Ireland's claims! When the "Home Rule" Bill became law, it was postponed on the plea that the war was on-in reality because Sir Edward Carson forbade its application. The British Government kept postponing it period after period, till eventually it never went into force. The Irish people, most of whom had at first been deceived into regarding it as a desirable step toward larger liberty, eventually disillusioned, would not in the end accept it. The dreary years from 1892 onwards, characterised by strife and bitterness and the growth of dictatorial management of Irish affairs by the Parliamentarians, were not without some good results. Honest and patriotic men and women in Ireland grew tired of the squabbles of rival politicians, of the manipulation of parliamentary and local elections, of the general corruption of public life, and, falling back on first principles, endeavoured to plan a future for Ireland far different from that in the dreams of the provincialist politicians. National consciousness was awakening, and the intellect of Ireland found expression, first in the Sean Bhean Bhocht of Belfast edited by Ethna Carbery and Alice Milligan, and afterwards in the United Irishman of Dublin edited by Arthur Griffith and contributed to by William Rooney. The Gaelic League had been established, and by slow degrees the Irish people were taught to rely on themselves, to rebuild their ancient, though shattered civilisation, to rediscover their soul as a people, and confront the world as an ancient, cultured and dignified race, and no longer an obscure beggar seeking for English doles. And worthily did the best of the Irish race respond to this appeal. No greater sacrifice of personal interests can be recorded in the world than the work expended in Ireland during the past three decades. Father O'Growney gave his life for the language; William Rooney for the national cause generally; Pearse, McDonagh and their comrades have faced the firing squad; and among the host of those 3 The Party had been rapidly sinking in self-respect for a quarter of a century-but in the last nine years of this time had gone down hill with accelerated velocity. It became the official "tail" of the British Liberals, and obediently wagged as the dog willed. For the older, wise, and well proved maxim, “England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity," the Party adopted as its slogan: "Don't embarrass the Government!"-till the slogan and its users passed into a joke. In reward for the unworthy services rendered to the Liberals, the members of the Party were permitted to scramble for the crumbs that fell from their masters' table. For although they still went through the form of gravely subscribing to the pledge that Parnell had seen it necessary to prescribe-the solemn pledge that no one of them would accept, or ask, from an English Government, office or favour for himself or friends-there was furious scramble among them for the offices and favours-oftentimes ludicrously petty ones-that Dublin Castle had in its gift. who have given up their lives for the preservation of an Irish Ireland are numbers of unnamed and forgotten men and women who were prepared to work in obscurity and neglect, that Ireland might live. This remarkable resurgence of national self-respect was looked on askance by the political leaders whose vision was limited to action in the English House of Commons. The intellectual phase of the Irish movement they heartily disliked. Criticism of "the Party" was speedily suppressed. The Party controlled nearly all the newspapers of Ireland and woe betide the journalist who took any liberties in criticism of the Kings. They would not trust the intellect of Young Ireland. And thus for thirty years and more the Party sat on a mine which was certain to explode some day. They, themselves, provided the fuse. In the English House of Commons John Redmond, in 1914, unreservedly offered the services of the manhood of Ireland in one of England's wars. Earl Grey was happy to announce that Ireland was "the one bright spot" on the horizon. Then, Mr. Redmond, having gone so far was forced to go further; and when at Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, he advised the Irish Volunteers to go to war for England, he, fortunately, sounded the final knell of the "Party." The Parliamentary leaders, Redmond, Dillon, Devlin and O'Connor, came out openly as England's recruiting sergeantsand their followers in the country, the scales at length fallen from their eyes, began a wholesale desertion-which in startlingly short time left the leaders looking in vain to find any followers. They were to be formally wiped out at the next general election. The Irish Parliamentary Party, having compromised Ireland's every claim to nationhood, and touched the depths of disgrace, then disappeared from history. And Ireland severed itself from the bad tradition of British Parliamentarianism. William