Skip to main content

Full text of "The Life Of Charles Stewart Parnell Vol - I"

See other formats


.KT. &*]               THE .MAiNGllESTEK MEN                      49
not afraid to die. I only trust that those who are to he tried after us will have a fair trial, and that our blood \\ill satisfy the craving which, I understand, exists. You will soon send us before God, and I am perfectly prepared to go. 1 have nothing to regret, or to retract, or take hack. I can only say, " God save Ireland ! " ' ' God save Ireland!' repeated all the prisoners, and 'God save Ireland!' has since become a political watchword in the country.
All England was profoundly moved by this Manchester affair.    Irish discontent and Irish treason were painfully brought home, to the English people.    But the first feeling was one. of vengeance and retaliation, when the. mob which gathered round the gaol the night before1, the execution, shouting, cheering, and reviling the men within, singing * Kule, Britannia,' performing break-down dances, and bursting into yells of glee, only too faithfully represented the general feeling of triumph and satisfaction at the fate of the doomed men.    On the morning of November 2.'l, 18(57, Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien perished  on the scaffold.    Nothing can, perhaps, bettor show the. chasm which separates English from Irish political opinion than the way in which the ne.ws of their execution was received in each country. In  England  it awoke a pjnan of joy:   in Ireland it produced a growl of indignation and horror.    In the one  country   they  were  regarded   as  murderers  and traitors, in the, other as heroes and martyrs.   Up to this time a section  of the Constitutional-Nationalists was more or less out of sympathy with the Ionian movement.   But the. Mane.hcsltu- executions brought all Irish Nationalists into line.   * Commemorative funerals' were held in almost every principal city in Ireland, and Consti-tAitbnal-Natbnalists and Revolutionists marched side VOL. i.                                                           E