A part of the Irish is asking our voice and our gold to help independence
for the whole of the Irish. Independence is not desired by the whole of
the Irish. Irishmen of Ulster have plainly said so. Everybody knows this.
Roman Catholics themselves are not unanimous. Only some of them desire
independence. These, known as Sinn Fein, appeal to us for deliverance from
their conqueror and oppressor; they dwell upon the oppression of England
beneath which Ireland is now crushed. They refer to England’s brutal and
unjustifiable conquest of the Irish nation seven hundred and forty-eight
years ago.
What is the truth, what are the facts?
By his bull “Laudabiliter,” in 1155, Pope Adrian the Fourth invited the
King of England to take charge of Ireland. In 1172 Pope Alexander the
Third confirmed this by several letters, at present preserved in the Black
Book of the Exchequer. Accordingly, Henry the Second went to Ireland. All
the archbishops and bishops of Ireland met him at Waterford, received him
as king and lord of Ireland, vowing loyal obedience to him and his
successors, and acknowledging fealty to them forever. These prelates were
followed by the kings of Cork, Limerick, Ossory, Meath, and by Reginald of
Waterford. Roderick O’Connor, King of Connaught, joined them in 1175. All
these accepted Henry the Second of England as their Lord and King,
swearing to be loyal to him and his successors forever.
Such was England’s brutal and unjustifiable conquest of Ireland.
Ireland was not a nation, it was a tribal chaos. The Irish nation of that
day is a legend, a myth, built by poetic imagination. During the centuries
succeeding Henry the Second, were many eras of violence and bloodshed. In
reading the story, it is hard to say which side committed the most crimes.
During those same centuries, violence and bloodshed and oppression existed
everywhere in Europe. Undoubtedly England was very oppressive to Ireland
at times; but since the days of Gladstone she has steadily endeavored to
relieve Ireland, with the result that today she is oppressing Ireland
rather less than our Federal Government is oppressing Massachusetts, or
South Carolina, or any State. By the Wyndham Land Act of 1903, Ireland was
placed in a position so advantageous, so utterly the reverse of
oppression, that Dillon, the present leader, hastened to obstruct the
operation of the Act, lest the Irish genius for grievance might perish
from starvation. Examine the state of things for yourself, I cannot swell
this book with the details; they are as accessible to you as the few facts
about the conquest which I have just narrated. Examine the facts, but even
without examining them, ask yourself this question: With Canada,
Australia, and all those other colonies that I have named above, satisfied
with England’s rule, hastening to her assistance, and with only Ireland
selling herself to Germany, is it not just possible that something is the
matter with Ireland rather than with England? Sinn Fein will hear of no
Home Rule. Sinn Fein demands independence. Independence Sinn Fein will not
get. Not only because of the outrage to unconsenting Ulster, but also
because Britain, having just got rid of one Heligoland to the East, will
not permit another to start up on the West. As early as August 25th, 1914,
mention in German papers was made of the presence in Berlin of Casement
and of his mission to invite Germany to step into Ireland when England was
fighting Germany. The traffic went steadily on from that time, and broke
out in the revolution and the crimes in Dublin in 1916. England discovered
the plan of the revolution just in time to foil the landing in Ireland of
Germany, whom Ireland had invited there. Were England seeking to break
loose from Ireland, she could sue Ireland for a divorce and name the
Kaiser as co-respondent. Any court would grant it.
The part of Ireland which does not desire independence, which desires it
so little that it was ready to resist Home Rule by force in 1914, is the
steady, thrifty, clean, coherent, prosperous part of Ireland. It is the
other, the unstable part of Ireland, which has declared Ireland to be a
Republic. For convenience I will designate this part as Green Ireland, and
the thrifty, stable part as Orange Ireland. So when our politicians
sympathize with an “Irish” Republic, they befriend merely Green Ireland;
they offend Orange Ireland.
Americans are being told in these days that they owe a debt of support to
Irish independence, because the “Irish” fought with us in our own struggle
for Independence. Yes, the Irish did, and we do owe them a debt of
support. But it was the Orange Irish who fought in our Revolution, not the
Green Irish. Therefore in paying the debt to the Green Irish and clamoring
for “Irish” independence, we are double crossing the Orange Irish.
“It is a curious fact that in the Revolutionary War the Germans and
Catholic Irish should have furnished the bulk of the auxiliaries to the
regular English soldiers;... The fiercest and most ardent Americans of
all, however, were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their descendants.”
History of New York, p. 133, by Theodore Roosevelt.
Next, in what manner have the Green Irish incurred our thanks?
They made the ancient and honorable association of Tammany their own. Once
it was American. Now Tammany is Green Irish. I do not believe that I need
pause to tell you much about Tammany. It defeated Mitchel, a loyal but
honest Catholic, and the best Mayor of Near York in thirty years. It is a
despotism built on corruption and fear.
During our Civil War, it was the Green Irish that resisted the draft in
New York. They would not fight. You have heard of the draft riots in New
York in 1862. They would not fight for the Confederacy either.
During the following decade, in Pennsylvania, an association, called the
Molly Maguires, terrorized the coal regions until their reign of
assassination was brought to an end by the detection, conviction, and
execution of their ringleaders. These were Green Irish.
In Cork and Queenstown during the recent war, our American sailors were
assaulted and stoned by the Green Irish, because they had come to help
fight Germany. These assaults, and the retaliations to which they led,
became so serious that no naval men under the rank of Commander were
permitted to go to Cork. Leading citizens of Cork came to beg that this
order be rescinded. But, upon being cross-examined, it was found that the
Green Irish who had made the trouble had never been punished. Of this many
of us had news before Admiral Sims in The World’s Work for November, pages
63-64, gave it his authoritative confirmation.