O'Brien's Recollections and Evening Memories. CHAPTER LXXVII THE MODERN LITERATURE OF IRELAND I. Modern Gaelic Literature THE last writers in the ancient bardic dialect, the three O'Clerys and O'Mulconry, four friars who have been immortalised as the Four Masters, in the early 17th century collected all the old manuscripts they could find, and in Donegal Abbey wrote their mighty Annals that, though the nation, as they feared, should perish, the names of the great ones at least should be preserved. They praised and dispraised Gael and Englishman with perfect impartialityevidence that their minds were still untuned to the new world of warring states. "They belonged to the old, individual, poetic life, and spoke a language even, in which it was all but impossible to think an abstract thought." " 1 1 THE FOUR MASTERS BY THOMAS D'ARCY MC GEE Many altars are in Banba, many chancels hung in white, Many schools and many abbeys, glorious in our fathers' sight; Yet whene'er I go a pilgrim back, dear Native Isle, to thee, May my filial footsteps bear me to that Abbey by the sea To that Abbey-roofless, doorless, shrineless, monkless, though it be! I still hear them in my musings, still see them as I gaze,- Not of fame, and not of fortune, do these eager penmen dream; Duty still defying Doom. As the breathing of the west winds over bound and bearded sheaves- Brightly on the Abbey gable shines the full moon thro' the night, After the disastrous Elizabethan wars, Ireland was stripped of her forests. Partly this was done for plunder, but chiefly to destroy all refuges and cover. From being an island Lebanon, Ireland became the gaunt, naked, shelterless expanse that it is to-day. "The wandering companies that keep the wood" were gone, and the modern period set in. With the sweeping away of the proud, aristocratic order of Gaeldom, Irish literature became impoverished, and yet, by an accident, the greatest of all Irish writers, Goeffrey Keating, was the first eminent "popular" writer. Returning from Spain a doctor of divinity, Keating won fame as a preacher in County Tipperary. On a certain occasion, he preached in the presence of a lady whose name was associated with that of Carew, the Lord President of Munster, a sermon calculated to give as much offence as John the Baptist's reproof of Herod. The anti-popery laws were put in motion through Carew's personal spite, and Keating had to fly. Hiding in the Glen of Aherlow, he composed his celebrated Forus Feasa ar Eirinn, or History of Ireland, which was and is the standard work of Irish prose. Hundreds of manuscript copies were made. Several English translations exist, one by John O'Mahony, the Fenian Head Centre in America. Keating also composed religious works, one of which, the Three Shafts of Death, is full of spirited moral tales told with the story-telling zest that makes the History so readable. Thus Keating writes of a wild and ignorant kern of Munster who went exploring and landing in England, was sumptuously entertained at the first great house he came to. When, at last, sated with good living, he and his company made to depart, the keeper of the house cried to his accountant: Make reckoning-English words that the kern did not understand. The accountant there Tufted isle and splinter'd headland smile and soften in her ray; Finding all too short the day. Now they kneel! oh, list the accents, from the soul of mourners wrung; For the houseless sons of chieftains, for their brethren near and far, And they say before up-rising: "Father! grant one other pray'r. Oh, that we, who now inherit the great bequest of their toil,- with stripped the visitors of their goods, sending them bare away: for the house was an Inn. The kern was much puzzled, for never before had he known food bought or sold. Coming home, he told his friends that England was a wonderful country for food and drink and hospitality, only when strangers were leaving their entertainer, a violent fellow called MacRaicin was called down to despoil them. Keating adds that "England is the earth; the innkeepers, the world, the flesh and the devil; the Kern, people in general, and MacRaicin-death!" Keating attended some of the last bardic schools, but he chose to write in a style to be "understanded of the people." His poetry is in the new lyrical style then coming in, breaking away from the severe old metres that only the learned could compose-or perhaps enjoy. He was a genuine poet, too. Witness this exile-song, of the typical Gaelic "catalogue" order: MO BHEANNACHT LEAT A SGRIBHINN My blessing with thee, letter To the delightful isle of Eire, My pity that I see not her hilltops Farewell to her nobles and her people, Farewell to her smooth plains, Farewell to her fruity woods, Farewell to her bogs and lawns, Farewell to her raths and moors! Farewell from my heart to her harbours, Farewell, too, to her heavy pastures, Though battle-wrath be frequent |