_What Ireland Wants_
Before I went to Ireland I imagined the Irish standing in a crowd with
their right hands pointing to heaven and all of them demanding home
rule. But talk about shades of opinion and political differences at
home, why, it's nothing to the mixture here.
I meet a man to-day and as I shake his hand I tell him with heartfelt
sympathy that I hope he'll get home rule, that most of us are with him
in the United States, and he wrings my hand and tells me that American
sympathy is the thing that has kept Ireland up.
My bosom swells with pride and I feel that I have hit on just the
right phrase to use.
Next day I meet another Irishman, a Protestant from Belfast, and as I
wring his hand with emotional fervor, I tell him that I hope he'll get
home rule, and he pulls his hand from my grasp to bring it down on
desk or counter or table with impetuosity, as he says, "Ireland
doesn't want home rule. If the phrase had never been coined Ireland
would be happy to-day. What Ireland wants is less sympathy from
outsiders. If my child bumps his head and begins to cry, I say, 'Sure
it's nothing. Brave boys like to bump their heads,' and he begins to
laugh and forgets about it. But if a stranger says, 'Poor Patsy. It
must hurt awfully,' then he sets up a howl about it and fancies he's
injured. What Ireland needs is to forget her troubles and her
political disabilities and work. An Irish workingman in Ireland is the
laziest man alive. When he goes to America or Canada or Australia and
is released from priestly authority he's a hard worker and a success,
but Paddy in the fields is always looking for saints' days--and
finding them--and when he finds them he takes a holiday."
I am silent because I really know so little about it, but next day I
meet another Protestant and I say to him, "I suppose it's Rome rule
that is killing Ireland?"
He's up in the air at once and tells me that it is the priests who are
interesting the peasants in the revival of industries long dormant.
"Aren't the priests fine-looking men?" says he.
"Yes," breaks in another Irishman, "and they ought to be the fathers
of families. All that good blood going to waste and their lines ending
with them instead of enriching the blood of Ireland in future
generations. That's what celibacy does."
Another Irishman chimes in, "Oh, the priests are not such a fine lot.
The constabulary are, I'll admit, but the most of them are as useless
as the priests. Most of their time is spent training canaries, for
there's little else for them to do in the country districts. But the
priests; sure a man says, 'Oh, Jimmy's no good at all at all. Let's
make a priest of him.'"
"It's folly you're talking," says the one who spoke for the priests.
"There's not a finer body of men in Ireland than the priests."
"Oh," says the other, with Irish wit, "there's white sheep in every
fold, I'll admit, but if Ireland was free from political and religious
domination, she'd be able to stand upright and she wouldn't need home
rule."
All of which is very perplexing to the man who came to Ireland
thinking that with the exception of a few Orangemen all Ireland was
working morning, noon, and night for home rule.
Next day I meet a man I know to be a Protestant and I say to him in my
easy-going way (being all things to all men when I am traveling, in
order to save wear and tear), "The Catholic religion is keeping
Ireland back, is it not?"
He looks at me for a moment and then a spiritual light illumines his
eyes and he says: "Protestantism is always death to arts. Look at
Shakespeare, the last Catholic that England had, as you might say, and
look at his work with its artistry, its absence of dogmatism, and then
look at Protestant and tiresome Wordsworth and Protestant and didactic
Tennyson. Spenser was a great artist. Spenser was a Catholic.
Catholicism emancipates the artistic side of a man's nature,
puritanism seals it up, dams it, condemns him to preach sermons.
"The Irish are the most artistic people on the face of the earth when
Protestantism has not been allowed to stamp their idealism out of
them."
"But I thought you were a Protestant. Then I suppose that you think
that the priests----"
"I think that the priests ought never to be allowed to tamper with
education. Spiritually they release Irishmen from puritan fetters (I
speak as a Protestant and the son of a Protestant) but politically and
educationally they are millstones about Ireland's neck."
I leave him and going to Hibernia Hall in Dublin, where the work of
Irish industries is being displayed, and where stands temporarily St.
Gaudens's splendid statue of Parnell, and I see there Augustine
Birrell, whom I believe to be one of Ireland's warmest and truest
friends.
I am talking to a handsome six-foot priest.
"Ah, there's Birrell," I say to him.
"Yes," says he with a twinkle in his Irish eyes, "'twould be a fine
chance to drop a little dynamite under him."
I leave the hall hurriedly and listen outside for the explosion,
meanwhile wondering why a priest who wants home rule hates Birrell,
who has tried to give Ireland a modified version of it.
I meet a literary Catholic and ask him whether home rule would mean
Rome rule and he tells me that it would not; that the Catholics would
not stand for priestly interference with politics; that the priests
themselves would not desire to interfere.
Next day I ask a jarvey if he wants home rule and he says, "Begorry,
higher wages would be better. I'd not be botherin' with home rule if
there was enough to keep me sons busy."
"Well, Michael, would home rule mean Rome rule?"
"Sure it would. Isn't the pope the head of the church?"
Ireland seems to be a house divided against itself.
I like the father of the family very much. We'll say he comes from the
south of Ireland and is a Catholic. He's a witty man, a hospitable
man, a cheery man, but won't speak to his oldest son, because he's a
Belfast Unionist and believes in letting well enough alone.
[Illustration: LOST IN HIS LUNCH, MALLOW, COUNTY KERRY]
Now the eldest son is a delightful fellow. A little more reserved than
his southern father, but just as hospitable, just as cheery--almost as
witty. The mother is a Sinn Feiner, an idealist of the idealists. She
believes that Irishmen ought to withdraw from Parliament. She urges
her son, who is in Parliament, to resign, to boycott England, to get
his brother members of Parliament to come home and form a National
Council in Dublin. She doesn't believe in war, but she hates England
with an animosity that is positively amusing to one whose forbears
fought England and had done with the fight long ago. She won't speak
to her daughter, who believes in working for home rule in season and
out of season in London.
The mother is witty and cheery, and, oh, so hospitable, but when I
visit the daughter I don't mention the old lady to her, for in spite
of the ingrained love for parents that is almost as strong in an
Irishman as it is in a Chinaman, she says very sharp things about her
unpractical mother. But when we leave politics alone, she is cheery
and witty, and always as hospitable as she can be.
Now, if by means of arousing a truly national spirit (and the Gaelic
League is going about it in the right way) this family of witty and
cheery and hospitable people can be induced to sink minor differences
and act together they'll get what they want--whatever that is. And
then won't they be the happy family?
And I'm sure I do hope with all my heart that they'll get it.
For they won't be happy till they get it.