The San Francisco call., 1909-09-14
IREL AND PLJJNDERED
BY BRITISH INVASION
Period Of Oppression Lasting Over Seven Centuries
Marked Darkness Before Dawn Of Era of Reform
TWENTIETH LETTER
By HUGH SUTHERLAND


We're deliberately provoked by treach-
wholesale massacre.
The suppression of the native race"
says Lecky, was carried out with
ferocity which surpassed that Of Alva
in the Netherlands. and has seldom
been exceeded in the pages of history
The wars were wars of extermina-
tion. not conquest The expeditions
waged campaigns of systematic butch
cry. sparing neither men nor women
nor children, while those who sur
vived crept forth from their hiding
places to find the country devastated
and to starve amid the desolation- The
annals OF the time-English as well as
Irish-sicken the reader with their rec
Ords of savagery. An English offtcfal
In 1882 wrote that within six months
$4,000 persons had died Of starvation In
Munster. besides those who had been
butchered by the soldiery. Even during
periods of peace the Err slish gover-
nors sedulously continued the work or
determination by laying waste all the
country they could cover. In the last
years Of the sixteenth century half
the population perished. Elizabeth's
rule over Ireland was complete. But.
says a historian. she reigned over
corpses and ashes"
Yet, incredible as il may seem. the
ruthless work of conquest was re-
vived and continued during almost the
whole OF the seventeenth century. New
elements. however. entered into the
English policy. To the lust for land
were added political punishment and
religious persecution. In both the
Stuart revolutions-that which cost
Charles l his head and that which cost
James III his throne-the Irish took
the losing side, and suffered the venge-
ance of the victorious party for
their loyalty to the condemned house.
Likewise. for rejecting the reforma-
tion and clinging to Roman Catholicism.
the Irish called down upon themselves
the barbarities of intolerance.
Built upon the successive 'planta-
tions' and enriched with the confis-
Gated property of monasteries, the
Anglican church conducted a campaign
against the obdurate Catholics. To
this was added the forcibler settlement
of Ulster with Scotchmen. and the spo-
liation of native land holders under the
cloak of legal enactments- In effect,
TO be Irish or Catholic or both was TO
be exposed to every form OF oppres-
Sfon- The hatreds and despair en-
gendered by these things burst at last
into the Catholic rebellion OF 1641
The Protestant settlers OF Ulster
suffered first, some thousands of them
being slain. Soon the insurgents were
supreme throughout Catholic ireland,
established their own parliament and
entered into compact with the doomed
king. This was fatal. though doubt
less they would have felt the iron
hand of Cromwell in any event. When
he had crushed the royalists in Eng
land the protector turned deliberately
upon Ireland.
There is no redder page in history
than that which records this invasion
or ireland. Cromwell landed In the
country In 1S49 and marched upon the
rebels, and at every stamp of his foot
the land guShed blood The garrison
OF Drogheda-English Catholics for
the most part-was massacred so 600
men, Wexford was captured and the
garrfon pitflessiy put to the sword.
Wherever a rebel was taken he was
shot or hanged. Mercfless nersecu
tion on religious grounds followed the
pacincauon' of the country. Ship
loads of Irish, including women and
children. We're sent as slaves tn the
west indies. Thousand OF men were
driven as exiles to France and Spafn.
Sromweifs policy OF exterminating
the Irish and substituting an English
population was as nearly successf,1l
as such an enterprise could be The
provinces of Ulster. Munster and T.ein-
ster We're confiscated and the land df-
vided among the Roundhead soldiers
and the spectators who had advanced
TO parliament the funds for the aeon-
quest Connaught alone, as the least
fertile of the provinces, was reserved
Tor the Irish owners of the country
There they might settle. and nowhere
eie- Death was decreed against any
lrishman found east of the Sbannon
river The Irish shall go to he'll or
Connaught" was CromweIPs phrase
II was Cromwell then who made mod
ern Ireland. with all it's affecting evils.
let ne did not quite carry out his pitt
less program The Irish continued 70
exist in Connaught and also IN the
other provinces. because the Ers,,st
colonists wanted to use them as labor
ers The determination was SO In
complete. to use a contradictory phrase
that in less than SO years the Irish
were able to rebel again. Lured by the
promises of James III that the ri1bts
OF Catholics would be restored fhe-,
rose against the English. They as
sembled their own parliament. ana
remembering past wrongs. sought Ia
regain their rights by dealing 10 pro
testants laws such as they themselves
had suffered under. The battle az the
boyne ended their hopes. and 1000. 600
acres more were confiscated by VIII
liam III and planted with men os
the dominant minority.
This was the last of the great "plar.
tations," one reason being that the
work was virtually completed. and the
irish ianu owner was eradlcqfed In
favor of the English adventurer and
speculator. The reader will begin 10
understand now the origin OF that In
terminable land problem which the
laborious legislation OF the last a.
years has attempted to solve.
But what was the final situation 1eft
by these centuries OF attempted con-
quest. during which wars. "planta-
tions." rebellions and massacres fol-
lowed one another in CHASTITY monet
ony? What was the result Of the s,c-
cessive "conquests" by Norman. Plan
tagenet, Tudor. Stuart, Roundhead ard
Orange invasion?
IT Is true that the Irish peopIe were
crushed into submission. but the acon-
quest" instead or welding a strong
united nation, simply intensified the
division between the races and piled
up the gigantic debt which the RrifIsh
empire is now paying The cleavage
between the two peoples. which had
been merely racial. was wfdened nv
social, religious and political pre1u-
dices.
On the one side We're the English
and Scotch Protestants. directly or bv
inheritance the benef1ciarfes Of the