Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1898-12-31
The Irish Merged Into Many
NatiOnalities, but Never Lost
Love for Erin.
The Distinguished Educator
Protests Against an Anglo
American Alliance.
CELTIC INFLUENCE ON EDUCATION

The Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas J. Conaty,
d. D., rector of the Catholic University
of America, lectured in Boston Theater
under the patronage of the Charitable
Irish Society on the evening of Sunday,
December Is. His subject was "Ireland's
Influence Among the Nations"-a schol-
arly discourse eloquently delivered, and
destined for more than local attention
for its vigorous protest against an Anglo
American Alliance.
Mgr. Conaty was gracefully presented
by the Hon. P. A. Collins.
The lecturer spoke first of the '9S
movement, whose centenary year is al
most ended.
He continued:
Ireland has been fashioned by Gods
Providence through bright days of glory
and through dark wales of sorrow into a
vocation and place in the history of
mankind. Few nations have been called
to greater influence upon the people
among whom it has come into contact.
Poor, downtrodden, despised and calum-
mated, for seven centuries she has never
failed to protest against her oppressors,
never allowed her love of country to
diminish, never lost hope in ultimate
freedom. She has learned the language
of her tyrants, which was expected to be
her destruction; but, instead, though she
has been driven forth by cruel legisla-
ton from her home, she has entered
largely into the English speaking world,
to be a powerful influence for the very
things which her enemies despised-her
religion, her language and her national
ideas.
Her influence was not unlike that Of
the Jews and the Greeks. The Jews lost
the enjoyment of their nationality, but
they became a worldwide influence.
They bore to the world the idea of Mono
theism, in the traditions of a purer idea
of God and nobler standard of life than
the world knew The Greeks lost their
fatherland to the Romans, but they gave
through the Romans to the world an
ideal influence in the philosophy which
was scattered everywhere. This was the
fine gold thread which was spun and
woven into all the literatures of the
world
Like Jew and Greek, the Irish have
been the bearers to the world of an idea
in religion and in literature. They have
been in their exile, as in their native
land, the standard bearers of Roman
Catholicism, the unfinching asserters Of
the unity of the Church of Christ. In
education, they have borne the message
of the spiritual and the imaginative,
which act as the very soul of poetry and
give life to literature. The Irish merged
into many nationalities, but never lost
love for Erin. Their Ireland always re-
mains and while hold has been lost of its
nationality, hope has never been lost OF
regaining it.
Mgr. Conaty, in discussing the peculiar
strength of the religious influence of the
Irish, pointed to the complete manner in
which Christianity was accepted by the
Irish, who found in it satisfaction for all
their religious ambitions. The spirit
uality of their character, under the influ-
ence of Christianity, broadened at once
into the highest moral Catholicism. The
ascetism of the Irish in the Middle Ages
manifested itself in the highest forms of
virtue, chastity, purity, detachment from
earth and devotion to religion. 1t was
a perfect type of Catholicism, unspotted
by courts and undimmed by political
greatness.
He spoke of the wonderful Irish mis-.
sionary spirit and its conquests in the
old world. Then of its work in the
new:
Though the Church had contributed to
the discovery and early colonization OF
this country; though the new France,
with all the traditions of the old France,
was planted near our doors; though Lord
Baltimore laid the foundations of civil
and religious liberty in the statutes of the
Maryland colony; though Governor Don
gon, the son of an Irish Catholic, frs,
proclaimed religious liberty in New York
yet the Catholic Church hundred years
ago was practically an alien, barely rec
ognized, hardly tolerated. In fact, pena
statutes existed againtt it.
Who will deny the influence of the
Irish in the building up of the Church
into its present strength and beauty
The Irish Catholics came in large mum
bers in the early days of this century
and in their millions in the famine years
and with them came their priests, and il
time native clergy grew around them
The religious influence with them was al
influence of intense belief in God and:un
hinching loyalty to Roman Catholicism
They were spiritual people, hostile t
materialism, idealists; patient, long-suf
fering believersin ultimate justice. Thei
tspirituality led them to believe in anothe
world of retribution and reward. and thi
contained for them the principles Of jus