The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1921-03-19
HOW IRISH KEPT THE FAITH

Papfst should-all his possessions
were confiscated to the first Protes-
tant who discovered on him.
There was in County Roscommon
in the eighteenth century a noted
character named Myers, who turned
Protestant to save his estate from
confiscation. The Protestant Arch
| bishop of Dublin gave dinner in hon
or OF his conversion, and to edify the
diners, called upon the new recruit
to the faith to tell the company the
grounds upon which he had embraced
Professionalism. twenty-five hundred
acres of the best grounds in Roscom-
| mon," was the white neophytes stun
ming reply
A Catholic was forbidden to vote
He was forbidden to keep any arms
for his protection. He was forbidden
| to hold life annuity
He was forbidden to receive an edu-
cation. He was forbidden to exercise
| his religion. He could not attend
Catholic worship. He was compelled
| by the law to attend Protestant wor-
ship.
He could not be guardian to child
| He could not when dying leave his in
FAINT children under Catholic guard
ianship. He was forbidden to educate
his child, at home or abroad If he
was discovered in the act of having
his son educated at home, ruinous
| fine and dungeon awaited him. If
he sent his son to be educated abroad
all his property was to be confiscated
and the child so educated was there
by debarred from all rights and prop
critics in the country, and debarred
from inheriting anything.
| Price Put on Priests.
The priest was banned and hunted
with bloodhounds-and a price of five
pounds put upon his head. The school
master was banned and hunted with
lbloodhounds-and a price of five
pounds put upon his head.
He was compelled to pay double for
the support of the militia. And he was
compelled to make good all damages
done to the state by the privateers of
any Catholic power in which the state
was at war.
i In fact, the law soon came to recog-
niZe an Irishman in Ireland only for
the purpose of repressing him. Till in
the reign of George l. Lord Chancellor
Bowes, and also Chief Justice Robin
|son, in official capacity, pronounced:
''The law does not suppose any such
person to exist as an Irish Roman
\ lCatholic.
Il The Irish papist was reduced to such
lpitiable plight in his own country that,
as Edmund Burke says, There is not
a single right of nature or benefit of
society which has not been either to-
tally taken away from him, or consid-
erably impaired
Il The Protestant Lecky says that
these laws were intended ito make
them poor and to keep them poor, to
crush in them every germ of enter
prise and degrade them into sergile
: race who could never hope to rise to
the level of their oppressor.'
The British traveller, Arthur Young,
: in Ireland in the late eighteenth cen
tury, tells how he found the Anglo
Irish gentry, for little or no cause,
| lash with horsewhip or cane, or break
the bones of the people, "and kill, with
out apprehension Of judge or jury >
Y THE Punishment Laws" says Young.
? "are calculated for the meridian of
: Barbary."
II SchooImasters Hunted.
II Throughout those dark days the
: hunted schoolmaster, with price upon
i his head, was hidden from house to
p house. And, in the summertime he
Y gathered his little class, hungerina
: and thirsting for knowledge, behind
It a hedge in remote mountain glen
e where, while tattered lad. from the
S hilltop, watched out for the British
soldiers--he fed to his eager pupils
the forbidden fruit of the tree oi
knowledge Latin and Greek were
Q taught to ragged hunted ones under
o shelter of the hedges-whence these
e teachers were known as hedge school
It masters" A knowledge of Latin was
s. frequent enough accomplishment
r among poor Irish mountaineers in thu
e Iseventeenth century-and was spoker
y by many of them on special occasions
it And it is authoritatively boasted tha
r cows we're bought and sold in Greel
Z in mountain market places of Kerry.
It'll Arthur Young in 1776 says that h,
y met everywhere schools held at tn,
% back of hedge. II might as well sa.
ditch. for have seen many a ditcl
full of scholars" In 1896 the Frencl
e traveller, DeLatocayne, tells of seeini
1.-The hedge schools. and at the Rive