Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888) — John Shaqi
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)Hurlbert, William Henry
History
Ireland Under Coercion: The Diary of an American (1 of 2): (2nd ed.) (1888)
Hurlbert, William Henry
Ireland -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Politics and government -- 1837-1901
He heard of it for the first time on Saturday, and, sending at once for
the priest in charge of the Carmelite Church, forbade the celebration.
Later on in the evening, two strangers came to the Archbishop's house,
and in great agitation besought him to allow the arrangements for the
Mass to go on. He declined to do this, and sent them away impaled on a
dilemma. "What you propose," said the Cardinal, "is either a piece of
theatrical tomfoolery, in which case it is unfit to be performed in a
church, or it is flat treason, in which case you should be sent to the
Tower!"
They went away, like the Senatus of Augsburg from the presence of
Napoleon--"_très mortifiés et peu contents_." After they had gone, the
Cardinal remembered that for some time past queer documents had reached
him through the post-office, setting forth the doctrine of Divine Right,
and the story of the Stuarts. One of these, which with the rest he had
thrown into the fire, was an elaborate genealogical chart, designed to
show that the crowns of Great Britain and Ireland ought rightfully to be
worn by a certain princess in Bavaria!
If there is anything more in all this than a new variety of the "blue
China craze," may it not be taken as a symptom of that vague but clearly
growing dissatisfaction with the nineteenth century doctrine of
government by mere majorities, which is by no means confined to Europe?
This feeling underlies the "National Association" for getting a preamble
put into the Constitution of the United States, "recognising Almighty
God as the source of all authority and power in Civil Government." There
was such a recognition in the Articles of Confederation of 1781.
Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia should have mentioned to His Holiness
the existence of this Association, when he presented to Leo XIII., the
other day at Rome, President Cleveland's curious Jubilee gift of an
emblazoned copy of what a Monsignore of my acquaintance calls "the
godless American Constitution."[8]
We made a quick quiet passage to Kingstown. These boats--certainly the
best appointed of their sort afloat--are owned, I find, in Dublin, and
managed exclusively by their Irish owners, to whom the credit therefore
belongs of making the mail service between Holyhead and Kingstown as
admirable, in all respects, as the mail services between Dover and the
Continental ports are not.
I landed at Kingstown with Lord Ernest Hamilton, M.P. for North Tyrone,
with whom I have arranged an expedition to Gweedore in Donegal, one of
the most ill-famed of the "congested districts" of Ireland, and just now
made a point of special interest by the arrest of Father M'Fadden, the
parish priest of the place, for "criminally conspiring to compel and
induce certain tenants not to fulfil their legal obligations."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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