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
These extracts are plainly taken from some speech on the Roman
Catholic Emancipation Bill, and refer to the valour of the Irish
soldiery, whose bravery in fighting for a Protestant cause was
doubtless invaluable to the cause of liberty. There is an apocryphal
story concerning Alfred de Musset, who on his death-bed is reported to
have conveyed to a friend with his last breath his last, his only
wish, to wit:--
"Don't permit me to be annotated." The Iron Duke might have said the
same if he had thought of it. He could not know that, shorn of his
context, divorced from his drift, he would be placarded in his native
land as an agent in the cause of sedition and disloyalty. This truly
Grand Old Man, who, in his determination to uphold the dignity and
unity of the Empire "stood four-square to all the winds that blew,"
would scarcely have sided with the modern G.O.M. and his satellites,
Horsewhipped Healy and Breeches O'Brien.
One word as to the alleged "intolerance of the fanatic Orangemen of
Belfast."
The placards above-mentioned were up on Tuesday last. They are large
and boldly printed, and attracted crowds of readers--but not a hand
was raised to deface them, to damage them, to do them any injury
whatever. I watched them for four-and-twenty hours, and not a finger
was lifted against any one in the High Street or elsewhere, so far as
I could ascertain.
There are twenty thousand Orangemen in the city, and the Protestants
outnumber the Papists by three to one. Yet the placard was treated
with absolute respect, and although I entered several groups of
readers I heard no words of criticism--no comment, unfavourable or
otherwise, no gesture of dissent. The people seemed to be interested
in the bill, and desirous of giving it respectful consideration. I
have seen Liberal Birmingham, when in the days of old it assembled
round Tory posters--but the subject becomes delicate; better change
our ground. It is, however, only fair to say that the Gladstonians of
Birmingham, who, as everybody knows, formed the extreme and inferior
wing of the old Radical party, can hardly teach the Belfast men
tolerance.
Ballymena, April 6th.
No. 6.--THE EXODUS OF INDUSTRY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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