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
He "took no notice of the occurrence"--good, easy man. But I am
forgetting something. Mr. Curtin was killed by a gang of moonlighters,
who knocked him up, and, presenting loaded rifles at the children,
asked for the father's arms. Before the terrified boys and girls could
comply the father appeared and shot a moonlighter dead in his tracks.
The rest fled precipitately, but unhappily Curtin gave chase and was
killed. Good Father O'Connor attended the funeral of the moonlighter,
who did not belong to his parish, and refused to attend that of Mr.
Curtin, who did!
The Catholic Bishops of Ireland stood by and looked on all this
without a word of censure. Silence gives consent. Had they fulminated
against outrage and secret wholesale murder of poor working men, for
nearly all those I have cited were of this class; had they used their
immense influence to stem the murderous instincts of ruffians who in
many cases took advantage of the prevailing disregard for human life
to wreak their private revenge on their neighbours, satisfied that no
man dare testify, and that the clergy would aid them to frustrate the
law--had the Bishops done this, even the dull and sluggish brain of
the brutal Saxon could have understood their action. They uttered no
single word of condemnation. An eminent Catholic, a clever
professional man, who reveres the faith in which he was bred, but
holds its priesthood in lowest contempt, said to me:--"You cannot find
a word of condemnation uttered by any Bishop during the whole period
when brutal murders were of daily occurrence. I give you your best. I
would stake anything on my statement. I have challenged people over
and over again, but nobody has ever been able to produce a syllable of
censure, of warning, of reprobation. The Bishops were strangely
unanimous in their silence."
But when the Irish Masons try to provide for the orphans of their
brethren the Archbishop's back is up at once; for Masons have secrets
which they may not tell even to priests; and therefore Dr. Walsh
declares that whosoever gives sixpence to this cause of charity, or
associates with its promoters, shall be cast into hell, there to abide
in torture everlastingly--unless previously whitewashed by himself in
person. And as I have clearly shown, the influence of Archbishop Walsh
and his kind is at this moment supremely powerful in matters affecting
the prestige and integrity of England and her people. Wherefore I do
not wonder at the saying of an earnest Irishman of famous name, a
baronet of long descent, whom I saw yesterday--
"When I see how the thing is being worked, and when, as a Catholic, I
recognise the progress and character of the Church policy, and when I
see England walking so stupidly into the trap, I don't know what to
do--whether to swear, or to go out and be sick."
Moycullen (Connemara), May 23rd.
No. 26.--THE CONNEMARA RAILWAY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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