The morning star and Catholic messenger. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1868-1881, 1868-09-13
THE IRISH AND FATHER MONTGOMERY.

If the poor Irish must go, whittier ought
they to got Such was the question pro-
pounded, considered, discussed, and an
swered by the Rev. George Montgomery in
last week in this journal. 1t is circum
stance mourntully singular, that such a
topic should have such momentous interest
for nation as this has for ours. Yet SO it
is; grieve over it as we may, "Whither to
fly" is a question that continues to press
itself daily, as it has pressed itself for twenty
years, upon tens of thousands of Irshmen.
1t is, however, for and of the Irish So
journing in England that Father Montgo-
merry speaks almost exclusively. For them,
and of them, he is indeed one qualified to
speak; as those who know who and what
Father Montgomery is-who know what he
has done, what he has given up and sacri-
feed in the cause of our poor people in
England-wil emphatically attest. Apart
entirely from the priestly dignity, he would
fill a respected and influential position in
this his native city. He belongs to one of
father was Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1929 !:
his grandfather was High Sheriff of our
city a generation before; and one of his
blood has inscribed the family name be-
meath hero martyrs crown on the annals
of Irish American patriotism in the War of
Independence. Indeed, we believe Father
Montgomery, though he stood and spoke in
our midst efficiently as a stranger the other
day, remains to this moment q Freebooter
of Dublin as we'll as Of Antrim County, in
virtue of family rights. But these are not
the circumstances that cause Father Mont
his history, as peculiarly the friend of the.
poor Irish in England. A quarter of a CEN
fury ago he was q Protestant Minister in
the neighborhood of this city. For over
twenty years now he has been Catholic
Priest. Family ties, high social position,
oil csx, l,x,
him at the call of Faith. Returning from
Rome soon after his conversion and ordi-
nation, he became aware of the existence
in the midst of the Black Country" as it
is called-the Staffordshire mining dis
trict-of an Irish community numbering
some thousands, SO poor that they could
not even support n priest, and were accord
ingly left with scarcely any religious min
istration whatsoever. They were not only
poor, but were, for the most part, rude, un-
lettered, hewers of wood and drawers of
water, buffeted, scoffed, and scorned by the
ungenial and hostile population around
them. Father Montgomery was touched
with sympathy and compassion for their
hard fate. He came home to Dublin, where
he owned some freehold property inherited
from his father; sold it out, and with the
proceeds FASTENED back to Wednesday, to
cast in his lot with these poor and scorned
outcast Irishmen! Yes, the polished gentle
man, the refined scholar, graduate of Dub
lin University, who might easily have had
q mission amidst the rich and the educated,
voluntarily consigned himself to what we
would call Siberian exile, socially and
intellectually regarded-buried himself
amidst those Irish pit-men, and, aoith his
ocn money, with the proceeds of his patri-
mony, established amongst them mission
which now has as neat q little church, a
school house, and mission house as may be
seen in Broad Britain. For nearly twenty
years he has toiled like slave in this OBJ
scure exile; living only for the poor and
lowly, for whom he had so freely given up
80 much. All these years he has been
studying the condition of the Irish in
England, as perhaps no other man has ever
studied the question; and now he tells us
the result of so many years of thought
this, that unless it be the lot of the
Israelites in Babylon, history has scarcely
parallel for a lot SO sad, SO mournful, so
dreary, as that of the mass of our poor
countrymen sojourning in England. One in
thousand may. perhaps, force his way
upward through the dense prejudices that
surround him; but for the bulk of our
people in that stranger land it is simply a
grave. There they will perish, leaving