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
The students went outside, and with their friends formed in military
columns--the outside files well armed with knobby sticks as a
deterrent to possible Parnellite enterprise. An extemporised arch of
Union Jacks canopied Mr. Balfour in his carriage, which was drawn by
hundreds of willing hands linked in long line. The column, properly
marshalled, moved away, keeping step amid loud shouts of "Right, left,
right, left," until perfect uniformity was attained, and the
disciplined force marched steadily on to College Green, following the
triumphal chariot with alternate verses of "God Save the Queen" and
"Rule Britannia," each verse interpolated with great bursts of
applause. At Trinity College the glare of torches appeared, and
simultaneously an organised attempt at groaning boomed in under the
cheering. Heedless of the rabble the column marched merrily on, not
with the broken rush of an English mob, but with the irresistible
force of unity in a concrete mass, with the multitudinous tramp of an
army division. The yelling slummers hovered on each flank, frantic
with impotent rage; willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, knowing
that to themselves open conflict meant annihilation. A savage,
unsavoury horde of rat-like ruffians, these same allies of Mr.
Gladstone and Mr. Morley, a peculiarly repulsive residuum these Dublin
off-scourings. They screamed "To hell with Balfour," "To hell with the
English," "To hell with your Unionists," "To hell with Queen
Victoria." Some of them sang a doggerel, beginning:--
Let the English remember,
We'll make them surrender,
And chase them to their boats,
And cut their ---- throats,
And make a big flood
Of their bad black blood--
not precisely a poem to herald the famous "Union of hearts" so
confidently expected. The Unionists tramped on cheering triumphantly,
rejoicing in their strength, ignoring the taunting and jeering of the
Parnellite scum as beneath contempt. An old Home Ruler expressed
disapprobation of his party. "What's the use of showing your teeth
when you can't bite?" he said. "Wait till we get the bill and then we
will show them and the English what we can do."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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