The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-11-29
The Irish Race.
Lecture ON "the Irish at Home and Abroas

Lecture ON "the Irish at Home and AIroaa.
"The Irishman at home and abroad" was
the title of g lecture deliveredby Mr.. Now
att, of Dublin, on the 18th ult., before q
large audience in the Catholic Institute at
Stafford, England. In the course OF his ad-
dress, the lecturer said it was one of those
strange anomalies, almost impossible to
account for, how a race who We're 81 home
| the most' virtuous, moral, law-respecting
people on earth, should when abroad be
pointed at as ''tfe wild Hirish," and be
looked upon, to some extent at least, with
reprOach And cOntumely. 1t would be his
object that evening to try and point out rea-
sons for these things. He then noticed how
free from crime Ireland is, how few thefts
and burglaries even in its cities, how rare
the crime of infanticide, how few the cases
of Grim con, or of divorces, thus proving on
all hands that at home the Irishman was
| one of the most we'll conducted of even
civilized or Christianized natiOnalities, and
tlifs was due at home chiefly to the reli
gious character of the people. Whether
Catholic or Protestant, the Irish were in
tensely a religious people-free from the
influence of Secularists and Sceptical lee
turers, such as they had in all parts OF
England and Scotland. Why did the Irish
man abroad ever differ from all this Well
in the first place it was the character of Il
few 1rishmen abroad which was taken to
represent the race. He regretted exceed
ingly himself that the respectable, orderly
well conducted Irishman in England did
not always identify himself with his coun-
trymen, and try to raise them in status and
position. Why, even in London. who
guided and conducted its principal press
lrishmen. The best men on the staff OF
every daily paper in London were Irish
men. The only good jokes in the comic
papers We're by lrishmen, and all the stu
pidly dull jokes were by Englishmen. The
best men i'll many leading business in Lon
don, Manchester and other cities were
Irishmen. But when it was thought fit to
represent the Irish race abroad, or rather to
misrepresent them, those were not the
Irishmen selected, .buts.some rowdy who
spent his time and means and brains in a
taprOOnS, and this man was set forth as Il
type of "the wild Hirish." Why, when
the drummer at Magdaia boldly dashed
i1ito the Abyssinian fortress it was set down
to the gallantry and bravery of an English
man, although he, brave fellow, was an
1rishman named O'Brien. If he had been
tried by court martial for INSTRUMENTATION,
the English papers would have been par
ticular to describe him as ''wild Hirish.''
All the good deeds done by ''the Irishmen
abroad" are set down to the credit of Eng
land, and all the odd evil deeds perpetrat-
ed are sure to be accredited to Ireland,
even though the mans father or himself
never stood in Ireland, but because the
grandfather happened to have been an
Irishman.
One way to remedy these misrepresenta
tiOns was for every respectable Irishman to
support and sustain his own nationality,
and to demand that Ireland and Irishme II
should share in any honors which he might
win. 1t would then be found that the
clever, industrious, steady, well-conducted
Irishmen were far more numerous than the
rowdies, and that the Irish race abroad
IL
he was asked in England, ''How is it that,
with maiden assizes in ireland, the Irish
with us are amongst our principal crinri
nails y he always replied, ..Because when
they come over to England they,appear to
become us bad as Englishmen." The truth
was that lrishmen abroad were OF that
class who in the battle of life. at home got
crushed out-they emgrated to England,
fell into low English and Irish society in
the large cities and towns, and, forgetting
the teachings of the soggarth in the rural
parish, and of the old mother ut home, the Y
became lost i'll Il whirlpool of dissip
aud debauchery, until they fell from all the
good and holy influences of their youth
and became the outcasts of society. Much
of this, If not all, WAS due to the tap-room
and the grog-shop. If kept by Snamus
OShaughnessy or Jim O'Brien, it was all
the more ruinous to the Irishman abroad
This was one great evil which the Irish
race Iad 10 dread IN THIS ana every land, as
Mr.. Mcguire had well shown in his "Irisll
in America. =" To remedy these evils,
lrishmen abroad should avoid the tap-room,
and every patriotic Irishman should seek to
draw his countryman from these snares OF
the DEVILS invention and the DEVILS set
ting. Every Irishman abroad should CON
slider that his country's character was at
stake, and for the sake of his race and
their fair fame he ought to avoid every
enticing snare that led to evil. One
Irishmen abroad would thus wash out
every stain now attached to them, whether
rightly or wrongly. He trusted they would
over continue the same irrepressible race,
existing and multiplying in every land
preserving their nationality and their pa
triotism, but freeing themselves from the
evil name which some Irishmen brought on
their country and her sons.