The Irish standard., 1898-10-29
POSITION OF IRISH NATIONALIsTs
AFTER A CENTURY.
J.F. FIRER1Y'S RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE.
EXILES OF ERIN FEEL THE MISERY
OF THE MOTHERLAND.
A PATRIOTS DUTY AT HOME AND ABROAD
THE ATROCITIES AND CRIMES OF
pERFIDIOUS ALBION.

The centennial year of ever memorable
'9S is fast drawing to close, and it will
be instructive to examine our position as
Nationalists after the lapse of 100 years,
and ask whether or not we are worthy
inheritors of the legacy of love and
hatred bequeathed to us by our brave
sires. We are wont to look with horror
and we'll we may-at the hellish cruel
ties of '9S. The advocates Of peaceful,
legal and constitutional agitation" point
to the tortures our people endured during
that year as warnings to us to avoid
physical force measures. Let us see
what results have flown from the aban
donment of manly methods Of seeking
our rights, and the adoption of their
slavish plans. Famine, pestilence, exile
and death. Yes, an endless series Of
famines, planned with fiendish delibera-
tion and accomplished with cold-blooded
cruelty, by the worse than heathenish
British government until they culminat-
ed in 1S47-4S in the deliberate assassin
alton of ten times as many people as
tie and after battle, on the gallows, in
the dungeon and the transport hells dur
ing the entire year Of '98. Tell us, ye
advocates Of praying, begging and whin-
ming at the foot of the foreigners throne
how many rebellions would have cost
100000 of human lives? Tell us what
was gained by the wholesale massacre
Of our helpless people, the cof1inless
graves, the rotten pestilential emigrant
ships, the broken hearts, the ruined
homes and the endless exiles of 1S47?
God! it was maddening prospect thus
to see our storied land
Like some wretched culprit writhing in
a strong avengers hand,
Kneeling, foaming, weeping, shrieking
woman weak and woman loud,
Better, better, Mother Ireland, had we
laid thee in thy shroud."
To have died pike in hand, or gun OH
shoulder, fighting like men for our free
dom was not to- die, but to live glorious
immortality in Irish song and legend and
story, and to be enshrined forever in the
nations heart. 1t was to leave all cx-
ample which would gleam like quench-
less beacon light to guide future genera
tions to follow the manly pathway they
had blazed out, and to initiate their
heroic deeds until Erin is free and her
fetters are broken Tc have died as our
poor, patient people died in 1S47-but
no. let us draw the plying veil of silence
over the sickening scene. God rest their
wearied souls in heaven. The Lord Of
all only knows what we have lost. But
after wading through seas of Irish blood
for centuries, until her robes are stiff
and crimsoned with martyrs gore what
has England gained? Nothing. By the
souls Of our mighty dead, nothing! At
the beginning of this century, no man
dared to speak of '9S.' Today it is on
every patriots tongue. Look up, BROTH
ers, there is life in the old land yet"
The millions of good men and true who
in defiance Of the accursed tyrants frown
have gathered on the glorious, death
less battlefieds, and kneeling on the
shamrock-covered graves of our peasent
heroes devoted themselves anew to the
dear, old land, and the good old cause
for which they died, have told the in
vaders to their teeth that they hate them
with as bitter hatred as their fathers
did when the first Norman robbers land
ed on our holy soil. Be Of good heart,
brothers. In the old world England is
drifting rapidly to her doom. The tolls
are gathering round her in China and In
ia. She is discredited, checkmated and
sneered at by Russia, Germany and
France. She chafes, and growls and lies,
and curses like Billingsgate fishwife,
but she dares not draw the sword. Let
no Irish born man pollute his hand by ac-
cepting the blood stained Saxon shil-
ling" For as sure as the drunken Bel
shazar saw the handwriting on his palace
walls so sure does our brutal Belshazar
sec the coming doom in the lowering
clouds which hang like lightning
freishted clouds above his guilty head,
and it needs no Daniel to interpret their
portentious meaning.
But what Of the Irish race in America?
What report have we to make to the
men in the gap at home? Highly,
proudly, grandly do we hail the true and
faithful hearts, the legitimate sons of the
men Of '9S, who have participated in the
splendid, fearless demonstrations against
British tyranny during this memorable
centennial year. But free as we are, and
proud as we are of that freedom. in this
kindly land Of our exile; citizens as we
are OF the grand young republic which
has sprung into life on the trampled
ruins of English domination, We cannot
help feeling in bitterness of soul that