Taking one consideration with another, it hardly seems to me that our debt
to the Green Irish is sufficiently heavy for us to hinder England for the
sake of helping them and Germany.
Not all the Green Irish were guilty of the attacks upon our sailors; not
all by any means were pro-German; and I know personally of loyal Roman
Catholics who are wholly on England’s side, and are wholly opposed to Sinn
Fein. Many such are here, many in Ireland: them I do not mean. It is Sinn
Fein that I mean.
In 1918, when England with her back to the wall was fighting Germany, the
Green Irish killed the draft. Here following, I give some specific
instances of what the Roman Catholic priests said.
April 21st. After mass at Castletown, Bear Haven, Father Brennan ordered
his flock to resist conscription, take the sacrament, and to be ready to
resist to the death; such death insuring the full benediction of God and
his Church. If the police resort to force, let the people kill the police
as they would kill any one who threatened their lives. If soldiers came in
support of the draft, let them be treated like the police. Policemen and
soldiers dying in their attempt to carry out the draft law, would die the
enemies of God, while the people who resisted them would die in peace with
God and under the benediction of his Church.
Father Lynch said in church at Ryehill: “Resist the draft by every means
in your power. Any minion of the English Government who fires upon you,
above all if he is a Catholic, commits a mortal sin and God will punish
him.”
In the chapel at Kilgarvan Father Murphy said: “Every Irishman who helps
to apply the draft in Ireland is not only a traitor to his country, but
commits a mortal sin against God’s law.”
At mass in Scariff the Rev. James MacInerney said: “No Irish Catholic,
whatever his station be, can help the draft in this country without
denying his faith.”
April 28th. After having given the communion to three hundred men in the
church at Eyries, County Cork, Father Gerald Dennehy said: “Any Catholic
who either as policeman or as agent of the government shall assist in
applying the draft, shall be excommunicated and cursed by the Roman
Catholic Church. The curse of God will follow him in every land. You can
kill him at sight, God will bless you and it will be the most acceptable
sacrifice that you can offer.”
Referring to any policeman who should attempt to enforce the draft, Father
Murphy said at mass in Killenna, “Any policeman who is killed in such
attempt will be damned in hell, even if he was in a state of grace that
very morning.”
Ninety-five percent of those Irish policemen were Catholics and had to
respect the commands of those priests.
Ireland is England’s business, not ours. But the word “self-determination”
appears to hypnotize some Americans. We must not be hypnotized by this
word. It is upon the “principle” expressed in this word that our
sympathies with the Irish Republic are asked. The six northeastern
counties of Ulster, on the “principle” of self-determination, should be
separated from the Irish Republic. But the Green Irish will not listen to
that. Protestants in Ulster had to listen in their own chief city to Sinn
Fein rejoicings over German victories. The rebellion of 1916, when Sinn
Fein opened the back door that England’s enemies might enter and destroy
her—this dastardly treason was made bloody by cowardly violence. The
unarmed and the unsuspecting were shot down and stabbed in cold blood.
Later, soldiers who came home from the front, wounded soldiers too, were
persecuted and assaulted. The men of Ulster don’t wish to fall under the
power of the Green Irish.
“We do not know whether the British statesmen are right in asserting a
connection between Irish revolutionary feeling and German propaganda. But
in such a connection we should see no sign of a bad German policy.” Thus
wrote a Prussian deputy in Das Grossere Deutschland. That was over there.
This was over here:—
“The fraternal understanding which unites the Ancient Order of Hibernians
and the German-American Alliance receives our unqualified endorsement.
This unity of effort in all matters of a public nature intended to
circumvent the efforts of England to secure an Anglo-American alliance
have been productive of very successful results. The congratulations of
those of us who live under the flag of the United States are extended to
our German-American fellow citizens upon the conquests won by the
fatherland, and we assure them of our unshaken confidence that the German
Empire will crush England and aid in the liberation of Ireland, and be a
real defender of small nations.” See the Boston Herald of July 22, 1916.
During our Civil War, in 1862, a resolution of sympathy with the South was
stifled in Parliament.
On June 6, 1919, our Senate passed, with one dissenting voice, the
following, offered by Senator Walsh, democrat, of Massachusetts:
“Resolved, that the Senate of the United States express its sympathy with
the aspirations of the Irish people for a government of its own choice.”
What England would not do for the South in 1862, we now do against England
our ally, against Ulster, our friend in our Revolution, and in support of
England’s enemies, Sinn Fein and Germany.
Ireland has less than 4,500,000 inhabitants; Ulster’s share is about one
third, and its Protestants outnumber its Catholics by more than three
fourths. Besides such reprisals as they saw wrought upon wounded soldiers,
they know that the Green Irish who insist that Ulster belong to their
Republic, do so because they plan to make prosperous and thrifty Ulster
their milch cow.
Let every fair-minded American pause, then, before giving his sympathy to
an independent Irish Republic on the principle of self-determination, or
out of gratitude to the Green Irish. Let him remember that it was the
Orange Irish who helped us in our Revolution, and that the Orange Irish do
not want an independent Irish Republic. There will be none; our
interference merely makes Germany happy and possibly prolongs the existing
chaos; but there will be none. Before such loyal and thinking Catholics as
the gentleman who said to me that word about “spoiling the ship for a
ha’pennyworth of tar,” and before a firm and coherent policy on England’s
part, Sinn Fein will fade like a poisonous mist.
