New-York daily tribune., 1859-01-11
EURO E.
THE EXCITEMENT IN IRELAND.


Government representing ike the present
British Ministry, party in decay, will always BET
ter succeed in getting rid Of its old principles tnsn
Of its old connections. When installing himself at
Downing street, Lord Derby, doubtless, msde up
Ais mind 10 atone for the blunders which 10 tunes
past had converted bis name into byword IN Ire
land. and bis yersate Attorney General for Ireland,
Mr. Wbite,ide. would not one moment hesitate
Anrpe 10 the wind the osths tbst bound him to tne
Orange LODGES. But, then, Lord Derby's advent
70 power gave, simultaneously, the signal for one
soterie Of the governing class to rush ID ano III .ao
posts lust vacated by the forciele eee'%n " INC
To-, coter;e The formation of the Derby Cabi-
.et ;nvolved the consequence that all Government
nlsees sbould be divided among motley
crew still united by party name which has De
.ome meaningless. and still marching under ban
.er torn TO tatters, but in fact having nothing in
sonmon save "reminiscences Of the past, club In
trones and, above all, the firm resolution
20 share together the loayes and fishes OF OF
Zee. Thus Lord EgLntcn, the Don QuIxote
who wanted TO resuscltate the tournaments
of chivalry in money -mOngeripg England, was
70 be eptbroned Lord Lieutenant at Dublin Castle,
and Lord Mas. notorious as a reckless partisan OF
Irish andlordsm was to be made his First Minister
The worthy couple, areades aHbO, on leaving Lon
don. were Of course, seriously enjOlDed by their
mperiors 10 have done with their crotchets TO be-
have properly, and by no capricious praDks TO up
set their own employers. Lord Egllntons path
across the channel was, we DO not doubt paved
with GOOD intentions the vista of the Vice.
royal baubles dancing before his childish
mind while Lord Mas, on his arrival at Dublin
Castle, was determined to satisfy himself That the
Wholesale clearance Of estates, the burning down
Of cottages, and the merciless unhousing OF their
Door inmates were proceeding at the proper ratlo
Yet as party necessities had forced Lord Derby to
install wrong men in the wrong place, party neces-
sities falsiied at once the position of those men,
whatever their individual intentions might be.
Orangeism had been officially snubbed for It's in
trudiDg loyalty, the Government itself had been
compelled to denOunce its organization as Illegal,
and very unceremOniOusly il was told that IT was
no longer good for any earthly purpose, and that it
must vanish The mere advent of a Tory Govern
ment, the mere occupancy of Dublin Castle by an
Eglinton and Mas revived the hopes OF the chop
fallen OraDgemen. The sun shOne again on the
"true bues;" they would again lord toyer the land
a. in the days Of Castlereagh and the day for taking
their revenge had vsibly dawned. Step by step,
they led the bungling weak and, therefore, tcme-
rsrious representatives Of Downing street from one
false position TO the other, until one fine morning
at last, the world was startled by proclamation
of the Lord Lieutenant placing Ireland $50 to say
In a state of siege, and turning through the means
Of f100 and $50 rewards the trade OF the spy, the
informer, the perjurer, and the agent Pror0cdteur
into the most profitable trade in Green Erin. The
placards announcing rewards for the detection OF
secret societies were hardly posted when an infa-
NOUS fellow named 0 OSulivan, an apOthecarys ap-
prentice at Killarney, denounced his own father and
some boys of Killarney, Kenmare Bantry, Skib-
bereen, as members Of formidable conspiracy
which, in secret understanding with 6llibusters
from the other side Of the Atlantic, intended not
Hka Mr. RriUht To AmprlcanlZe English
institutions" but to annex ireland to the model
Republic. Consequently, detectives busted them
selves in the Counties Of Kerry and Cork, noe
turnal arrests took place mysterious informations
went on; from the southwest the conspiracy hunt
ing spread TO the north east farclcai scenes oc-
CURED in the County of Monaghan, and alarmed
Belfast saw some dozen of schoolmasters, attor-
neys' clerks and merchants clerks paraded through
the streets and locked up in the jails What rem
dertd the thing worse was the vail OF mystery
thrown over the judicial proceedings. Bail was
declined in all cases, midnight surprises became the
order of the day, all the inquisitons were kept Sc
cret copies of the normations on which the ar
bitrary arrests had been made were regularly re-
fused, the stpendary magistrates were whirllng up
and down from their judicial seats to the ante
chambers of Dublin Castle, aud Of all Ireland
might be said, what Mr.. Rea, the counsel for the
defendants at Belfast, remarked with respect to
that place, believe the British Constitution has
''left Belfast this last week.
Now, through all this hubbub and all this mys
terry there transpires more and more the anxiety
of the Government, that had given way 10 the
pressure Of its creduous Irish agents, who, IN
their turn, were mere playthings In the hands OF
the Orangemcn, how to get out Of the awkward
fix without losing at once their reputation and
their places. At first, it was pretended that the
dangerous conspiracy, extending Its ramihcatons
from the southwest to the northeast over the
whole surface of Ireland issued from the Ameri-
canxing Phoenix Club. Then it was a revival of
Ribbonism but now il is something quite new,
quite unknown, and the more awful for all that.
The shifts Government is driven To may be judged
from the maneuyers OF The Dublin Da,iy cypress,
the Government organ, which day by day treats It's
readers TO false rumors of murders committed,
armed men marauding, and midnight meetings tax
ing place. To its intense disgust the men killed
return from their graves, and protest In its own
columns against being disposed OF by the editor.
There may exist such thing AS Phenix Club,
but at all events, it is very small affair, SINCE the
Government itself has thought ht 10 stiie this
Phenix in its own ashes. As 10 Ribbonism, its ex-
istence never depended upon secret conspirators.
When, at the end of the Eighteenth century, the
Protestant Peep-o'- Day BOYS combined TO wage war
against the Catholics in the north of the ireland,
the opposing society of the Defenders sprang up.
When, in 1921, the Peep-o Day boys merged into
Orangeism, the Defenders transformed themselves
into Ribbonmen. When, at last, in our own days,
she British Government dissvowed Orangeism, the
Ribbon Society, having lost its condition Of life,
dissolved itself voluntarily. The extraordi-
nary steps taken by Lord Egliaton may,
in fact revive Ribbonism, may the
present attempts of the Dublin Orangemen TO
place English .oficers at the head ci the Irish
their own partisans. At present there exist no
secret societies In Ireland except Aoraran