Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1914-03-17
FEAST OF THE COUNTRY
OF "MIGHT HAVE BEEN

today: why the people that kept alie
the torch of learning on Tomas ISL y
and in Columba's monastery WY
mud-daubed, blood-sated barparN7
sacked fallen Rome and looted pro-
tuted Greece, sit now at the feet 4
England to win justice at last. :.
For four hundred years peloi9
Charlemagne, Ireland was lne IT,
of schools and colleges, and learning
and prosperity For period longer
than that which has passed III
America since the first Spaniard SCI
foot on the mainland, Ireland )
priests and law-givers and kings maoe
her the model land for the new ma
tions rising on the ruins of the
shattered Roman Empire. Then heF
neople duarreled among themselves:
and since then--a thousand years OF
strife and slow retreat, asainse
Northman and Norman ana fShslls1.
man and lacking foreign enemies
inanI 1,rare have made her the MODS
of nations. nd +han
tho world as we know 1t now, trans.
figured as 1t would have been hao al
| the crises turned the other way
Russia,s slavs beaten back In ages
mast and a creator Scandinavia
grouping Sweden, Denmark, Russia.
| Norway, Iceland in splendio Noreh
man Empire; Poland in the stead OIL
Prussia; Henry of Navarro reiuslps
| the mass, and Leaguers beaten, no
81 bartholomew: Hungary never
| linked with Austria; the Turks peat
en- back before Constantinople.
So may one picture that Country
| That Might Have Been" had the
spirit that entered into the Teuton,
| Charles and made him Carl der
| Crosse gone instead into the heart
and mind of a Gaelic chieftain N the
| days of Irelands glory twelve hpn
dred years ago. The Celts still he'll
! all Ireland. all Scotland. most OIL
Britain, all of Western France.
Linked they might have been-tne
| Mortimer, then the Saxons and the
Angles and then the Danes, beaten
back from the islands and from the
shores of Gaul, q splendid empire
| built, the Celts, with their backs to
| the sea, turning again to the main
| land and holding their own through
the ages until their swarming time
| should come as it came to the Eng
Iish, then peopling the lands beyond
the seas; the Celt, not the Teuton
dominant in Europe today
But the race" spirit that bred q
Charlemagne was not in them.
| lnS SDlTlI VI unity THAI HSAoCo
Angle and Saxon and Dane and Nor
man, the zest for government. the
fierce dominance and pride of victory
was lacking. They have fought for
the love of fighting-not for the end
| in view. They lived for the Joy OF
| living-not for the things to be
achieved. They have sung for the
happiness of singing-not for the deco
accomplished. They have won all
| battles save their own and best
they've strung their harps In mem
DRY of Tara's halls where Shannon
water was FIVE thousand miles away:
| Deirdres lament for the sons OF
| Usnach, as Mcpherson renders it,
we'll voices Ireland's songs of her
sorrows:
'Woe Is me! BY fraud and wrong,
| Traitors false and tyrants strong,
Fell Clan Usnach, bought and sold
| For Barach's feast and Conor's gold"
From ireland have gone out in her
| later years these Irishmen, to the
council boards of Europe, to England,
to America, men with the wit of
| genious, With the gift of tongues and
| of the sword, with the power to sway
men and to lead men-singers and
doors as well-men loyal and men
| strong, men with clean hands and
| strong hearts and minds, builders of
cities and nations. And the rest or
| the world wonders, when 1t stops to
think about it-what 1t would do IL
they should care to wander