with only Ireland selling herself
to Germany, is it not just possible that something is the matter with
Ireland rather than with England? Sinn Fein will hear of no Home Rule.
Sinn Fein demands independence. Independence Sinn Fein will not get.
Not only because of the outrage to unconsenting Ulster, but also because
Britain, having just got rid of one Heligoland to the East, will not
permit another to start up on the West. As early as August 25th, 1914,
mention in German papers was made of the presence in Berlin of Casement
and of his mission to invite Germany to step into Ireland when England
was fighting Germany. The traffic went steadily on from that time, and
broke out in the revolution and the crimes in Dublin in 1916. England
discovered the plan of the revolution just in time to foil the landing
in Ireland of Germany, whom Ireland had invited there. Were England
seeking to break loose from Ireland, she could sue Ireland for a divorce
and name the Kaiser as co-respondent. Any court would grant it.
The part of Ireland which does not desire independence, which desires it
so little that it was ready to resist Home Rule by force in 1914, is the
steady, thrifty, clean, coherent, prosperous part of Ireland. It is the
other, the unstable part of Ireland, which has declared Ireland to be a
Republic. For convenience I will designate this part as Green Ireland,
and the thrifty, stable part as Orange Ireland. So when our politicians
sympathize with an “Irish” Republic, they befriend merely Green Ireland;
they offend Orange Ireland.
Americans are being told in these days that they owe a debt of support
to Irish independence, because the “Irish” fought with us in our own
struggle for Independence. Yes, the Irish did, and we do owe them a debt
of support. But it was the Orange Irish who fought in our Revolution,
not the Green Irish. Therefore in paying the debt to the Green Irish and
clamoring for “Irish” independence, we are double crossing the Orange
Irish.
“It is a curious fact that in the Revolutionary War the Germans and
Catholic Irish should have furnished the bulk of the auxiliaries to the
regular English soldiers;... The fiercest and most ardent Americans
of all, however, were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their
descendants.” History of New York, p. 133, by Theodore Roosevelt.
Next, in what manner have the Green Irish incurred our thanks?
They made the ancient and honorable association of Tammany their own.
Once it was American. Now Tammany is Green Irish. I do not believe that
I need pause to tell you much about Tammany. It defeated Mitchel, a
loyal but honest Catholic, and the best Mayor of Near York in thirty
years. It is a despotism built on corruption and fear.
During our Civil War, it was the Green Irish that resisted the draft in
New York. They would not fight. You have heard of the draft riots in New
York in 1862. They would not fight for the Confederacy either.
During the following decade, in Pennsylvania, an association, called
the Molly Maguires, terrorized the coal regions until their reign of
assassination was brought to an end by the detection, conviction, and
execution of their ringleaders. These were Green Irish.
In Cork and Queenstown during the recent war, our American sailors were
assaulted and stoned by the Green Irish, because they had come to help
fight Germany. These assaults, and the retaliations to which they led,
became so serious that no naval men under the rank of Commander were
permitted to go to Cork. Leading citizens of Cork came to beg that this
order be rescinded. But, upon being cross-examined, it was found that
the Green Irish who had made the trouble had never been punished. Of
this many of us had news before Admiral Sims in The World’s Work for
November, pages 63-64, gave it his authoritative confirmation.
Taking one consideration with another, it hardly seems to me that our
debt to the Green Irish is sufficiently heavy for us to hinder England
for the sake of helping them and Germany.
Not all the Green Irish were guilty of the attacks upon our sailors; not
all by any means were pro-German; and I know personally of loyal Roman
Catholics who are wholly on England’s side, and are wholly opposed to
Sinn Fein. Many such are here, many in Ireland: them I do not mean. It
is Sinn Fein that I mean.
In 1918, when England with her back to the wall was fighting Germany,
the Green Irish killed the draft. Here following, I give some specific
instances of what the Roman Catholic priests said.
April 21st. After mass at Castletown, Bear Haven, Father Brennan ordered
his flock to resist conscription, take the sacrament, and to be ready to
resist to the death; such death insuring the full benediction of God
and his Church. If the police resort to force, let the people kill
the police as they would kill any one who threatened their lives. If
soldiers came in support of the draft, let them be treated like the
police. Policemen and soldiers dying in their attempt to carry out the
draft law, would die the enemies of God, while the people who resisted
them would die in peace with God and under the benediction of his
Church.
