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FACTS OF IRISH HISTORY

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ENGLISH PROPAGANDA

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" Ignorance of Irish History is the greatest
impediment to our dignity." — O'Halleran.

By PATRICK J. LALLY

14

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I „ Page 5

Why England Went to Ireland; How They Ridiculed the Irish;
How They Declared It no Crime to Kill or Rob an Irishman;
Two Concrete Cases; The Statutes of Kilkenny.

CHAPTER II Page 9

Massacres; Massacre of Seventy Prisoners; Strongbow's At-
tempt; Massacres by: The Duke of Ormond, Sir Walter Raleigh,
Elizabeth, Coote Clifford, Swanley and the Earl of Warwick; Mas-
sacres of: Mullaghimast, Island Magee, The Fitzgeralds, Gibbets Rath;
Quotations from : Begbie, Smiles, Du Boies, Mrs. Green, Hollinshed.

CHAPTER III Page 14

Confiscations, Exterminations and Famine; Confiscations by:
Strongbow, Edw. Third, Henry Eighth, Elizabeth, Cromwell; Quota-
tion from Arthur Young; Short Story of the Famine and Know-
Nothing Propaganda.

CHAPTER IV Page 18

The Reformation; How Ireland was Persecuted; Price Placed on
the Heads of Priests, Monks, Schoolteachers, Bards and Wolves;
Methods of Priest Hunting — Various Forms of Torture; Bishops
Tortured for Their Faith; Story of Father Enright; Quotations
From: Milner, Mitchel, Montesquien, Godkin.

CHAPTER V Page 23

How Ireland Fought for Her Freedom in the Field of Battle and
Legislative Halls; Continual War From 1169 to 1691; Tremen-
dous Number of Victories Won by Irish; How Ireland Fought for
and Won Self Determination; How England Won the Union by
the Worst Bribery and Corruption in History; Quotations by:
Gladstone, Lecky, Begbie.

CHAPTER VI Page 30

How Irish Industries were Crushed, Including Wool, Cloth,
Cattle, Fisheries, Glass, Tobacco, etc.; Why Ireland Should be
an Independent Nation; Date of Enactment of Various Prohib-
itory Laws; How Ireland's Population were Scattered and How
She is Overtaxed; Quotations from Froude.

CHAPTER VII Page 34

What Ireland has Contributed to the present War; What Ireland
Has Done for the United States; Why Irishmen Should Organize
to Meet the Propaganda Aimed at Them; Quotations from R. L.
and Captain McMahon; How England Charged Ireland with
Being Pro-American and Carried the Irish Prisoners to England
to Execute Them; How President Madison Interfered and Saved
the Irish.

CHAPTER VIII Page 42

Propaganda; How England Pensions Her Authors; Names of
English Writers Who Insulted Ireland; How England Easily
Shapes the Literary Policy of the World; A Review of the Vari-
ous Forms of Propaganda; Anonymous Writers; Brief Reference
to cohalan and o'leary; quotations from general marshal
and Michael McManus.

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NOTE

The author of this pamphlet has planned to publish a work on Irish
history as soon as more data relative to the war can be procured. By group-
ing together many important, neglected and interesting facts, the writer thinks
it possible to treat the history of Ireland in about a five hundred page book.

From this contemplated volume, this pamphlet is practically taken.
The present is surely the most opportune time to call attention to a few of the
salient features of our case, because of the painful fact that heretofore Eng-
lish propaganda has made Irish subjects of any kind very unpopular in the
United States.

In order to arrive at logical conclusions, we must lay bare the relation-
ship that existed between England and Ireland. We must show how the
stream was polluted at its very source. We can never discuss a question
fairly by scratching its surface; we must lay bare the root of the whole evil.
This the writer has attempted to do in the eight brief chapters contained
here.

The main and principal claim of this pamphlet is a strict adherence to
the well established facts of European and American history. To mislead
purposely or make false statements will answer no useful purpose; therefore,
whatever demerits it possesses, the author has aimed at plain, unvarnished,
simple truths.

The assertions made here are so startling that the writer thought it
wise to re-enforce his charges by such quotations as are found at the end of
each chapter.

