The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-10-15
DISTRESS IN IRELAND
LETTER FROM BISHOP McRoRY
DIscLoSEs TERRIBLE coNDI.
TloNS IN NORTH OF IRELAND
HUNDREDS OF PERSONS KILL
ED OR WOUNDED.

Tragic confirmation of the reports
which have been appearing daily in
the American press, of the lack OF
observance of the Truce on the part
of the Orange population of Belfast
and surrounding territory, is contain
ed in letter received by Judge Nor
gan J. O'Brien, chairman of the Amer
lean Committee for Relief in Ireland,
from Right Reverend Joseph McRory,
d. D., Bishop of Down and Conner,
in whose Diocese the city of Belfast
is situated. Bishop McRory's letter
is as follows:
Dear Judge O'Brien:
You have probably been expecting a
letter from me before now to inform
yourself aud your committee of the
conditions and outlook in Belfast I'm
happily, I cannot report any improve
ment: on the contrary, things seem to
be growing from bad to worse. After
the lapse of more than a year, all our
expelled workers are still excluded
from work, and in the meantime nu-
merous other explosions have taken
place, not only in Belfast, but in Lon
donderry and other Orange centers;
hundreds of families have been driven
from their homes without any hope OF
ever being allowed to return, and even
as ] write, large areas of Belfast are
given over to savage rioting and care
fully planned attacks ON our poor Cath
Ollie people. Within the past ten days,
16 people have been killed and at
least 200 wounded, bringing the
number of killed since July of last
year up to 121 and of wounded, go.
On Sunday, the 10th of July of the
present year, over $50 Catholic fam
lilies had their homes burned or ruth
lessly looted, and as | think Mr. c. J.
France, the worthy director of the
American delegation has informed you,
after their neighbors had exhausted
every effort to accommodate them, we
were forced to find shelter for many
of the unhappy victims in the schools
convenient to the ruined area. 1t is
an appalling condition of things in a
city which is supposed to be civilized
and Christian, and in which the civic
authorities are never tired of paying
lip service to law and order and of
Boosting their devotion to the cause
of civil and religious liberty.
But hard and terrible as is the con-
dition of my poor people, it would be
incomparably worse in some respects
but for the munificent help you have
sent us from America. There are
some respects in which you can do lit.
tie to help US, You cannot uproot the
blind bieOtry that threatens to turn
Belfast into a wilderness. You can
not put stop to the intolerance and
almost unconscious injustice which
centuries of privilege and ascendancy
have begotten and fostered in this
English garrison, but what it is pos
sible for you to do, you have done no.
bly,. If some 10000 Belfast Catholics
have been saved from certain famine
during the past four or five months,
it is to America almost exclusively
that the credit is due. Every week
during that time, our local Relief Com.
m1ttee has been receiving about $780,
900 of American money through the
Irish White Cross, and but for that
money, famine would have been inevi
table Even as it is, only the bare
necessafies of life can be provided, as
owing to the daily increasing number
Of expelled and unemployed workers
we have been forced to reduce the
weekly allowance made to the father
of family to fifteen shillings, or about
three dollars. Needless to say. this
small sum is inadequate to keep the
wolf from the door and stave off abso
lutte. famine.
You have saved us, therefore, and
are still saving us from the horrors oil
famine, and should like you and your
Committee and the American people
to know that we deeply realize oul
indebtedness. Believe me, the hearts
of my poor people are full of graft
tude and our feryent prayers ascend
to God for all who have succored us in
our hour of need. If all Ireland is
profoundly grateful for the five million
dollars being raised in America fol-
Irish sufferers, how much more so are
the Catholics OF Belfast who are re
ceiving SO largely from your funds and
to whom your generosity is a matter
of life or death.
On behalf of my prosecuted people
and myself, therefore. | beg to thank
you and your Committee, and through
you the great people of America for al
that you have done and still do for us
The past year has been a bitter and
trying time and the winter before us