The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-03-23
INQUIRY RE. THE MEN OF '4s

An answer to the questions of our correspond
ent, whose letter appears in another part of this
paper, demands from Us more space than we can
conveniently spSfe in QUE editorial page. The his
tory of the As movement has yet to be written
When completed it will offer to Irishmen and
their descendants very sad but interesting reading
There will be many pathetic and sublime chapters
in the book which will record the ravages of
famine on the west coast of Ireland, unparalleled
in modern times among a civilized people, not only
for its duration and severity but for the atrocious
callousness and supne Indifference to human suf-
fering of brutal government largely responsible
for the famine itself The suffering and ruthless
determination of the tenantry; the eviction from
their little holdings of those unable to pay the rent
through failure of their crops the poverty and
wretchedness of the people of the towns and coun-
try oecasioned by the wanton destruction of their
factories and industries and the expensive profit
gacy of absentee landlords which drained the island
of thirty millions of dollars annually goaded the
people to desperation. The suppression of free
speech and of public meetings on behalf of the
peal of the union with England the intense hos
tlity of the English press and of the subsidized
paid organs of the government in Dublin and Bel
and scandalized all Europe; the quarterng of So,
600 British troops on the country, their arrogance
and contempt for everything Irish, inflamed the
passions of the peasantry to an almost uncontrol-
liable state.
Then came the arrest, Imprisonment and trial
for Unreasonable utterances" of O'Connel, Gavan
Duffy, Reverend Mr. Tyrrel-a Presbyterian cler-
gy1han who died in prson-Father Tierney, DIR.
GRAY editor of the Freeman's Journal, and DR.. Dill
lon father of John Dillon, now one of the leaders
of the Irish Parliamentary party At last, in 18lS
the smouIderng turf Of discomfort blazed into re-
bellion. The young Ireland party, led by Smith
O'Brien of the ancient house of Thomand John
Martin and John AIitchell-all Protestants and
men of means-rose in arms and opened the Fight
We inadvertently used the hackneyed term rose in
arms.n but the British government took good care
that outside of the military, the police the Orange
men Of the north, the landed gentry and their
apents no arms were to be found anywhere in Ire
land. The rising" was a temporary insanity. a
momentary madness produced by condition of
suffering" as one of the members of the House Of
Commons declared Surprising anything in the
pages of Thucydides, on the canvas of Poussin, or
in the dismal pages of Dante"
The rebellion was crushed and the leaders sen
fenced to be hung Here is Smith O'Briens bar
barous death sentence:
"The sentence is that you, William Smith
O'Brien. be taken from hence to the place from
whence you came, and be thence drawn on hurdle
to the place of execution, and be there hanged by
the neck until you are dead and that afterwards
YOUR head shall be severed from your body and
y1ur body be divided into four quarters, to be dis