If this little pamphlet succeeds in stirring up a little interest in the noblest
cause that tongue or pen ever fought, he will feel well repaid for his labor.

Patrick J. Lally.

Cambridge, Mass.

4137

CHAPTER I

Tk> discuss any subject by merely scratching its surface leads to noth-
ing. England's methods are abuse and misrepresentation. To arrive at a
logical conclusion we must dig deep and lay bare the root of the evil.

The Irish question is a very simple one. England, according to her
own reasons, was commissioned by an English pope to go and reform the
morals of the Irish people. In the words of Hume, "She introduced humanity
and justice among a race who had lived previously in profound barbarism."

In the month of May, 1196, on the Wexford coast, there landed a small
Norman army. They were so badly beaten that the clergy of Ireland ap-
pealed to Roderick O'Connor, then King, to stay his hand. A conference
was called and a meeting held at the Church of Ferns, before the high altar
of which the Normen swore that they would go back home as soon as shipping
could be procured. Soon reinforcements arrived; the Normen or Saxons
broke their treaty by remaining and they are there yet.

Henry Second soon arrived, his hands red with the blood of St. Thomas
a Beqket, his body polluted with the outrage of his son's betrothed wife and
his lire of shame was known to all. His wife was tied up in chains, his son
thrown into jail. He had robbed the Church, defied the Pope and boasted
that he had no more dread of excommunication than he would of a rotten
egg. He later passed away, cursing the day upon which he was born and
the children he left behind him, without the last rites of the Church.

He sized up the situation and diplomatically decided that he merely
wished to be recognized as Suzerain. A treaty was made, known as the
"Treaty of Windsor," and was properly approved of by Henry and Archbishop
Duffy in behalf of Ireland. This treaty was promptly broken, as was also
the treaty of Limerick, solemnly subscribed to. England is the worst of-
fender in the world as a treaty breaker, to which truth the United States
and France, as well as Ireland, can testify. Not only has England broken
her treaties with impunity, but she has been able to convince the world that
she is the only country which has a right to do so.

England went to Ireland primarily for conquest. A favorable oppor-
tunity was found. " William the Conqueror and William Rufus openly boasted
that they would conquer Ireland. Pearson, the English historian, is author-
ity for this statement. England carried war into France, Scotland and
Wales, and why not into Ireland? It was simply a question of opportunity.
How can any sane person think that conquest was not England's motive?
And yet she has been fairly successful in confusing the world on that subject.

This question is no argument; it is a simple statement of fact. England
felt herself to be strong enough and through her insidious diplomacy she had
read in all the churches of Ireland letters purporting to have come from the
Pope, calling upon the people of Ireland to accept Henry in the interest of
religion and morality.

The main question is, has Ireland gained by allowing England to be-
come her master? The blindest English partisan must admit that English
rule is a curse to Ireland. She has lost all and gained nothing. Here is
where English intricate diplomacy shines. England has gained the ear of
the world and has convinced its people that the Irish are unable to govern
themselves and that they will allow nobody else to do so.

England does not wish to appear as a brutal conqueror, but would rather
pose as a benefactor, the leader grand of civilization; yet there has not been
a crime committed by Germany in Belgium or France that England has not
committed a worse one in Ireland, which may be proved by incontrovertible
facts.

Ireland contends that she has ever been misrepresented, that she has
never been given a square deal. Because she is not satisfied with slavery,
England contends that Ireland would not be satisfied with liberty. Ireland
says, I have never had the opportunity to govern myself, and because I am
indignant with slavery, it is stupid to say that I would be dissatisfied with
freedom. Besides, I am only asking what belongs to me, what was taken
away from me by brute force and superior treachery.

The next question the world asks is why did not Ireland accept English
laws, customs, manners, religion, ideals, etc., and become a contented limb
of the great British Empire? In order to understand this question thor-
oughly, we must read Irish history, follow it to its very source and point out
how England has ruled her by a process of extermination and confiscation
unparalleled in the world's history. Strangely enough, the Tory Englishmen
keeps himself purposely blind on the Irish question. He would like to throw
a wet blanket of obscurity over the whole scene. The next best thing he can
do is to abuse the Irish and throw dust in the eyes of the world in order to
confuse the situation.

