Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home RuleBuckley, Robert John
History
Ireland as it is, and as it would be under Home Rule
Buckley, Robert John
Home rule -- Ireland; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901; Irish question
Although public feeling has suddenly deepened in intensity, the change
has been for some time in progress. I am enabled to state on
irrefragable authority, that Lord Houghton's sudden departure from
Dublin on Sunday week was entirely due to his alarm at the shifting
aspect of affairs, which rendered instant conference with Mr.
Gladstone a matter of urgent necessity. And it should be especially
noted that this change is most apparent not in the Protestant North,
not among the irreconcilable black and heretic Ulsterites, but in
Nationalist Dublin, in the Roman Catholic south--not simply among the
moneyed classes and well-to-do shopkeepers of Dublin, but among the
industrious poor, and the small farmers of the region round about. The
opinions and feelings of the better classes have ever been dead
against the Bill, and the best portion of the poorer people are
assuredly moving in the same direction. That such is the simple fact
is undeniable. It is thrust upon you whether you will or no. You are
compelled to believe it, whatever your political creed. It manifests
itself in a variety of ways. Mr. Love, of Kildare, a landed
proprietor, now in Dublin, says that on Sunday last Dr. Gowing, parish
priest of Kill, denounced Home Rule from the altar, and advised the
people to have none of it.
The Dubliners are beginning to publicly ridicule their Nationalist
members. A bog-oak carving represents a typical Irishman driving a
"conthrairy pig," which is supposed to stand for Tim Harrington. The
interesting animal is deviating from the right way, gazing fixedly at a
milestone which bears the legend, "IX. miles to College Green." His
master gives him a cut of the whip and a jerk of the rope, and thus
addresses the wayward Tim, "Arrah, don't be wastin' yer larnin', radin'
milestones. Ye're not goin' to Dublin--ye're goin' to BRAY!" A Phoenix
Park orator who sang amusing songs finished his appeal for coppers
thus, "Sure, Home Rule is a splindid thing--an iligant thing intirely,
an' a blind man could see the goodness iv it wid his two eyes. Didn't
ye all know Tim Harrington whin he hadn't the price iv his breakfast?
Didn't ye know him whin he would dhrop on his two marrowbones and thank
God for the price of a shmell of calamity-wather" (whiskey). "An' now
look at him! D'ye mind the iligant property he has outside Dublin? An
ye'll all get the like o' that, every bosthoon among yez, av ye get
Home Rule. But yez must sind _me_ to Parlimint. Sure I have ivery
quollification. Wasn't I born among yez? Wasn't I rared among yez?
Don't I know what yez wants? An' didn't I go many a day widout a male?
Aye, that I did, an' could do it again! Sind _me_ to Parlimint, till I
get within whisperin' distance of Misther Gladstone--within whisperin'
distance, d'ye mind me? Ye'll all get lashins of dhrink, an' free
quarthers at the Castle. An' all ye have to do is to pay me, an' pay me
well." Here the speaker laid his finger along his nose and broke into a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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