The Irish standard., 1898-11-12
ELOQUENT LECTURE BY DIR. STAF-
FORD. OF WASHINGTON, ID. {.
STRUGGLES OF IRELAND FOR LIBERTY.
THE INCIDENTS THAT LED UP TO
THE REBEI.LION OF 15OS.
The HIDE0US CRIME 0E CAsrLEREAGH.
ERIN's DEMAND FOR JUSTICE BLOCKS
ANGLO-SAXON ALLIANCE.

The following eloquent address on
Irelands struggles for freedom was re-
Gently delivered in Baltimore by Rev.
DR.. Stafford, of Washington, D. G:
"The supreme crime OF history" said
DR.. Stafford, in his opening remarks 'is
England's treatment of the Irish. The
history of Ireland is the saddest his
tory in the world. Nowhere else is
there such cruelty, such savage
butchery, such outraging of all human
instincts; nowhere else such an at
tempt utterly to annihilate q whole
people. Ages passed, but the weary,
wasting of the people went on; changes
came, but they brought no relief. Eng
land had it in her power from the
beginning to rule Ireland Justly or to at
tempt utterly to crush her She chose
rather to annihilate people she could
never otherwise subdue, whose firm
spirit of independence she could not
break, and whose wild and passionate
love of liberty she could not cXtinguish.
After the fearful days Of Elizabeth
came the terrible crimes Of Cromwell.
Men, women and children were put to
the sword promiscuously. Every town
that surrendered to him, on terms, was
sacked and the inhabitants slaughtered,
because no terms were to be kept with
an Irish papist, who We're to be put to
death, and whose death was most pleas
ing to God. And so Cromwell and his
cutthroats sang hymns and. quoted
scripture while they murdered men,
women and children. No terms were
kept, no mercy shown. An Irish Catho-
lie had no right to live. and TO put such
a one to death was work meritorious
unto salvation.
After Cromwell passed, we are told
by official reports to the government
that one could travel thirty miles
through a once populous district and
not see living thing, man or beast
Famine aud pestilence we're invoked by
the conquerors and added to the cruel
ties of the sword. The army wont
forth provided with arms and scythes,
with the one to murder the people, with
the other to cut down the crops and
make sure of their starvation. With
starvation came the pestilence; Gl6,000
people died Of famine, pestilence and
the sword; 10000 able bodied men left
for foreign service; Irish boys and girls
were sold as slaves and sent to America
and the Barbados, and the work was
not yet done. A law was then passed
that any Jrishman found outside Con-
naught, whittier the balance Of the ma
ton had been ordered to transplant
themselves, should be put to DEATH
"As a result of these wars and perse-
cution and transportation into Con-
naught which had been made desert,
the nation we'll nigh pcrished. I'M
mense numbers went abroad; 50O,U00
Irishmen died in the service of France
between the treaty of Limerick and the
end OF the eighteenth century. They
were found in every country, side by
side with the green banner. They have
carried the standard OF nearly every
country to victory. The best soldiers of
! Washington, the famous Pennsylvania
| line, where Irishmen, as was, perhaps.
half the revolutionary army The first
blow for American liberty on land and
the first blow on sea were struck by the
descendants of these eXiles, and Mont
gomery, who fell under the walls of
Quebec, belonged to them.
"All this was followed by a penal
code, which, for severity and down.
right brutality, is not equalled by any
similar legislation in the world. 'The
IRISH says DR.. Johnson, are in most
unnatural state, for there we see the
! minority prevailing over the majority.
There is no instance, even in the ten
prosecutions of the early Christians, Of
such severity as the Protestants Of Ire
land have been guilty Of towards the
Catholics
Burke, in letter to Sir Hercules
Longrish, says OF the penal code: 1T
| was a system of wise and elaborate con-
trivancc, we'll digested and fully car
| ried out, and as we'll calculated for the
degradation and improverishmcnt of a
people, and for the extinction in them of
human nature itself, as ever proceeded
| from the perverted ingenuity of man. ;
"Lecky, in his ireland of the
| Eighteenth Century, says: This penal
! code had character all it's own. It
was not the persecution of a sect by the
degradation Of a people. It was not
| directed against the few, but the many
and indeed, when we remember that it
was in force for nearly century, that
| its victims formed four-fifths of the
population, that it was enacted in cold
blood, without the proyocation of a
rebellion. that its dividing and degrad-
ing influence extended to all spheres,