The English made all kinds of fun of the Irish. They ridiculed their
dress, manners and speech. To illustrate: John, afterwards King of England,
was sent over as Lord of Ireland. He invited a number of the leading rep-
resentatives of the Irish nation to his court and treated them with the ut-
most contempt. The most dangerous thing in the world to do to an Irish-
man is to ridicule him. John commenced the fun by pulling the whiskers
of Prince O'Brien, who promptly left the court and in a very practical man-
ner headed, organized, drilled and disciplined an army. John, as the cus-
tom went, started on a triumphal tour. O'Brien threw his army against
him at Ardfinnan, Tipperary, and disastrously defeated him. The English

6

were now everywhere defeated. John was suddenly recalled in disgrace and
the Irish were temporarily appeased.

To illustrate the contempt the English had for the Irish, we will quote
from Froude, who unwittingly bares England's methods. "Before experience
it would have been equally reasonable to expect that the modern Englishman
would adopt the habits of a Hindu or a Mohican as that the fiery Knights of
Normandy would have stooped to imitate whom they despised as slaves."

As English law unfolded itself it became more and more brutal. Year
by year she tried to extend her conquests, sometimes partly successful, at
other times disastrously defeated. Froude informs us* that in the year 1515,
three hundred and fifty years after her invasion, all England owned was a
strip of one thousand square miles, or one thirty-second part of Ireland.
The English forced the Irish outside the pale of the law and declared them
everlasting rebels whom it was honorable to kill, rob, murder or outrage.
This seems incredible, and were it not for England's own state papers, it
would be a hard task to convince the world that such brutality was resorted to.

Sir James Davies, Attorney General under James First, and author of
"Historical Tracts," proved a hundred different times that it was no crime
to kill an Irishman, in fact, he cheerfully justifies the crime and recommends
that the Irishman be robbed for his own sake. We will here introduce two
concrete cases as proof positive.

In the year 1301 at the city of Drogheda, Thomas Le Bottelier brought
suit against Robert De Almain for the recovery of stolen goods. The case
was surrounded with all the formality and solemnity of English law. De-
Almain did not deny his guilt. His plea was that Le Bottelier was an Irish-
man who had changed his name; therefore, he was not bound to answer the
charge. The jury was sworn and retired to determine, not De Almain's in-
nocence or guilt, but Le Bottelier's nationality. The jury found that Le-
Bottelier was an Irishman who had changed his name; therefore, he had no
standing before the court. The case was therefore dismissed.

In the year 1311 at Limerick, one Fitzrogers was tried for murdering a
man named De Cantellon. His plea was that De Cantellon was an Irish-
man who had changed his name; therefore, he was not bound to answer the
charge. The jury retired and brought in a verdict that De Cantellon was
Irish and had no standing before the Court.

These two cases will give a fair idea of English law. Year by year the
law became more and more brutal, the two races becoming more and more
antagonistic towards each other. The Irish were always looked upon a
slaves and they in turn struck back hard and often. In order to thoroughly
separate and prevent any possible intercourse, assimilation or amalgamation
between the Irish and English, Edward Third instructed the English colony
to meet at Kilkenny and that infamous code known as the "Statutes of Kil-
kenny" was passed. Search the history of legislative assemblies all over the

civilized world, and you will find no law so low, base and brutal as the Kil-
kenny Statutes, directed as they were against a race which then knelt at the
same altar as themselves. The Statutes of Kilkenny declared it a capital
crime to intermarry with the Irish, the offender to be shamefully mutilated
while alive and his property confiscated. It was declared a crime to speak
the Irish language, to go into an Irish house of worship, to play Ireland's
^national games, to be controlled by Brehon laws; in fact, the law was thor-
ough and covered every phase of relationship that would be likely to exist
between two peoples.

Why should England look upon the Irish with such horror and contempt?
Because Ireland refused to be conquered. She gave them blow for blow.
The original stream was thus poisoned. The stream has grown into a river
and as it has flowed onward, it has increased in fury. Each crime forced
the races farther and farther apart until, after seven hundred and fifty years,
England is no farther advanced in the affections of the Irish than she was that
memorable May morning in the year 1169 when she first planted her foul
footsteps on our soil.

