The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-03-17

followed during these centuries shocks
the reader of history with their rec
| ords of saVagery. We marvel that the
race survived at all. The Irish peo-
pie were crushed into submission. The
vast majority of them, processing the
| condemned Catholic faith, had neither
land nor wealth nor political power
| nor fair standing before the law Only
| a common misery and a, common hat
red toward England united them.
Ever since the English in that
| twelfth century started their expedi-
| ton to conquer Ireland, they have
| tried, and tried vain1y to crush among
| the Irish tbs spirit of rebellion against
| tyranny. From that day to this, our
| people have been killed with famine,
shot down by soldiers, hanged, coax
ed, bullied, threatened, fIattered, but
| the fight has gone on and today the
| Irish question is the foremost before
| the British parliament where Ireland
demands the right to self government.
In the most recent centuries, not
! sal isfied with making them landless
and powerless, the English govern
nent still considered them a menace,
because of their number and the spirit
| of unity resulting from their common
misery and religion. To outlaw them
for all time, there was left but one
| resort, and that was religious persecu-
ton. And they sought to do this, not
by means of the rack and the stake
for this had simply stimulated faith
among the CathoIics-but they resort
ed to the more deathly methods of
legislation.
And then came the era of penal
laws. 1t is hard for us of the twelfth
century to realize that within the last
two hundred years such monstrous
perversions were clothed with the dig
nifty and force of legal enactn ent.
This persecution started a stream of
emigration of the best elements
among the people. England had sue
ceeded in part. Those left at home,
robbed of every right of freedom, and
worn out with massacre and oppres-
sion, sank into serfdom. The people
were inert, hopeless, exhausted. Pow
erty spread among them like a plague
and there was no strength to resist it.
Nationality was extingufshed. After
seven hundred years of spo1iation by
violence and penal enactments, Eng
land, at the very dawn of the nine
teenth century, completed the subJec-
ton Of Ireland by robbing her of her
shadow of Parliament.
The nineteenth century offered little
hope. Ireland was now to be ruled
by Englishmen at Westminster, who
had no knowledge of the country s
needs and no sympathy with the peo-
pie or her institutions. Meanwhile,
disaster infinitely greater smote the
Irish people, the appalling famine of
1S47 to '49, with its ghastly record of
starvation, eviction, and emigration.
By tens and by hundreds of thousands
the people persisted of hunger and
fever. The strong f1ocked from the
in a never ending stream The
weak dropped in their tracks and died
by the roadside. The number killed
by hunger was estimated at 10000. |
Between 1S48 and 1852 over a quarter |
of million families were evicted and |
between 1847 and 1881, 100000 were
eXiled.
There is no need to pro1ong the ter
rible review. Tt is too familiar to ev-
cry person acquainted with Irish his
tory. The famine was a turning point |
in the history of Ireland It started |
at full tide that wave of emigration
which has never ceased, which has
robbed the country of its most vigor-
ous Inhabitants, has deprived the
landlord of his spoi1s, and has made
America a factor in the demand for
freedom for Ireland.
But why wake up wrongs of his
,ory that should be forgotten? Why
persist in dwelling upon the past? To
[rishmen the history of Ireland is a
constant inspiration. The record is
inspiring because it is filled with the
names of brave men and the tales of
brave deeds, because, in fact, the very
of Irish nationality and
irish progress has left the people lit
lie else to venerate.
Oh, what scenes has that mother
and witnessed in these centuries that
odds! She has seen Crom-
we'll murder tens of thousands of her
children. She has witnessed her sons
lighting beneath the walls of Linn erick.
How proudly we recall the valor
they displayed! Lauzun, the French
iYnnnSSihIa
Irish to make a stand at that spot.
DO you call these ramparts," he
sneered, 1.-The English will need no
cannon; they may batter them down
with roasted apples Nevertheless.
twenty thousand Irishmen remained
there to fight, and they fought until
hey compelled the English to give up
he seige.
She has seen Henry Grattan, the
irish Protestant patriot, weak and ill, |
by two friends, walk slow
y into the Irish house of Parliament,
coming back at the call of his coun-
.rymen to protest against the wiping
,ut of the Irish Parliament We hear
lgain his ringing words as he declar-
ID, '|the Irish Protestant can never
,e free while the irish Catholic is a
ilave.''
She saw Robert Emmett, one of the
,ravest and most picturesque of
heroes, lead a despairing revolt which
ailed, and die on the scaffold with
such supreme courage that his name
las ever been dearest to his coun-
rymen.
She has seen the great Liberator,
Daniel O'ConneIl. demand that the
English government yield and recog-
lize the right of a Catholic to take
lis seat in the English Parliament.
She has seen Allen, Larkin, and
)'Brien from their scaffo1d cry out,
God save Ireland
She has seen more Individual great
less; she has seen her people stand
70 brave1y under laws to keep the
IRISH farmer from selling his cattle,
he Infamous laws against agricu1-
17re industry aducafiop and religion