A Straight Deal; Or, The Ancient GrudgeWister, Owen
History
A Straight Deal; Or, The Ancient Grudge
Wister, Owen
Great Britain -- Relations -- United States; United States -- Relations -- Great Britain
April 21st. After mass at Castletown, Bear Haven, Father Brennan ordered
his flock to resist conscription, take the sacrament, and to be ready to
resist to the death; such death insuring the full benediction of God
and his Church. If the police resort to force, let the people kill
the police as they would kill any one who threatened their lives. If
soldiers came in support of the draft, let them be treated like the
police. Policemen and soldiers dying in their attempt to carry out the
draft law, would die the enemies of God, while the people who resisted
them would die in peace with God and under the benediction of his
Church.
Father Lynch said in church at Ryehill: “Resist the draft by every means
in your power. Any minion of the English Government who fires upon you,
above all if he is a Catholic, commits a mortal sin and God will punish
him.”
In the chapel at Kilgarvan Father Murphy said: “Every Irishman who helps
to apply the draft in Ireland is not only a traitor to his country, but
commits a mortal sin against God’s law.”
At mass in Scariff the Rev. James MacInerney said: “No Irish Catholic,
whatever his station be, can help the draft in this country without
denying his faith.”
April 28th. After having given the communion to three hundred men in the
church at Eyries, County Cork, Father Gerald Dennehy said: “Any Catholic
who either as policeman or as agent of the government shall assist in
applying the draft, shall be excommunicated and cursed by the Roman
Catholic Church. The curse of God will follow him in every land. You can
kill him at sight, God will bless you and it will be the most acceptable
sacrifice that you can offer.”
Referring to any policeman who should attempt to enforce the draft,
Father Murphy said at mass in Killenna, “Any policeman who is killed in
such attempt will be damned in hell, even if he was in a state of grace
that very morning.”
Ninety-five percent of those Irish policemen were Catholics and had to
respect the commands of those priests.
Ireland is England’s business, not ours. But the word
“self-determination” appears to hypnotize some Americans. We must not
be hypnotized by this word. It is upon the “principle” expressed in
this word that our sympathies with the Irish Republic are asked. The
six northeastern counties of Ulster, on the “principle” of
self-determination, should be separated from the Irish Republic. But the
Green Irish will not listen to that. Protestants in Ulster had to listen
in their own chief city to Sinn Fein rejoicings over German victories.
The rebellion of 1916, when Sinn Fein opened the back door that
England’s enemies might enter and destroy her--this dastardly treason
was made bloody by cowardly violence. The unarmed and the unsuspecting
were shot down and stabbed in cold blood. Later, soldiers who came home
from the front, wounded soldiers too, were persecuted and assaulted. The
men of Ulster don’t wish to fall under the power of the Green Irish.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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