The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1916-12-23
DoMINEERING
TYRAnT NOW
REAPS reward

ruption of government at home comes
the thought that the prayers of many
lrishmen and their descendants are
being answered and that the domi-
neering tyrant, John Bull, is now
ready to reap the reward of his cruel
oppression of Ireland for past CEN
turtles. III this connection everyone
should read THE True Story OF the
| Irish Rebellion in Hearst's Magazine
! this month, in which Charles Edward
Russell, an unbiased writer, tells of
that awful blot in English history and
how the public outside has never
heard the true story of what was
termed the Irish rebellion. The writer
| says that with an all-powerful press
censor and gagged press the public
| was led to believe that the rebellion
was the work Of a few fanatics, known
as Sim Feiners, but in truth the title
Sim Feiner was misnomer, and that
it was a revolt of the best people in
Ireland, with the Sim Feiners only a
part. In discussing the causes the
| writer says:
| High treason in the British Empire
must be what Count Metternich called
a geographical expression So soon
as they saw the home rule bill would
be passed the leaders in Ulster began
to preach and organize a revolution
much more open and dangerous than
any so-called Irish rebel ever project
ed and yet with impunity In the
plainest terms they served notice on
the government that home rule meant
the secession of Ulster and that bloody
| civil war would be the result of any
attempt to keep her in the kingdom
The Ulster Volunteers were formed,
drilled and armed, more than lOO, 900
OF them, for the express purpose of
establishing listers independence;
for that guns, ammunition and equip
ment were accumulated. Plans were
made to seize at a signal the post
office and other public buildings in
Belfast and to proclaim an insurgent
government.
Not a hand was laid on the men
who led this sedition. Sir Edward
Carson, its communicating sat in
Parliament and went to and fro upon
his mission, connecting treason, re-
volt and civil war, unmolested and un-
afraid. When it was proposed to sup
press with the might of the realm the
rebellion thus flagrantly plotted, Brit
ish army officers practically mutinied,
and Sir John French, then chief-of-
staff, resigned rather than bear arms
against his fellow subjects. The gov
eminent not only tolerated these acts
Of INSTRUMENTATION, but before long
gave French still more important
command.
After discussing the organization of
the Irish rebellionists Mr.. Russell
then tells of the actual fighting where
in these raw recruits held the flower
Of the English army at bay for sew
eral days. Then follows his descrip-
ton of Butcher Maxwell's reign:
Gen. Sir John Maxwell had been
sent over in chief command to put
down the rebellion. He lost no time
in setting his court-martial to work,
trying men one day and shooting them
the next. There was no mercy and
little consideration. British ncwspa-
pers that afterward bitterly denounced
the farcical court-martial of Captain
Fryatt applauded the work of Sir John
MaXWelrs court martial, equally far
cical, and demanded more victims.
Thomas McDonagh, the learned man
of letters; Patrick Pearse and Joseph
Plunkett, the poets; Edmund Kent,
the scholar; James Connolly, the hui
manitarian; Thomas Clarke, the in
domitable opponent of British rule;
John Mcbride, the old soldier--;lll
went swiftly the same way. The so
called trials were secret; nothing was
known of them until Maxwell gave
out a curt announcement of the shoot
ings. 1t appears that only young Kent
made any appeal against his fate;
the others went to death without
word. Connolly was so badly shat
tered with wounds that to get chance
to shoot him his executiOncrs must
prop him in a chair, circumstance
that might well be read in cOnnec-
tiOn with accounts of the Fryatt case
The night before young Plunkett was
killed he was married to Miss Grace
Clifford, an artist, to whom he had
long been afIianced. The night before
Patrick Pearse was killed he wrote a
beautiful poem, not related to the rev.
olution. but dwelling with soft and
caressing tenderness on the beauty of
fields and flowers. King or no king,
do not believe the world could we'll
afford to lose such soul.
In all, the court-martial crushed the
lives out of fifteen of the leaders. De
Valera's sentence, perhaps because he
was born in America, was committed
| to life Imprisonment. Someone that
| happened to remember Edith Cavell
secured like slender mercy for the
Countess Markiewicz. More than two