The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1911-11-02
Vol. XIV 1s.
What Do The Irish
Want?
By A. M. P.

By A. N. p.
Paper Read Before the Chd,ddlQua Circle:
tits now about thirty-eight years
since Isaac Butt, the leader of the
Irish Nationalist Party, first used
the words Home Rule" and so
defined the wants and needs of Ire
land, and since that time so much
has been said, and so much written,
that all / can say must truly be
described as echoing an echoed
thought. And yet with all that
has been said and written, there
are millions of people, both in the
old country and on this continent,
who believe that Ireland has no in
justice, or mis-government to COM
plain of, and who look upon the ills,
under which the Irish are suffering,
as the natural result of Irish infe
riority, improvidence and unpro-
gressiveneSs.
We hear the English say, What
do the Irish want?' Ireland is one
of the best governed parts OF the
British Empire, she is under Brit
ish Law, and enjoys an equal share
of British freedom
What do the Irish want!" we
hear the American ask, when Eng
lish papers and Press Associations
are filled with news of Irish unrest,
or that the Irish people are appeal
ing to the English Parliament for
equal justice.
In this paper, I do not propose
to 90 into the old, old stories of
England's wrongs to Ireland in days
gone by. l have not time to tell
of the terrible tales of Essexs'
butcheries of the Irish in 1870.
When O'Neil Of Clanaboy, with his
family were invited to a banquet and
they were all killed, men, women,
youths and maidens, two-hundred
in number, and again when Rathlin
Castle was surrendered to him, and
he murdered every living soul, six
hundred and fifty in all men, wo-
men, children and infrm, or the
tales of Cromwell and Iretons cam
paigns from 1641 to May 1862, when
the Puritan soldiers with their wal
cry of ''To He'll, or Connaught, >
out of population of 1,5OO, ,OOC
murdered 500, 900 Iirsh people and
sold another third into slavery in
the American Colonies. Nor have
| time to 90 into details of the ter
rible famine and plague of the las
forties, when over 100000 were
driven from their homes to fint
new homes in this land, or to lay
their bones under the broad waters
of the Atlantic. There are these
and hundreds of other instances
during thela seven hundred years
to show that the Irish, with tn
possible exception of the Jews
has been the most ill-treated an
oppressed nation in the world.
But the question comes down t
today, What do the Irish want?
Her wants are so reasonable, mod
crate and commonplace in view Q
the experience of nations, and th
British Empire especially, tina
once they are understood, all th
fears and doubts of opponents mus
vanish into the thin air. What tn
Irish want is the re-establishmen
irresponsible government, nothin
more nor nothing less. The Iris
want that the government of ever
purely local Irish matter, shall t
controlled by the Irish people alon
They do not want any change
the constitution or the supremacy
the Imperial Parliament, but the
do ask that in the purely local ma
ters, they be given their place wit
those other portions of the Britis
Empire, twenty EIGHT in numbe
which in their local matters al
governed by free representatiN
institutions of their own. Th
modest demand, has its root in hi
toric title, and also, in the disa
trous attempt, since 1900, to go'
.ern Ireland from Westminster.
The first of these, may count b.
little against force but it has had