The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1900-06-16
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II Patriotic Priest Is
the TrisD Brigade
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=, history for very much more than 100
years might be headed in big type:
| Pride. Lies, Corruption, Deceit, Plum
| der and Massacre.
Let poor Ireland Speak-the blood of
whose sons has been spattered upon
the walls of the country: Let untor-
| tunate India speak-Whose famiDes
and whose gore are awful testimonies
| to England'S rapacity.
Let South Africa itself speak, and
reveal what England has done since
1906, when she set her cloven foot upon
its soil! The records are written in
blood-the blood of the HOttentOtS, the
blood of the Basutos, the blood of the
Zulus, the blood Of the Tembus, the
blood of the Kriguas, the blood of the
Matabele, the blood of the Pondos and
the blood of the Boers-fiow in one
long purple stream, marking the track
of the destroying serpent.
l pause with bated breath, and l
hang my head in shame as 1 recollect
that the persistent poverty of Ireland
has driven into the English army many
of her half idle, half starving men,
during all the melancholy period, and
that thus Ireland has-shall I say it?
4 say it in Observation-Disclosures in
England's crimes. Today in Ireland
-unarmed, with twenty-five thousand
bayonets and as many pieces of artil
lery as there are in South Africa point
ing at us-We have no power, not even
over our own local affairs We have no
Home Rule We have no university
to enable Ireland's sons to run in the
race and gain the prize. We are
in truth land of despoiled prisoners
"a splendid object lesson to the ma
lions of the beneficence of English civ
ilization We are kept in poverty in
the interests of bloated England. Our
manufactures are nearly all destroyed
Ireland is a big shop for the sale of
English goods. Our nation is hunt
ing ground where the English recruit
ing sergeant prowls to induce young
men to become soldiers of the queen, ~
and then they are sent to pig stick
the Indians and the natives of Africa,
and the Beers, so that the VultureS of
English cupidity may be gorged and
the queen then comes to Dublin to re-
mind us of the part we have taken in
this glorious slaughter This adds to
the more than awful tragedy; and so,
in this cruel war, Ireland's sons have
taken a part against the honest Beers,
and the poor Irish fellows have been
put into the front of the march to
DEATH and they have in hundreds
fallen into an inglorious grave, over
which the spirit of Erin hangs her head
in disgrace and scandal and shame, al
unOuSn WIN IearIul eyes Sne says:
'Requiescat in pace"
1t is not marvellous. therefore, that
I, an Irishman, should congratulate
you, dear Colonel Blake, and through
you the Irishmen of the Transvaal Irish
brigade, be they many or few, who are
on the right side of the battlefield
not standing under the Union Jack to
aid England in her unjust war, but
standing under the banner of Erin, on
the side of the defenseless honest
Beers, who. in this war. are the rep
resentatives of liberty and justice and
right. Tell your Irish companions that
Irishmen of true spirit congratulate
them and felicitate them. If they fall
they will fall in noble cause, and Ire
land will honor them just as all France
today bows down in reverence before
the splendid bravery of her glorious
son. Villebois Mareuil. Yours.
(Rev.) JAMES O'HAIRE.