Ireland, so renowned for its sanctity, missionary zeal and great institu-
tions of learning — Ireland, the only country in the world that Rome could not
conquer, that accepted Christianity without bloodshed, that became the
educator of Europe, that founded the Kingdom of Scotland, that defeated
the Saxons, Picts and Welsh and finally defeated the Danes, now fell a victim
to English treachery or propaganda work and allowed them to get a foothold.
Remember this one fact — and we cannot reiterate it too often — that in the
field of intricate diplomacy, treachery or propaganda the Irish were never a
match for the English, in fact, they became easy victims to English propa-
ganda since the day that De Burgo, Henry's agent purporting to have letters
from the Pope, proclaimed in all the Churches that Ireland, under penalty
of excommunication, was ordered to accept Henry and the English as their
rulers.

In Ireland it was always Catholic first and Ireland afterwards, while in
England it was England first, last and all the time. Then, as now, they
cared no more about excommunication than they did about a rotten egg, as
Henry declared. Then and now they are past masters in the art of propa-
ganda.

CHAPTER II

Massacres

As Germany's crimes in Belgium and Northern France are still green in
our memories, and as they have stirred the world as it was never stirred be-
fore, a comparison might be made by declaring that the worst crime charged
against the Germans cannot be compared in atrocity with the crimes Eng-
land has actually perpetrated on the Irish people in every age of her history,
covering the long period of seven hundred and fifty years. This startling
charge we can easily prove, not alone by Irish, but even by English and other
foreign writers.

Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, shortly after landing in Ireland, invited
the leading men within his reach to a great love feast or banquet. At the
appropriate time, he gave word to murder them all. It happened that a
knight named Pendergast carried the invitations to the Irish, their leader
being the Prince of Ossory. At the thought of such a foiil deed his noble
nature stirred, and springing up, with a solemn threat he swore by the cross
on the hilt of his sword that he would defend them with his life. Suiting
his action to his words, he led the party from the hall in safety, interposing
himself between the unarmed Irish and their murderous enemies. For this
noble act, he has been eulogized in song and story ever since and is known in
history as the "faithful Saxon." Unfortunately for Ireland, the faithful
Saxons have been too few.

In one of the series of battles fought, at Dublin seventy Irish prisoners
were captured. They were condemned to have their bones broken with
hammers, to remain stretched on the ground all night, and while yet alive
to be dragged towards a steep cliff and thrown into the sea. All the his-
torians of the time refer to this; even Cambrensis and C. H. Pearson, the
English historians, admit that "they were foully murdered."

This method became England's set policy whenever she wanted to de-
prive Ireland of a great leader or leaders. The victim was reached by poison,
or by inviting him to a meeting, a conference or a banquet, and as soon as he
fell into English hands, his life was forfeited. Art McMurrough, Prince of
Leinster, attended a banquet tendered to him by the Saxons. He was warned
by a friendly bard, and pretending that he had forgotten something, he strayed
from the hall, sprang on a horse and escaped to safety. He solemnly vowed
he would never again talk to an Englishman except across a stream or in
some other secure place. And yet, with all his precautions, he was poisoned
by an old woman. As he was passing by, she proffered him a drink, from
which he died.

9

Shane the Proud fought as a hero should, and when all his resources
were exhausted, he threw himself on the mercy of the Scots, who, at the
request of an Englishman named Piers, foully cut off his head. The head
was placed over Dublin Castle, and a popular poem, "Shane's Head," com-
memorates the event.

Hugh Roe O'Donnell, Prince of Tyrconnel was invited on board an
English ship by the Deputy. He was soon lodged in Dublin jail, where he
suffered tortures, but fortunately escaped through the aid of powerful friends.
Owen Roe O'Neill, victor of Benburb, was killed by poison. Even the
great Hugh O'Neill was invited to a meeting in Dublin, the Deputy having
had private instructions to apprehend him. Fortunately he was warned
and avoided the trap.

