The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-05-06
THE IRISH UPRISING.
HOW JOHN REDMOND, LEADER OF
THE IRISH NATIONALISTS
VIEWS 1T.

John Redmond, leader of the Irish
Nationalists in the British House of
Commons, on April % gave the Asso-
ciated Press the following statement
concerning the uprising in Dublin:
MY first feeling, c. course, on
hearing of this insane movement, was
one of horror, discouragement and al
most despair. | asked myself whether
Ireland, as SO often before in her
tragic history, was to dash the cup Of
liberty from her lips-was the insanity
of a small section Of her people once
again to turn all her marvellous vic
tories of the last few years into ire
parable defeat and to send her back,
on the very eve of her final recogni-
ton as free nation, into another
long night of slavery, incalculable suf-
fering and weary and uncertain
struggling.
For look at the Irish position to-
day. In the short space of 40 years
Ireland has by constitutional move
ment made an almost unbrokenly
II vi LlOllI
poverty to prosperity and freedom.
rs all this to be lost?
when war came, she made choice
which was inevitable if she was to be
true to all the principles which she
had held through all her history and
which she had just so completely
vindicated on her own soil, namely,
the rights of small nations, sacred
principles of nationality, liberty and
democracy.
Millions of our people in the
United States and elsewhere, whose
generous devotion helped us so large
ly to win our victories for the mother
land of our race, have always &C.
cepted the principle of Irelands right
to choose her policy for herself. That
the very same men who today have
tried to make Ireland a cats paw of
Germany.
In all our long and successful
struggles to obtain home rule we
have been thWarted and opposed by
that same faction. We have won
home rule, not through them, but in
spite of them.
This attempted deadly blow at
home rule is made more wicked, more
insolent by this fact-that Germany
plotted it. Germany organized; Ger
many paid for it. So far as Germany's
share in it is concerned it is a Ger
man invasion of Ireland as brutal, as
selfish, as cynical, as Germany's in
vasion of Belgium.
81 might add that this movement
has been set in motion by this same
class of men at the very moment when
America is demanding reparation for
the blood Of innocent American men,
women and children, shed by Ger
many, and thus they are guilty of
double treason-treason to the gener-
Gus land that received them, as well
as to the land which gave them birth.
ut is not an additional horror that
on the very day when we heard that
the men of the Dublin Fusiliers had
| been killed by Irishmen in the streets
VI DuuIlH, we received news OF now
men of the Sixteenth division-our
own Irish brigade, and of the same
Dublin Fusiliers-had dashed forward
and by their unconquerable bravery
retaken trenches the Germans had
won at Hulluch?
AS to the final result: l do not
believe this wicked and insane move
ment, will achieve it's ends. The Ger
man plot has failed. A majority of
the people of Ireland retain their
calmness, their fortitude and unity.
They abhor this attack on their inter-
ests, their rights and their principles.
Home rule has not been destroyed
| 1t remains indestructible."