The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1919-03-17

teenth century had a much better
! chance to win permanent fame than
those of a thousand or more years
ago.
For some centuries after St. Pat
rick, Ireland was a stronghold of
learning. The emerald isle had many
schools at a time when the rest of
western Europe seemed about to be
Submerged in barbarism, and had the
people the quality of cohesion, suffic-
lent to have knit them into a nation,
they would probably have occupied to-
day the place in the world now held
| by Britain. Not that they were worse
divided then than other people of that
time, but the others have learned to
unite and they haven't.
Nevertheless, these were the golden
centuries of Ireland. for the people
were more prosperous and free than
those, most likely, anywhere else in
the world, and no more disunited
than those of other nations, except
those that groaned under oppressive
rulers who kept them united by force.
Two or three times great leaders, by
diplomacy, and hard fighting. united
most OF the Irish for a while, but
when the scepters dropped from their
dying hands there were none strong
enough to pick them up, and tribes
and little kingdoms relapsed to their
disintegrated independence.
Then came the English. Henry H.
obtained from the pope bull giving
him permission to conquer the island,
and soon awaited himself quarrel be-
tween two chiefs to obtain fo0thold.
The English conquest was by degrees.
Some few Irish chiefs surrendered
ontright, but most of the English con-
quest was made by playing off one
tribe or little kingdom against an
other, or by supporting a weak fac
! ton against a stronger one. The
English ever had strong support
among the natives. Even when Bruce,
who had just driven his southern
neighbors from Scotland, sent his
brother with an army to free Ireland,
the Scotch received such meager sup
port that they had to return home
after losing many men. There was,
in fact, little disagreement between
English and Irish until religious diff
lferences began. In the sixteenth CEN
fury the English became Protestants,
and tried to make the Irish conform
with them, and then the real trouble
began.
As every reader of history knows,
Europe was shattered with religious
wars for over two hundred years, and
the wars were more wicked than the
II 10
mans conscience demands that he be
cruel, he goes the limit, and almose
every man in western Europe had a
lconscience of that kind during the six
teenth and seventeenth centuries. Ire
land had her full share of the trou-
lble. The Catholics were generally
the oppressed and suffered the most.
i They did not suffer as much as the
IProtestants in France, and not much
more than Protestants suffered from
other Protestants in England and
Scotland, but they passed thru many
/ bloody, cruel years, Under the reign
of James /. the natives were driven
out of Ulster and their lands given to
English and Scotch emigrants. A
few times they ~got back" at their
oppressors. Under Charles i. and
4 later under James III. they enjoyed 3
few years of supremacy, during which
they did not fail to dose the English
heavily with their own medicine. But
4 England always prevailed in the end,
and each rebellion made the people
worse off.
i Economic discrimination was added
to religious persecution and kept the
island, outside of Ulster. in poverty.
Up to the latter half of the nineteenth
century, Irish industries were handi-
lcapped by the English and great
estates were left in the hands Of land
lords who stayed away from their
lands, meantime taxing the tenants
beyond all reason for rents. With
little or no incentive to improvement,
Il the peasantry became improvident
and fearful famines swept the coun-
TRY. Matters became so bad that ct
last the English conscience awoke,
and a number of English statesmen
began a movement that has steadily
increased to improve Irish affairs.
Il say which, to their natural disposition,
or to suspicion engendered by CEN
turtles of oppression, the Irish often
refused what their friends tried to
Z give them and instead called for some
II thing their friends didn't have to give.
, One instance of this is home rule.
J The British government would have
|, given the Irish a parliament and con-
4 troll of their home affairs years ago
: If Ireland had not been divided on the
subject. First, it was Ulster
Protestant Ireland-which believed,
with reason, it would suffer from an
! Irish government. A few years ago,
there was move to give Catholic Ire
[ land home rule and let Ulster remain
J, with Britain. but there was vigorous
resistance to this. too; this issue be-
ing what caused the Germans TO be-
II lieve in 1914 that all Ireland was
ready to rebel-an unlucky mistake