The Irish standard., 1913-11-01
YOUNG IRELAND
THE AIMS AND HOPES OF THE '48 MO-
VEMENT. O'CONNEL LOSES
HIS GRASP
WONDERFUL GALAXY OF LITERARY MEN
AND WOMEN. Specially written for
this number of the Irish Standard
By '"TIPPERARY''

and of jealousy which turks in the
Irish character, more or less, was his
in copious measure. Success had in
tensified this spirit. AS the civic
guardian of the Irish church, he was
with a group of young men
who, while they freely admitted the
claims of Catholicism in any
struggle for Ireland, did not regard
the old religion as the sole or SUI
preme factor. It would seem, in
deed, on the surface that O'Connell
went the farthest of any Irishman
when he declared thEt he would take
his politics from Constantinople SOON
er than from Rome; but in Protestant
eyes he loomed as Catholic first and
an Irishman afterwards.
And this view was not destroyed
but strengthened by consideration
of his action on the veto, that is, the
proposal to give the British govern
ment a veto on the appointment of
Irish Catholic bishops. 1t was in the |
best interests of his church that he
acted on that occasion He opposed
episcopal and even papal opinion on
the matter with a prescience which |
events long subsequent have proved
prophetic. But the successful oppo-
nent of the veto was also the usher of |
the priest on the Irish political stage. |
This introduction no tonly raised the
gorge of the Ascendency party in
evitably and as 1t would seem ire. |
vocably, but appeared in the eyes of
the liberal minded to give q denom-
national tone to the national move
ment, to make the words Catholic and
Nationalist not only Synonymous but
conterminous. -!
Hes hiss8EE O. IEa|aRa ai9ef hsbs g.
.contrad1cted any such sweeping as
sumption. So at least Young ireland
thought. Its idea was to- get the
two nations Of. which Ireland was
composed to work together; to recog-
nize, as in the days Of the UNITED
'1rishmen," that they were become one
people and that they had common in
terests with common foe in the
British parliament. But O'Connell
was the representative of one, and
one only of these two races. "His
politics were part of his religion, and
his religion was part of his politics."
On the other hand, of the three found
ers of the Nation newspaper, Thomas
Osborne Davis and John Blake Dillon
were Trinity College graduates of dis
t1nction. Davis was Protestant, and
Dillon was Catholic; and the two
friends were of opinion that differ
ences of creed ought to prove no bar
to political association any more than
to intellectual relationship or social
intercourse.
In the second place, the old policy
differed from the new about the
theory and practice of blood letting.
O'Connell had brought himself to de.
clare that the liberty of the human
race was not worth the shedding of
a drop of blood. To this diseased
doctrine the following words made
glorious answer: From the blue wa
ters of the Bay of Salamis; from the
valley over which the sun stood still
and lit the Israelite to victory; from
the cathedral in which the sword of
Poland has been sheathed in the
shroud of 'Kosciusko; from the con-
vent of st. Isadore where the fiery
hand that, rent the ensign of St.
George upon the plains of Ulster has
mouldered into dust; from the sands
of the desert where the wild genius
of the Algerine so long has scared the
eagle of the Pyrennes; from the ducal
palace in this kingdom where the
memory Of the gallant and seditious
Geraldine enhances more than royal
favor the splendor of his race; from
the solitary grave within this mute
city which a dying bequest has left
without an epitaph-oh, from every
spot where heroism has had a sacri-
flee or a triumph voice breaks in
upon the cringing crowd that cher
ishes this maxim. crying, away with
it-away with It," It is needless to
say that the orator was Thomas Fran
els Meagher.
But perhaps the greatest contrast
between the old and the new lay in
the personalities of Daniel O'Connell
and Thomas Davis. We have seen
that O'Connell was the incarnation of
his people; but Davis was the ideal
Irishman. North and south (says a
writer in Treasury of Irish
Poetry''), east and west the finest
qualities of the population that in
habit the island seemed to be COM
bined in him, developed to their high
est power and colored deeply with
whatever it is in character and tenn
permanent that makes the Irish one
of the most separate of races. The
nation saw itself TRANSPORTED in him,
and saw the dreams nourished by its
long memories and ancestral pride
coming true. Hence, the intense per-
sonal devotion felt towards Davis by
the ardent and thoughtful young men
who were associated with him, and
the sense Of irreparable loss caused
by his early death. He stood for Ire.
land-for- all 1reland-as no other
man did, and 1t was hardly possible
to distinguish the cause from the per.
sonality.