The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1897-01-30
Where the True Irish Heart and
Character May be Found
in Their Purity.
BUT EVEN THERE IS THE EVICTION.
The People Sissaple in Their Modes
of Life and Free from !:
Crime,

Galway the stranger looking westward
over the broad Atlantic as far as the eye
can reach can discern what seems to be
a little purple speck On the horizon, says
a writer in the Connecticut Catholic
With the golden sun setting behind it it
seems to be as one OF the blessed islands
OF which poets love to dream:
"A golden cloud puppies the deep
Wnere it lay
And it looks like Eden away, far
away
This is the Island Of Innishturk which
with it's sister isles InnisbOffin and Innis-
bark form the extreme end of the beau
titul archipelago OF Clew Bay.
Viewed from the mainland the specta-
security and peace could be found in
those islands Yet even here the hand Of
the evictor is felt on these barren rocks
where any vegetation save the mountain
heather would seem outzof place. The
dreaded agent Of the lord Of the soil''
comes periodically to claim for his master
the greater portion of his hard earned
spoil for which the poor fisherfolk are
constantly risking and often losing their
lives in snatching from the sea.
Mr.. Gladstone has described writ Of
eviction as being equivalent to sen
tence of DEATH It is worse; for the
father and mother it is sentence of
death by slow torture in the union work
house, and the children-those little ones
who were q pious mothers pride and joy
Oh their little ocean bound rock. Well, a
benevolent government will take the boy
into the army to associate with the pick
pockets and jailbirds of Bristol and Bir-
mingham, and at the expiration OF his six
years will turn MIN adrift on the world,
moral wreck, a nuisance to society; and
the girl, the pure, innocent girl, that
should have been the light Of some hum
BILE, happy home, can choose between a
life Of drudgery, or 2, life of infamy in
Que of the great cities of the west.
Many people seem to forget that the
coercion act OF 1885, though net now ac-
lively in force, is still the law of the land;
thus if any resistance to eviction is an
tictpated a mere proclama appearing
In the Dublin Gazette will make such re-
sistance criminal offense and make any
person who aids or shelters evicteu per-
sons, amenable to the law. 1t is surpris-
ing that the great Liberal party when in
power did not repeal this infamous law:
that is if they were sincere in their pro-
testations Of friendship to Ireland and
''slnion Of the hearts,"
The inhabitants of the islands are per-
haps the purest type of the Celtic race
now in existence; they are mostly de-
scendants Of refugees (many of them of
royal descent> who fed to these islands
at the time of the Cromwellian CONQUEST
of ireland. The men are fearless fisher
men, and the women are expert kelp-
CATERERS, the kelp they export in large
quantities to the mainland where the pot
ash is distracted and sold and the refuse
used to fertilize the soil.
In gathering the kelp they will wade
out waist-deep into the water and wait
till the waves carry a bunsh within their
reach; sometimes huge breaker will
carry them off their feet and land them
dripping and laughing high up on the
beach; and how they do laugh, with a.
laugh So clear and ringing as to awaken
the echoes of the cliffs and cause the
golden eagle to scream out wild chorus
to their mirth from his eyrie thousand
feet above. In the months of July and
August the able bodied male population
emigrate to the agricultural districts of
England to learn the rent" as harvest
men. There is not a railway accident
that happens. at this season Of the year
that does not count some frieze-coa
native OF. the western isles among its
Victims; and all because "my lord must
have money to squander away at the Ba-
den gam bling dens 81 among the Pari-5
1 llsta dal,cs. Ela.s death 81 The