Chapter XXIV “How Is Old Ireland and How Does She Stand?”
Summing up these pages, how shall I answer the question asked by Napper Tandy in “The Wearin’ of the Green” over a hundred years ago—“How is old Ireland, and how does she stand?”
Let us see what changes, for the better or for the worse, there have been during the period—nearly seventy years—covered by these recollections.
Catholic Emancipation had, five years before I was born, allowed our people to raise their voices, and give their votes through their representatives in an alien Parliament.
I am not one to say that no benefit for Ireland has arisen through legislation at Westminster, but the system that allowed our people to perish of starvation has always been, to my mind, the one great justification for our struggle for self-government by every practicable method. It has been a struggle for sheer existence.
If Ireland had had the making of her own laws when the potato crop failed, not a single human being would have perished from starvation. That I am justified in introducing the terrible Irish Famine and its consequences into these recollections as part of my own experiences I think I have shown in my description of its effects upon our people when passing through Liverpool as emigrants or as settlers in England.
I have always endeavoured to look upon the most hopeful aspects of the Irish question. But with the appalling tragedy of the Famine half way in the last century, with half our people gone and the population still diminishing, one is bound to admit that the nineteenth century was one of the most disastrous in Irish history.
Is it surprising that, during my time, driven desperate at the sight of a perishing people in one of the most fruitful lands on earth, we should have made two attempts at rebellion?
In 1848 the means were totally inadequate.
In 1867 the movement looked more hopeful in many respects. The revolutionary organisation had a large number of enrolled members on both sides of the Atlantic. Among them were hundreds in the British army, and many thousands of Irish-American veterans trained in the Civil War, eager to wipe off the score of centuries in a conflict, on something like equal terms, with the olden oppressor of their race.
But the real hope of success lay in the prospect of a war between America and England, which at one time seemed imminent, and justified the action of the Fenian chiefs in their preparations.
It was, however, the very existence of Fenianism which, more than any other cause, prevented war. For none knew better than far-seeing statesmen like Mr. Gladstone (who declared that he was prompted to remedial measures for Ireland by “the intensity of Fenianism”) that within a month of the commencement of a war between America and England, Ireland would be lost to the British crown for ever. That is why English statesmen would have grovelled in the dust before America, rather than engage in a conflict with her.
The generous way in which the Irish exiles in America have poured their wealth into the lap of their island mother, and the determination they have shown to shed their blood for her just as freely, should the opportunity only come, are the features which to some extent counterbalance the tragedy of the Famine. For that terrible calamity, by driving our people out in millions, raised a power on the side of Ireland which her oppressors could not touch, a power which is no doubt among the means intended by Providence to hasten our coming day of freedom.
Nevertheless, emigration, the most unanswerable proof of English misgovernment, is a terrible drain on our country’s life-blood, and no entirely hopeful view of Ireland’s future can be held until this is stopped.
What, however, are the reflections which bring encouragement?
One is that the time cannot be far distant when some statesman of the type of Gladstone will try to avert the danger threatening the British empire through an ever-discontented Ireland, by conceding to her at least the amount of self-government possessed by Canada and Australia.
To this one section of Englishmen will say “Never!” Students of history have many times heard the “Never” of English statesmen, and know how often it has proved futile. Before I was born they were saying “Never” to Catholic Emancipation. Later on they said “Never” to the demand for tenant-right. A few years ago, when fighting the Boers, they said “Never” to the suggestion that the war should be ended on conditions. Even now economic causes and the competition of rival powers are at work in such a way that it is plain that the existence of the British Empire is at stake. England’s one chance lies in the possibility of the friendship of the free democratic commonwealths which are at present her colonies—and of Ireland.
The establishing of County Councils in Ireland and Great Britain was an acceptance of the principle of Home Rule. Their successful working has caused the belief in that principle to gain ground. Their administration in Ireland has shown that in no part of the British empire does there exist a greater capacity for self-government. All creeds and classes there have found the material benefit arising from them, for instead of their finances being managed by irresponsible boards, the money of the people is now wisely spent by their elected representatives.
Moreover, if there is one thing that is certain, it is that the future is on our side. In my own time I have seen a most startling change come over the attitude of the working classes of England towards Ireland as they progressed in knowledge and political power themselves. They are the certain rulers of England to-morrow, the men whose democratic ideals are our own, and who have in fact largely been trained by us. Their rise means the fall of the system that has mis-governed Ireland. Thus every day brings nearer the triumph of our ideal, the ideal of freedom, which will probably be worked out in the form of Ireland governing herself and working harmoniously with a democratic self-governing England.
The unquestionable growing desire among the people of Wales and Scotland to manage their own affairs proceeds largely from their having felt the benefits of local self-government in their County Councils. Their prejudice against National self-government for Ireland, and for themselves, too, should they desire it, is rapidly breaking down. In this connection, too, we must never forget what an enormous power we have in the two millions and more of Irishmen and men of Irish extraction in Great Britain, and that, under ordinary circumstances, they hold the balance of power between British parties in about 150 Parliamentary constituencies.
With regard to the Irish land question, we have every reason to be hopeful of the final and complete success of the great movement commenced by the organisation founded by Michael Davitt.
We have had, since the days of Strongbow, many conquests and confiscations and settlements, the main object of each being the acquisition of the land of Ireland. Is it not marvellous, notwithstanding all the attempts to destroy our people, how they have clung to the soil and so absorbed the foreign element that you still so often find the old tribal names in the old tribal lands? Apart from this, we have, in the descendants of the various invaders, what would be a most valuable element in a self-governing Ireland, for whatever be the creed or the race from which men have sprung, it is but natural that all should love alike the land of their birth. As a result of Michael Davitt’s labours, that land is to-day more nearly than it has been for centuries the property of the people, and it seems now, humanly speaking, impossible that they should ever be dispossessed of it again.
Then there is the improvement in education. At one time it was banned and hunted along with religion and patriotism. Then it was permitted, with a view of turning it into a lever against the other two elements. Concessions have so far been wrung from the British parliament that there is now a university to which Irish youths can be sent. Here there is a great factor for good, for while, on the one hand, knowledge is power, on the other hand the thirst for knowledge has always been ineradicable in the Irish character. There are also the beginnings of technical training so long badly needed. Under self-government we should have been a couple of generations earlier in the race than we are, but it is not too late.
Lastly, in reckoning up the conditions from which we can take hope and comfort there is this: In the darkest hour we have never lost faith in ourselves and our Cause. To find a parallel for such tenacity in the pages of the history of any land would be difficult.
We come of a race that, through the long, dreary centuries, has never known despair, nor shall we despair now. I am assured that, before long, the drain on our life blood that has gone on for sixty years will stop, and that we shall stand on solid ground at last, ready for an upward spring.
And so, to the young men of Ireland I would say: Be true to yourselves; hold fast to the ideals which your fathers preserved through the centuries, in spite of savage force and unscrupulous statecraft. The times are changing; new impulses are constantly shaping the destinies of the nations; have confidence in God and your country; and who shall dare to say that the future of Ireland may not yet be a glorious recompense for the heroism with which she has borne the sufferings of the past.
The End