been elected by Catholic constituencies in Ireland, "with and without the protection of the ballot" declares that: * to reject such a candidate on account of his religious belief, when acceptable in all other respects, is a thing unknown in Ireland." Today, the Right Hon. Denis Henry, a Catholic Unionist, is elected by a Protestant constituency in Ulster and sits in the British Parliament, an advocate of parliamentary union with England. Today also, Ernest Blythe, a Protestant supporter of the Irish Republic, represents an Ulster constituency in the Congress of the Irish Republic, while in the south Robert Barton, a Protestant Republican, was elected by a Catholic constituency with an overwhelming majority, over The O'Mahony, a Catholic gentleman and adherent of the so-called "Nationalist" party, led by the late John E. Redmond. The non-sectarian attitude of the Republican movement in Ireland is further illustrated by the new Moderator of the Presbyterian Church, in Ireland, Rt. Rev. H. P. Glenn, who in his address to the General Assembly of that church on June 7, 1920, in Belfast, stated with reference to recent property losses in Ireland: "It is a notable fact that nowhere has a hand been raised against one of our isolated church buildings nor against a single individual Presbyterian, as such, in the South and West." George Russell, (A.E.) in his Reply to Rudyard Kipling, writing as an Ulsterman of Protestant faith states conclusively : "I am a person whose whole being goes into a blaze at the thought of oppression of faith, and yet I think my Catholic countrymen infinitely more tolerant than those who hold the faith I was born in. I am a heretic judged by their standards, one who has written and made public his heresies, and I have never suffered in friendships or found my heresies an obstacle in life. I set my knowledge, the knowledge of a lifetime, against your ignorance, and I say you have used your genius to do Ireland and its people a wrong.' Almost one-third of all the Protestants in Ireland live outside Ulster. These people, living as a minority of about 300,000 in a population of close to 2,500,000 Catholics, live contentedly and without fear of persecution as their families have lived for many generations. There is then evident insincerity in the British statesmen's argument, echoed by Belfast supporters, that Ulster's Protestant minority necessitates a drastic division of Ireland to save them from the machinations of a Roman Catholic majority in all Ireland. Under this argument the Protestants of the South would also need to be cut off from their countrymen. To be quite consistent it would further require the separation of the Catholic minority of Antrim and Down. RELIGIOUS CENSUS OF ULSTER An analysis of the religious statistics of Ulster emphasizes the artificial nature of the "separation" arguments. The British official census of Ulster in 1911 gives the population as 1,580,242. The Catholics constitute the largest religious body in Ulster: Catholics.... Presbyterians.. Episcopalians... Total....... Denomination The Catholic population was 690,134. All other denominations were 890,108. This constituted a majority of 119,984 persons of religious bodies other than the Catholic. This entire majority of Protestants live in the city of Belfast. Outside the city of Belfast there are more Catholics than Protestants in the Province of Ulster. The religious census by counties in Ulster was: One phase of English propaganda with regard to Ulster and Ireland vaguely charges that the country is "priest-ridden." The following statistics disprove that theory: [VI] (a) ENGLISH RUTHLESSNESS IN IRELAND IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Every horror and every shame that could disgrace the relations between a strong country and a weak one is written upon almost every page of the history of our dealings with Ireland." (GLADSTONE). That England's worst barbarities of the past are being continued in Ireland today is evidenced by the following summaries. They indicate cold-blooded murders of unarmed civilians, the "shooting-up," sacking and burning of whole towns and villages, the deliberate destruction of the hardearned fruits of the people's industry-methods openly condoned and secretly instigated, by which the British Government is today endeavoring to crush into submission or to exasperate into madness a spirited, but innocent people-this when the echoes of the cries of Belgium have hardly died away, and when the war supposed to have been fought to secure forever the rights of small nations