After every massacre the lands and property of the murdered ones were
divided among the murderers. Perhaps 'tis needless to say that that was
their primary motive. The Earl of Essex, with a powerful colony, settled on
Shane O'Neill's confiscated estates. Constant war followed. Brian O'Neill
invited Essex to a conference and banquet at his castle at Clannaboy. The
Earl accepted, and at the head of a strong, well-armed party, he visited the
unsuspecting Brian. At the proper time the Saxons drew their secreted
weapons, sprang upon their entertainers and murdered them to a man. Brian
and his wife were temporarily spared only as hostages, and were murdered as
soon as Essex had escaped, which he was compelled to do hurriedly after the
massacre.

Hugh O'Connor, King of Connaght, was offered a home by one Muresco.
He accepted and was promptly murdered. The Fitzgeralds were all mur-
dered. It would take a whole volume to cover their sad story. One sick
boy suffering from small pox was carried away by a priest; he alone escaped
the general slaughter. But the bloodhounds were promptly on his trail.
He was smuggled into the O'Neill's country, next to the McCarthy's, and
finally he was smuggled to France. England promptly demanded him, owing
to treaty rights. France was not then friendly with England so he escaped
to Brussels. Once again England demanded him, but Cardinal Pole, a rela-
tive of Henry Eighth, succeeded in carrying him to Rome, where he was
educated. In Queen Mary's time he was finally reinstated in his possessions.
Silken Thomas Fitzgerald was offered pardon by Lord Grey if he would
surrender. He did, and with his five uncles he was executed at Tyburn on
the same day. Smerwick on the Kerry coast was defended by a small Span-
ish force. Upon promise of quarter they surrendered, when the knightly
Raleigh of cloak fame had them all murdered in cold blood. The gentle
poet Spencer defended the foul deed, and Lord Grey himself in contempt,
as he saw them all stretched out on the sand, declared, "They are as goodly
personages as I ever saw."

The Duke of Ormond boasted that "he put to death six thousand dis-

10

affected persons," while Froude claims "Munster was so vigorously laid waste
that the lowing of a cow or the sound of a plow-boy's whistle was not to be
heard from Valentia to the Rock of Cashel." Hollinshed, a bitter old Eng-
lish writer, said, "The traveler would not meet any man, woman or child
except in the cities," and Spencer declared with crocodile tears, "A stony
heart would rue the same."

MASSACRE OF MULLAGHMAST

Sir Francis Cosby, the Queen's representative in Leix and Ofally,
invited all the leaders of that section of the country to a great feast at the
Fort of Mullaghmast. All the influential people attended, particularly the
O'Moore's, to the number of four hundred. Cosby's plan was to get them
all together and murder them in one general massacre, needless to say, with the
consent of good Queen Bess. They were all in the midst of rejoicing and
good fellowship when Cosby admitted his armed soldiers, who fell upon the
unsuspecting and unarmed guests and murdered them to a man. This foul
crime is without doubt one of the blackest in history, yet it is a mere inci-
dent in our annals. Since the day Strongbow first attempted to murder
the Prince of Ossory and his party, until the present, England's favorite
policy was massacre.

Proofs are hardly necessary, yet should any person doubt the story,
Leland, as well as other English historians, substantiates it. Lord Claren-
don informs us that Sir Charles Coote, a notorious villain of the Cromwell
type, plundered and burned the town of Clontarf and massacred the towns-
people, men, women and children, and "three suckling infants." The men,
women and children of the village of Bullock, to escape the soldiers, set out to
to sea in boats. They were pursued and overtaken by Col. Clifford, and all
thrown into the sea and drowned. Castlehaven, a contemporary writer of
fame, informs us that Sir Arthur Loftus, Governor of Naas, marched out
with a party of horse, and being joined by Ormond from Dublin, "they both
killed such of the Irish as they met." The people retreated for shelter to a
great strait of furze situated on a hill. This was surrounded, set on fire and
any who tried to escape were driven back until all the men, women and chil-
dren were roasted to a crisp. Castlehaven emphatically states, "I saw the
bodies and the furze still burning." Throughout the whole country similar
scenes were enacted.

