Kentucky Irish American. (Louisville, Ky.) 1898-1968, 1899-01-14
COnnaught Is Now in a COndi-
ton to Defy Castle OPP
preston.
Miles After Miles of the Most
Fertile Land as DepOpu-
lated as Sahara.
CONFESSED ROBBERY OF IRELAND


ceedings was held under the auspices of
the United Irish League at Monivea,
about FIVE miles from Athenry. National
lists of different parties, who have been es-
tranged by unhappy sectional differences
during recent years, were present, and
the spectator from outside could not fail
to be struck with the genuine enthusiasm
and national spirit which thrives among
the rank and file of the people, and
which if it animated a movement eX-
tending over the whole country would
sweep it on inevitably to great national
victory.
Mr.. William O'Brien, who was the
principal speaker, was received with
prolonged cheering and waving of hats
He said: Men of Galway, l am not
much surprised at anything as to the
progress and the success of this United
Irish League, but 1 confess / am sur
prised, and most agreeably surprised, at
the size, the extent and the enthusiasm
of this gathering in this depopulated
district. Within another month or two
we will have a regiment of united men
encamped in every parish of Galway and
of Connaught. From proofs that l get
every day of the power of this League,
and of how it is dreaded by every enemy
of our people, do not hesitate to say
here deliberately that if the other pro-
vinces were only as we'll organized as
Connaught is at the present moment the
Irish cause would be as strong, the power
of the people would be as dreaded, as
united and supreme as ever 1t was in
the days when the Land League was at
the zenith of its fame.
In this province we have solved the
difficulty which apparently paralyzes
the energies of Munster and of Ulster
and of Leinster Without bothering our
heads about Parliamentary quarrels, we
have, by the mere grit and determine
ton of the people, built up an organiza-
ton of the people, built up an organiza-
ton as united, for all practical fighting
purposes, Il -stAlese-FR aElisHeat dis
seusions had never been heard of west
of the Shannon. And, as invariably
happens when the country's blood is up
in the thick Of the battle against alien
landlordism and alien rule, we have all
genuine Nationalist, Parnellite and non
Parnellite priests and people welded sol
diers together once more, and the peo-
pie have power at their backs against
which all the influences of landlords and
graziers and grabbers, and all the foul
play of Dublin Castle are as helpless as
the raging Atlantic pillows are against
the iron headlands of Connemara.
Judge Gibson, indeed, tells us the law
will be too strong for us. l deny that
It's the people that have always proved
too strong for the law, and have beaten
bad laws down, and wiped them out of
the statue books. Every Irish struggle
of this century proves what say It's
the law that has gone down every time,
and been condemned and set aside, even
by an English Parliament. The law will
be too strong for us-will it? That is
exactly what O'Connell was told at the
time of the Clare election. But he dehed
the law, and knocked the law into
cooked hat and emancipated the Catho-
lies of Ireland It's the law that has
always been in the wrong in Ireland, and
that has always been in the long run van
quished the moment united people
meant business. When the Land League
began there were Judge Gibsons to tell
us that the law would be too strong for
us, but before year was over the land
act of 81 was passed, and the law which
made the landlords of Ireland as absolute
masters OF their tenants as the slave own
ers we're of the Southern niggers was
abolished and relegated to the museum
of historical monstrosities with the in
famous penal laws.
We were told in the plan of campaign
time and again that the law would be too
strong for us, but six months after Lord
Salisbury swore that the judicial rents
must never be altered we had the land
act of 'S7 making ducks and brakes of
the law which produced the plan of CAM
paign agitation. In March last again
Mr.. Malachy Kelly threatened us in
Westport that the law would be too
strong for us, and the result of that
threat is that nine months afterward the
United Irish League, which was then
confined to three parishes, is now spread
into every county in this province, and is
blazing away like a house on fire. We
don't deny the power of the law is for
the moment on the side of the peoples
enemies. We don't deny that for the
moment they are strong enough to pro-
claim us, and assault us and imprison us
to their hearts content.
They have the batons and the bayonets
and the landlord Magistrates and the re-
movables and the jury packers. But the
law that turns the policemen's batons
against us today may make the people
the policemen's masters tomorrow. That
is the law in England, and sooner or
later it will be the law in Ireland, as
surely as the mountain rivulet sooner or
later will find its way into the sea. Let
us have no more of this slavish doctrine
that we are to accept bad alien laws as if
- - 49,. ....o4fa~of,1o lame of Cod