has scarcely ended. This regime of licensed savagery, of nightly raids and punitive expeditions in which men, women and children indiscriminately suffer, is but super-imposed upon the earlier system of fomentation of religious animosities, abrogation of civil law, suspension of habeas corpus and of trial by jury; imprisonments and deportation without any form of trial, total suppression of free speech and free assembly, and the worse than war-censorship of the press, through the destruction of machinery and the confiscation of literature. ENGLISH ATROCITIES IN IRELAND, FROM Deportations Armed assaults on unarmed civilians.. Raids on private houses, burglaries, robberies, etc..... Totals.. *These do not include Republicans who have been killed in armed conflicts with the British forces. †To April, 1920. CRIMES BY BRITISH ARMED FORCES TO APRIL 20, 1920 Details of crimes committed in Ireland by British armed forces in the past two years, including the ndings of over 100 public inquiries held by the civil authorities together with verdicts of coroners' juries, are contained in the IRISH BULLETIN, an official record made by the Irish Government, in the numbers and volumes specified here. Every charge contained in this official record is based upon an accumulation of evidence secured from eye-witnesses and official British documents. The charges made against the British Government comprise: 1. Arresting and imprisoning without charge or trial, or with trial on invented charges, the elected representatives of the Irish people; Vol. I. Nos. 24, 36, 40, 57, 62, 81, 83, 97, 114. Vol. II. Nos. 2, 27, 42, 44, 72. Vol. III. Nos. 9, 10. 2. Inciting and encouraging its armed forces to murder Irish civilians; Vol. I. Nos. 33, 37, 58, 60, 65, 66, 67, 72, 93, 98, 106, 107, 113. Vol. II. Nos. 3, 5, 25, 28, 36, 43, 48, 49, 50, 55, 56, 57, 60, 62, 66, 74, 79, 84. Vol. III. Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 15. 3. Wilfully shielding these murderers and rewarding them by promotion, high office and increased pay; Vol. I. Nos. 18, 61, 98. Vol. II. Nos. 6, 9, 48, 50, 55, 57, 60, 62, 63, 66, 74, 79, 84. Vol. III. Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 14. 4. Conniving at and encouraging the sacking of Irish towns, the bombing, burning and wrecking of Irish homes, the destruction of the factories and industries of the Irish people by its armed forces; Vol. I. Nos. 4, 12, 50, 77, 86, 93, 115. Vol. II. Nos. 3, 10, 15, 20, 21, 28, 40, 43, 49, 55, 57, 60, 61, 71, 79, 83. Vol. III. Nos. 1, 5, 6, 9, 10, 14. 5. Inciting and encouraging its armed forces to commit savage assaults upon innocent and inoffensive Irish citizens; Vol. I. Nos. 66, 70, 75, 90, 93, 111. Vol. II. Nos. 9, 12, 48, 50, 55, 62, 63, 66, 79, 84. Vol. 111. Nos. 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14. 6. Having among its high officials in Ireland those whom it knows to have directed the assassination of Irish citizens, and to be planning the assassination of others; 7. Wilfully endeavoring to drive the Irish people into armed insurrection; Vol. I. Nos. 17, 23, 24, 27, 30, 45, 59, 61, 62, 67, 86, 91, 92, 95. Vol. III. Nos. 6, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15. 8. Employing in its service men whom it knows to be perjurers and assassins; 10. Conniving at the looting of property of Irish citizens by its armed forces; 11. Suppressing National organizations in Ireland which represent 83 per cent of the Irish people; Vol. I. Nos. 13, 37, 64, 78, 81, 109, 114. Vol. II. Nos. 27, 42, 44, 72. Vol. III. No. 12. 12. Preventing by threats the Irish Press from exposing its terrorist regime in Ireland; Vol. I. Nos. 15, 39, 73. Vol. II. Nos. 5, 44. Vol. III. Nos. 4, 10. 13. Suppressing organized National effort made to improve Ireland's economic position; and arresting and imprisoning men who are engaged upon this work; Vol. I. Nos. 14, 24, 25, 28, 32, 38, 45, 49, 52, 76, 89. Vol. II. Nos. 44, 46, 71. Vol. III. No. 5. 14. Deliberately provoking sectarian conflicts in Ireland; Vol. I. Nos. 38, 39. Vol. II. Nos. 37, 39, 58, 59, 61, 67. 15. Creating in Ireland an armed police force which has no civil duties, but whose function is to suppress by force the National organizations of the people; Vol. I. Nos. 24, 27, 29, 31, 55, 62, 90, 94, 114. Vol. II. Nos. 16, 20, 21, 40, 48, 49,, 53, 55, 57, 59, 62, 69, 73, 82, 83, 84. Vol. III. Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 14, 15. 16. Endeavoring to stamp out the use of the Irish language by the Irish people; Vol. I. Nos. 20, 29, 34, 51, 97. Vol. II. Nos. 27, 31, 37, 44. |