The Massacre of Island Magee, County Antrim, has been immortalized
by Ethna Carbery in a passionate song, "Brian Boy Magee." The soldiery
burst into the island at night, and murdered men, women and children in
bed. They drove the remainder before them at the point of bayonet towards
the awful Gobbins Cliffs, where they forced them over to a fearful death
below.

11

In 1644 the English Parliament ordered no quarter to Irish troops in
Britain. Captain Swanley seized a ship bound from Galway to Bristol.
Among the troops he found seventy Irish soldiers, whom he had thrown into
the sea. For this manly act he was thanked by the British Parliament and
given a great gold chain as a reward of merit. When the Earl of Warwick
captured an Irish ship, he tied the Irish sailors back to back and threw them
into the sea, according to Clarendon.

Of all the world fiends, however, Cromwell was the wickedest. He
went through Ireland like a hyena, rending and tearing, and stated in his
correspondence, "I thought it not right or good to restrain off the soldiers
from the right to pillage nor from doing execution on the enemy." "The
enemy were about three thousand strong. I believe we put to the sword
the whole number. I wish that all honest hearts may give the glory of this
to God alone, to whom indeed the praise of this mercy belongs." Parlia-
ment went on record appointing a day of Thanksgiving (October 2, 1649),
approving of the massacres as an act of justice to the murdered ones and
mercy to others who should be warned by it.

Cromwell's sickening slaughters would fill many volumes. We must
pass them over and content ourselves with citing a single case from Arthur
Wood, an Oxford historian whose brother served as an officer under Crom-
well. He says, "Each of the assailants would take up a child and use it as
a buckler of defence to keep him from being shot or brained. After they
had killed all in the Church, they went into the vaults underneath, where
all the choicest of women and ladies had hid themselves. One of these, a
most handsome virgin, arrayed in costly and gorgeous apparel, knelt down
to Wood with tears and prayers, begging for life, and being stricken with a
profound pity, he did take her under his arm for protection. But a soldier,
perceiving his intention, ran his sword through her."

In the year 1798 the Kildare insurgents to the number of about three
thousand, opened up negotiations with General Dundas to surrender. Dundas
promised them pardon upon surrendering their weapons and sent General
Welford to give them protection. The insurgents assembled at "Gibbet
Rath" in the Curragh, and on June 3rd gave up their arms. They were then
set upon by Sir James Duff and Lord Roden's fencible Calvary and mur-
dered to the number of three hundred and fifty; the remainder escaped.

"Men, women and children wherever found were indiscriminately put to
death. The soldiery were mad for blood. Priests were murdered at the
altar, children at the mother's breast. The beauty of woman, the venerable-
ness of age, the innocence of youth, was no protection against these sanguinary
demons in human form," says Dr. Smiles, Scotch Protestant.

"Not only did the English destroy crops and drive the cattle into their
own camps that the Irish might be starved, not only this, but they deliber-

12

ately and with cunning purpose made a great slaughter of infants. 'Nits will
be lice,' was the laughing murderous and devilish justification for this slaugh-
ter of babies. The steel of England's might ran red with the blood of Irish
infancy. 'Nits will be lice,' cried these slaughtering devils, and the beautiful
flower of Irish childhood was crushed into the bloody ooze of a land that was
like hell." — Harold Begbie.

"There was no protection for any soul — the old, the sick, infants, women,
scholars. No quarter was allowed, no faith kept, no truce given. . . . Poets
and historians were slaughtered and their books of genealogies burned." —
Mrs. Green, English historian's wife.

"The slaughter of Irishmen was looked upon as literally the slaughter
of wild beasts." — Lecky, Anti Home Ruler.

"The soldiers were so eager that they spared neither man, woman or
child." — Hollinshed, English historian.

The following is from Paul DuBoies: "In the Desmond country, when
all resistance was at an end, the soldiers forced the people into old barns,
which they set on fire, putting to the sword any who sought to escape. Sol-
diers were seen to catch children on the points of their swords, making them
squirm in the air in their death agony. . . . Women were found hanged from
trees with the children of their bosoms strangled in the hair of their mothers."

