The Irish standard., 1905-12-23

III gilius to Italy, made him Archbishop,
III and Wien ne died famous for learning
M ana .siety he was raised to the affairs
"a of the Church.
sS In the darkest days of Europe Irish
monSs and priests and teachers went
forth from Ireland by the thousand
Y, and founded schools and converts and
S.s nonasteries all over England, Scot
y land and the Continent. Iona and Mel
rose and Lndisfarne We're originally
ali Ir 81 schools. -Angln-SaNon Eng
land Sometimes LOOK her Bishops from
Rome, but her schoolmasters were all
\ Irish. Irish teachers shaped and fash
toned the language of the Angles.
which was fated 10 become in time
s the basis OF the language of England.
Irish teachers guided and shaped the
poetic measures of the crude bards
damong the Angels, and there are grave
reasons Tor believing that Caedmon
was an Irish and not an Anglican monk
1t was an lrshman, Sedulius, that
wrote TIE FIRST rhymns hymns and the
Romance languages adopted them as
their own, but England got its rhyme
bota fro Norman and Irish inhuen-
ces. F,t four hundred eventful and
glorious. years the Irish were the
priests and teachers and missionaries
of Europe, the salt and SAVIOR of the
Christian world.
Long and profound study is neces-
sary to realize all that England owes
to the Irish race. Professor John
Earle in mis- great work, The Philol-
ogy OF the English Tongue" says:
Our nation in common With the
other nations of western Europe, has
adopted tne Roman alphabet. This
alphabet was introduced into our
island from two opposite quarters,
from the Northwest by the Irish mis-
,.sionar.cs. and from the Southwest by
the Roman missionaries. 1t is to be
Remembered that when our Saxon an
cestols were pagans ANA barbarians,
Christian life and culture had already
taken So deep Il hold OF Ireland that
she sent forth missionaries to instruct
and convert her neighbors. Their
books were written With the Roman
alphabet which they must have pos
sessed from very early date and to
which they had already impaired a
distinct Hibernian physognomy. OF
the two denominations of missionaries
which thus from opposite quarter. ..l-
tered our island, one gained the ec-
clesiastical pre-cmnence, but the other
for long time furnished the school
masters"
Ireland also furnished the great
Bishops among the Angles or of North
eastern Britain, while Rome supplied
the Bishops that presided over the
Saxon part of the Kingdom. 1t was
thus that the Anglican part of Great
religious and intellectual supremacy
Irish teachers and priests and Bishops
drafted Irish laws and Irish customs
upon the Anglican race, and when King
Stephen extended these laws and GUS
toms to the fullest extent throughout
his dominions, he had his people under
the sway Of the best laws and customs
then existing in the world. It was
those laws and customs of the good
King Stephen that formed the four,la-
ton stone of England's liberty iii the
great charter won by the Baron; from
King John at Runnymede.
The greatest work that has ever
been done for humanity was done dur
ing those four centuries by the people
of Ireland. Then came the age When
the Norseman scourged the world with
their pirate ships The rich shrines
and the fertile fields of Ireland tempt
ed the pirates Of the North and for
two centuries and more Ireland WITS
engaged in deadly warfare with thos,.
fierce and terrible barbarians.
In the end the Norsemen we're
crushed and driven from Ireland, but
before the nation could recuperate
from the awful ravages of her con-
f1ict with the Morse, the Norman Kings
and Barons invaded the country and
took possession of it's fairest provinces.
The Normans were the foremost race
of warriors then in the world. They
were, indeed, wondrous race, but
though the came to Ireland as con-
querors, they soon were the conquer
ed and inter marrying there they be-
came more Irish than the Irish them
selves. Not until the Tudors came to
the English throne did the real death
struggle between England and Ireland
begin. Then England fashioned a
form of Christianity suited to her
Tudor and Stuart Kings and to her
Cromwells, and she undertook to shape
the religion and politics of the Irish
according to her views. There then
ensued the most awful struggle in hu-
man annals. England undertook to