Father Lynch said in church at Ryehill: “Resist the draft by every means
in your power. Any minion of the English Government who fires upon you,
above all if he is a Catholic, commits a mortal sin and God will punish
him.”
In the chapel at Kilgarvan Father Murphy said: “Every Irishman who helps
to apply the draft in Ireland is not only a traitor to his country, but
commits a mortal sin against God’s law.”
At mass in Scariff the Rev. James MacInerney said: “No Irish Catholic,
whatever his station be, can help the draft in this country without
denying his faith.”
April 28th. After having given the communion to three hundred men in the
church at Eyries, County Cork, Father Gerald Dennehy said: “Any Catholic
who either as policeman or as agent of the government shall assist in
applying the draft, shall be excommunicated and cursed by the Roman
Catholic Church. The curse of God will follow him in every land. You can
kill him at sight, God will bless you and it will be the most acceptable
sacrifice that you can offer.”
Referring to any policeman who should attempt to enforce the draft,
Father Murphy said at mass in Killenna, “Any policeman who is killed in
such attempt will be damned in hell, even if he was in a state of grace
that very morning.”
Ninety-five percent of those Irish policemen were Catholics and had to
respect the commands of those priests.
Ireland is England’s business, not ours. But the word
“self-determination” appears to hypnotize some Americans. We must not
be hypnotized by this word. It is upon the “principle” expressed in
this word that our sympathies with the Irish Republic are asked. The
six northeastern counties of Ulster, on the “principle” of
self-determination, should be separated from the Irish Republic. But the
Green Irish will not listen to that. Protestants in Ulster had to listen
in their own chief city to Sinn Fein rejoicings over German victories.
The rebellion of 1916, when Sinn Fein opened the back door that
England’s enemies might enter and destroy her--this dastardly treason
was made bloody by cowardly violence. The unarmed and the unsuspecting
were shot down and stabbed in cold blood. Later, soldiers who came home
from the front, wounded soldiers too, were persecuted and assaulted. The
men of Ulster don’t wish to fall under the power of the Green Irish.
“We do not know whether the British statesmen are right in asserting a
connection between Irish revolutionary feeling and German propaganda.
But in such a connection we should see no sign of a bad German policy.”
Thus wrote a Prussian deputy in Das Grossere Deutschland. That was over
there. This was over here:--
“The fraternal understanding which unites the Ancient Order of
Hibernians and the German-American Alliance receives our unqualified
endorsement. This unity of effort in all matters of a public
nature intended to circumvent the efforts of England to secure an
Anglo-American alliance have been productive of very successful results.
The congratulations of those of us who live under the flag of the United
States are extended to our German-American fellow citizens upon the
conquests won by the fatherland, and we assure them of our unshaken
confidence that the German Empire will crush England and aid in the
liberation of Ireland, and be a real defender of small nations.” See the
Boston Herald of July 22, 1916.
During our Civil War, in 1862, a resolution of sympathy with the South
was stifled in Parliament.
On June 6, 1919, our Senate passed, with one dissenting voice, the
following, offered by Senator Walsh, democrat, of Massachusetts:
“Resolved, that the Senate of the United States express its sympathy
with the aspirations of the Irish people for a government of its own
choice.”
What England would not do for the South in 1862, we now do against
England our ally, against Ulster, our friend in our Revolution, and in
support of England’s enemies, Sinn Fein and Germany.
Ireland has less than 4,500,000 inhabitants; Ulster’s share is about one
third, and its Protestants outnumber its Catholics by more than three
fourths. Besides such reprisals as they saw wrought upon wounded
soldiers, they know that the Green Irish who insist that Ulster belong
to their Republic, do so because they plan to make prosperous and
thrifty Ulster their milch cow.
Let every fair-minded American pause, then, before giving his sympathy
to an independent Irish Republic on the principle of self-determination,
or out of gratitude to the Green Irish. Let him remember that it was the
Orange Irish who helped us in our Revolution, and that the Orange Irish
do not want an independent Irish Republic. There will be none; our
interference merely makes Germany happy and possibly prolongs the
existing chaos; but there will be none. Before such loyal and thinking
Catholics as the gentleman who said to me that word about “spoiling the
ship for a ha’pennyworth of tar,” and before a firm and coherent policy
on England’s part, Sinn Fein will fade like a poisonous mist.