But what do you do in reality? The local papers teem with
cases of distress: families are starving; the poor, unhoused and unfed,
are seen upon the road sides exposed to every vicissitude of the season,
surrounded by children who cry in vain for bread. What, I ask, is the
measure of relief you propose? not a public subscription; no general
outburst of national charity--no public work upon a grand scale to give
employment to the idle, food to the hungry, health to the sick, and
hope to all. None of these. Your panacea is the Repeal of the Union; you
purpose to substitute for those amiable jobbers in College-green, who
call themselves Directors of the Bank of Ireland, another set of
jobbers infinitely more pernicious and really dishonest, who will call
themselves Directors of Ireland itself; you talk of the advantage to the
country, and particularly of the immense benefits that must accrue to
the capital. Let us examine them a little.
Dublin, you say, will be a flourishing city, inhabited by lords and
ladies: wealth, rank, and influence will dwell in its houses and parade
its streets. The glare of lamps, the crash of carriages, all the
pride, pomp, and circumstances of fashion, will flow back upon the
long-deserted land, and Paris and London will find a rival to compete
with them, in this small city of the west. Would that this were so;
would that it could be! This, however, is the extent of what you promise
yourselves: you may ring the changes as you please, but the “refrain”
of your song is, that Dublin shall “have its own again.” Well, for
argument's sake, I say, be it so. The now silenced squares shall wake
to the echoes of thundering equipages, peers and prelates shall again
inhabit the dwellings long since the residence of hotel-keepers,
or still worse, those little democracies of social life, called
boarding-houses. Your theatre shall be crowded, your shops frequented,
and every advantage of wealth diffused through all the channels of
society, shall be yours. As far as Dublin is concerned, I say--for, mark
me, I keep you to this original point, in the land of your promise you
have strictly limited the diffusion of your blessings by the boundary of
the Circular road; even the people at Ringsend and Ballybough bridge
are not to be included, unless a special bill be brought in for their
benefit. Still the picture is a brilliant one: it would be a fine
thing to see all the pomp and ceremony of proud popery walk the land
at noon-day, with its saints in gold, and its relics in silver; for of
course this is included in the plan. Prosperous Ireland must be Catholic
Ireland, and even Spain and Belgium will hide their diminished heads
when compared with the gorgeous homage rendered to popery at home. The
“gentlemen of Liffey-street chapel,” far better-looking fellows than any
foreign priest you 'll meet with from Trolhatten to Tivoli, will walk
about _in pontificalibus_; and all the exciting enthusiasm that Romanism
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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