The Irish standard., 1890-05-31
MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL. SATURDAY, MAY 1890.

! ~ u 7s.f K i i.Et !
Iof Belfast or Derry, ia which cities
/ Protestant ascendancy" still prevails.
!. Belfast, with &C, 600 Catholic inhabitants
Eout of total Of 2O8, 900 in 1881, had not
a single Catholic member on It's town
council; and neither Belfast nor Derry
| has had Catholic mayor for hundreds
of years. More than half the popula-
tlon Of Derry are Catholics, but their
representatives are excluded from the
town council by the high municipal
/ franchise, which In most Irish towns
prevents the less wealthy classes from
having any share in the control Of
municipal affairs. AS consequence of
this narrow franchise there is in Derry
only one Catholic member of the corpo-
ration. Belfast corporation, which is
itself exclusively Protestant. has very
few, if anv, Catholics in it's employ
ment; whilst Dublin corporation, an
overwhelmingl Catholic body, paid in
1886 $4,000 to it's Protestant employees.
TO turn from municipal to par
liamentary affairs. Or ejghty-five Irish
nationalist M.P.'s, eleven, including
Mr.. Parnell, are Protestants, all of
whom represent overwhelmingly Cath
olic constituencies. In his position of
leader of the home rule party, Mr.. Par
pell succeeds two other Protestant
gentlemen, Messrs. Isaac Butt and
William Shaw; and in this respect his
case is merely another instance added
to the long list of Irish Protestants,
beginning with the leaders of the '9S
insurrection, who have led their Cath
olic c0untrymen in their struggle for
political aud religious liberty.
To sum up, it appears, from a
a study Of Irish history, that the Irish
Catholics, although prosecuted for CEN
turies on account Of their religion, have
never. when in power, retaliated by
prosecuting those who had formerly
prosecuted them They have also on
many occasions shown themselves re-
markably ready to follow the lead Of
liberal minded Protestants; and during
the last half century, since the abolition
Of the penal code they have shown a
wonderful amount of liberality towards
i sProtestants by electing many Of them
to positions of honor and trust. Irish
Protestants, on the other hand, have
not, as body, shown anything like the
same degree of religious liberation
towards Catholics, and their fears of
religious prosecutions by the Catholic
majority under home rule appear to be
due to an uneasy sense OF past and
present sins of religious intolerance on
the part of the Protestant party in Ire
land. 1t is to be noted that such fears
are expressed almost, if not quite, ex
clusively in those parts of Ulster where
Protestants form majority Of the
population, or where as in Derry, al
though in actual minority, they are
numerous enough to maintain their
|ascendancy over the Catholics by the
help of a narrow franchise, and to ex~
clude them from nearly all elective
Offices. In the south aud west Of Ire
land where Catholics form from ninety
to ninety-nine per cent Of the popula-
tion, the voice Of religious djscord is
unheard, and Catholics and Protestants
get Oh peacefully together in all the
relations of life into which they are
constantly thrown. The present writer
is an irish Protestant, who has lived as
a Protestant forty years in the midst of
an intensely Catholic community in the
south of Ireland, and he has ALWAYS
maintained the most friendly relations
with his Catholic neighbors. He feels
almost ashamed, in face Of the fore
going facts, to have to ask his fellow
Irish Protestants as well as English
men and Scotsmen, to throw aside their
unworthy fears in this matter, and to
treat Irish Catholics now with the same
fairness and generosity which they,
when in power, almost invariably show
to their Protestant countrYmen. The
remarkable testimony Of Earl Spencer,
who spent nearly nlne years in Ireland
as lord lieutenant. strongly opposed to
the Irish national party, is worthy of
earnest consideration. Speaking at
Chester, June 16. 1885, he said: '.I
have had some experience of ireland.
I have been there for over eight Years,
and yet / don't know Of any specific
instance Where there has been religious