A few weeks ago I attended a performance of Sheridan’s comedy, “The
Rivals,” very ably interpreted by a new company of players.
One of them, an excellent performer, taking the part of Sir Lucius
O’Trigger, interpolated a “gag,” as it is called in theatrical parlance,
to the effect that modesty is a word which has no equivalent in the
Irish language. It was an interpolation to make the unthinking laugh—but
to make the judicious grieve.
For the Irishman is not immodest, not as the word is meant to
imply—impudent. Thackeray, the shrewd judge of character, rather
condemns the Irishman for his national bashfulness.
The Irishman, at home and abroad, has ever been shamefully apologetic
for his race and himself. He, the proudest of mortals, is always
depreciating his nation’s glory before the world.
The most successful of Irish soldiers, as we gauge success, was
Wellington, a man of Irish birth, whose family had lived in Ireland for
three hundred years. Yet, if we may believe biography, he always called
himself an “Englishman.” If he with three hundred years of Irish
ancestry behind him was English, is there, on all this continent, such a
being as an “American,” since not many of us can call ourselves
“natives” by much over one century of heritage?
Quite recently, in Boston, a wise and patriotic Irishman, though not a
Home Ruler, said, in presenting his case before an American audience,
that his family was not exactly “Irish,” since they had been in Ireland
only six hundred years!
And the patriotic poet, Doctor Sigerson, of Dublin, talking with my dear
lamented friend, the late Alfred Williams, himself a descendant of the
great Roger Williams, of Rhode Island, remarked, incidentally, in regard
to a mutual friend, that “there was an old feud between his family and
mine—but we have agreed to forget it.”
The “feud” dated back to the Danish invasion—many centuries ago—when
Doctor Sigerson’s ancestors fought against Brian Boru! I mention this
incident merely to show that it is possible to go back—too far—in the
path of genealogy.
Let us be content with reasonable research. If we can prove that St.
Brendan was the first discoverer of America, and that a seaman named
“Patrick Maguire” was the bow-oar who set the first foot on the strand
of the New World, from the boat of Columbus—what of it? Any clumsy
forger will come forward at once and declare that Brendan was a
“Scotch-Irishman” and Maguire an “Anglo-Saxon,” as their names imply.
For have they not demonstrated, to their own entire satisfaction, that
St. Patrick was not only a Scot, but also a Calvinist—centuries ere
Calvin was born? We can afford to ignore the fables of what is, to us,
comparative antiquity.
The point that I wish to make is this: I concede willingly, and, I may
say, gladly, that the founders of the great Irish-American societies in
America, a century or a century and a half ago, were not all of the
distinctively Irish race whose faith was Catholic; but of their
nationality there was not the shadow of a doubt. They were Irish, and
proud to call themselves such. They were not “Scotch-Irish,” nor
“Anglo-Irish.”
If they belonged, for the most part, to the faith of Grattan and Tone
and Emmet, does any true Irishman love their memory the less therefor?
Not one! In all the history of this, our poor, crime-stained, unhappy
world, there is no nation so free from the sin of persecution for
conscience’s sake as poor, persecuted Catholic Ireland. Our national
saints and martyrs have been Catholic and Protestant. We have never
discriminated against any man because of his religious belief, but,
rather, have been proud of following our leaders who loved Ireland
first.
But we are jealous in claiming our own. We do not want any man to be
called “Scotch-Irish” or “Anglo-Saxon,” because he did not happen to be
of the same faith as Strongbow or Henry the Second, the Catholic
invaders who first overran Ireland.
Emmet is ours as much as O’Connell; Parnell belongs to Ireland as much
as Owen Roe. We do not discriminate between Andrew Jackson and Phil
Sheridan when we glory in the deeds of Irish-Americans.
We have only one living thought at present. Our faces are set against
any alliance with the hereditary enemy of Ireland and of America. That
feeling is not Irish alone; it is American. It is born of experience. On
our part, seven hundred years old. On the part of America, over one
hundred years old. But is not the experience of one century as valuable
as that of seven when we have to deal with real things? It ought to be
more valuable, even as the injury of yesterday is more stinging than one
of seven years ago.
The danger of an Anglo-American alliance is imminent. Its effect on
Ireland is comparatively trivial. Its effect on America is immeasurably
disastrous. By it we should forfeit the friendship of France, whose men
and money made our freedom possible, and of Russia, whose timely aid
saved us from disintegration during the Civil War. “Republics are
ungrateful,” says the old adage. _This_ republic must prove, at least,
one exception to the rule, if it be a rule.
The American, and especially the Irish-American, who would favor an
alliance with England, would be unworthy of Heaven, unwelcome in
Purgatory, and lonesome in Perdition.