The Irish standard., 1897-06-05

stan SerSeantS, tney were So mauy L eI-
Ian circles, with the very thinnest
sprinkling Of "old reliables" or spies.
I have heard the North Cork regiment
hgain and again shouting Fenian songs
while actually marching to or from the
parade-ground under the eye of their
officers; so completely was it regarded
as a matter of course that their next
appearance in the field would be under
different officers and under different
flag Many years afterwards, when Fen
ianism seemed all but completely extin-
guished, a score of raiders from Cork,
with the knowledge of hundreds of men
In the regiment, were able to punch a
great hole in the wall of the armoury
by night, and had the greater portion
Of the regimental rifles extracted before
some housekeeping staff officer gave the
alarm. It will surprise most people to
hear that, even among the Royal Irish
constabulary, who were regarded as the
very Adde'S of unshakable fidelity,
the Fenian contagion had it's victims
or its catechumens, as you may please
to describe them.
Had an Irish-American soldier of the
grit of General Phil Sheridan, any night
IN the early autumn of 1866 presented
himself to any of the four Cork militia
regiments, for instance, ana marched at
their head straight to the military bar
racks, where the greater part of two
regiments of the line were only pining
for the signal, it seems as certain as
any enterprise in its nature desperate
can be, that within twenty -four hours
he would have established the nucleus
of the most formidable insurrection that
has broken out in Ireland since the
confederation of Kilkenny. A first sue
cess would have brought at moderate
computation 10000 trained soldiers, mi
litiamen and constabulary men to hts
nag, with as many tens of thousands
of bodied civilians as he could find
weapons for. A month at the least
must have elapsed before sufficient
army could be dispatched from England
to cope with such force. In the mean
time, the southern and western pro-
vinces would be In possession of tri-
umphant insurgent army, flushed with
dozen easy victories over isolated Eng
lish detachments. Can there be much
doubt what would have been the effect
upon American feeling, in its then few
erish state, of the news that the Irish
republic had been proclaimed through
out Munster and Connaught, and that
the British troops were in full mutiny":
Even If no official declaration of war
took place at once, what American gov
eminent could have prevented priva-
teers from covering the seas and fill
clustering hosts from swarming over the
month of August, and during the first
two weeks of September the country,
or at least two of its provinces. were
ut the beck of any resolute leader who
should give the signal Neither the
leader nor the signal turned up. Then
the government did what the insurgents
might have done before them any night
In the previous six weeks-namely
struck their blow. At one swoop the
principal civilian leaders. with their
newspaper plant and carloads Of their
correspondence, were captured; the
cream of the colonies and captains were
swept into the same net; the disaffected
regiments we're hustled aboard trans
port ship for India, and the militia regi-
ments were disarmed and disbanded,
not for many year after to be called
up for training. The success of the
government coup was as startling as
that of an equally bold Fenian coup
might have been. With the sudden
capture or disappearance of all the civil
and military leaders, the removal of
the soldiers, and the disarming of the
militia, the history Of Fenianism as a
military danger to the powe. Of England
was at an end, for with them ended the
possibility Of any considerable success
IN the field, and consequently Of en-
broiling England in an American war.
Upon the night Of the ''rising" March
s, 1850, by the admission Of the police
officers, at least four thousand men from
the city of Cork alone obeyed the sum-
mons to assemble on Prayer hill. They
found that there was not dozen SER
viceable rifles among the lot; that the
officers who were to command them
were missing: and yet, without guns,
stores, commissariat, moneys or leader
ship, and without any plan Of COM
palgn whatsoever, except march to-
wards some mythical army reported to
BE assembling In the Galtee mountatns,
more than fifteen hundred OF these men
lnllsted upon marching on upon their
lsi enterprise with no better weapons
Than the scythss and two-pronged forks.
}l6t found ii ! shovel factory on their
a hall u you win q the wicked
1i1iii III tn q leefs Who cailsd these
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