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
so long as he was not allowed to go "widout a male." Who knows but
that, like the Prime Minister's chief Irish adviser, he may even have
been reared on the savoury tripe and the succulent "drischeen"?
All the Tralee folks are shy of political talk. They eye you for a
long time before they commit themselves, but when once started they
can hardly stop, so warm are they, so intensely interested in the
great question. Running down the line, a Cork merchant said "The Kerry
folks are decent, quiet folks by nature. Do not believe that these
simple villagers are the determined murderers they would seem to be.
No brighter intellects in Ireland, no better hearts, no more
hospitable hosts in the Emerald Isle. They are very superstitious.
There you have it all. 'Tis their beautiful ingenuousness that makes
them so easily led astray. What do these simple country folks, living
on their farms, without books, without newspapers, without
communication with large centres--what do they know about intricate
State affairs? What can they do but listen to the priest, regarded as
the great scholar of the district, reverenced as almost--nay, quite
infallible, and credited with the power to give or withhold eternal
life? For while in England the people only respect a parson according
to the esteem he deserves as a man, in Ireland the priestly office
invests the man with a character entirely different from his own, and
covers everything. These poor folks felt the pinch of hard times, and
the agitators, backed by their Church, saw their opportunity and
commenced to use it. Hence the Kerry moonlighters, poor fellows,
fighting in their rude and uncouth way for what they believed to be
patriotism and freedom. They should be pitied rather than blamed, for
they were assuredly acting up to their light, and upon the advice of
men they had from childhood been taught to regard as wise, sincere,
and disinterested counsellors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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