13

CHAPTER III

Confiscations, Exterminations and Famine

As the terms are practically synonomous, we will group together a few
cases of confiscation and the accompanying exterminations, including the
great Famine. The Romans of old, by a brutal application of power, were
able to have a few free men control a great mass of slaves. One well armed,
well drilled Roman was able to safely control five ignorant unarmed slaves.
England in a like manner enslaved the Irish, killing off or banishnig the spir-
ited ones, and she felt herself strong enough to control them in the proportion
of five to one for the purpose, of course, of drawing water and hauling wood.
In the first place, if the rich lands of Ireland were not held out as a prize for
the adventurers, they never would have gone there.

Strongbow confiscated a large portion of the island and divided it among
his barons, involving a continual war, as will be shown under the head "Ire-
land's Wars." W. Warburton, English historian, informs us that Edward
Third of Kilkenny Law infamy, "inherited the barbarous and iniquitous
traditions of English rule in Ireland. He declared void every grant of land
in Ireland and made new grants of the lands thus recovered to the crown."
Henry Eighth confiscated all the lands of Ireland by creating new titles and
transferring them over to those who would recognize him as head of the
Church. Incidentally he robbed the churches and divided the spoils between
himself and his followers. James First confiscated one-fourth of the lands
of Ireland and planted them with a landed aristocracy. These are mainly
the Orangemen of to-day.

Cromwell confiscated three-quarters of Ireland and portioned it out to
his own followers. Queen Elizabeth confiscated one-fourth of Ireland, the
whole province of Munster, and mopped it up as cleanly and thoroughly as
Froude informs us. Hollinshed and Spencer make similar statements. When
Raleigh murdered the Smerwick prisoners, he confiscated for himself six
hundred acres of the best land in Cork.

To sum up the whole mournful story of confiscation, Arthur Young, Eng-
lish author, in his "Tour of Ireland" (1776), declared, twenty-one million
acres, nineteen twentieths of the kingdom, changed hands from Catholic to
Protestant. Each confiscation was accompanied by extermination. One
was the logical complement of the other. After the sad close of the King
William War, Catholic Ireland was torn up by the roots and scattered all
over the world. Governor Dungan of New York was known in Ireland as
the Earl of Limerick. All his estates were confiscated and given over to one

14

of William's generals. To crown the work of infamy, every industry was
closed by law, which will be treated under another head.

We have now a fair idea of how England did her work in the field of con-
fiscation and extermination. The saddest of all was the great famine of
'46-48. Henry Giles once declared that "the story of Ireland was one of
blood and tears." He spoke truly. Sorrow permeates nearly every line of
her history; the bright spots are few and far between. Bloodstained, tear-
ful and sorrowful as her story is, the great famine and its terrible consequences
are the most sorrowful portion of it all.

Ireland received many sad. and heartrending blows. She engaged in
rebellion after rebellion. Norman and Plantagenet, York and Lancaster,
Tudor and Stuart, Orange and Brunswick vied with each other in savage
and inhuman brutality. But the famine was the saddest of all. Let us now
follow it out as it really occurred. The crops of 1845 were not very good.
They gave promise of failure and consequently the people were unable to
put by any supply. The year '46 was warm, but wet, yet the crops gave
excellent signs when suddenly a dense white fog hung heavily over the whole
country and completely destroyed the potato crop in one night. The people
were struck dumb and went round in a stoical half stupor. They at once
realized the gravity of the situation; their condition was something like a
community which lost all through fire or flood and had no place to go and
no way of selling their labor.

Daniel O'Connell arose in Parliament and pointed out the conditions
as they actually existed; he begged, exhorted and tried in every way to arouse
the Parliament as man never appealed before. Parliament replied by pass-
ing a coercion bill. The people began to die in hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands and hundreds of thousands. The government looked on com-
placently. The people were dying faster than could be hoped for, as de-
clared by the gentle poet Spencer on a former occasion. The gaunt, worn
and hungry father went out in the morning looking for something to eat and
generally came home at night empty handed and broken hearted, to see his
children stretched out on the ground sick, weak, emaciated, their bones stick-
ing nearly through their skin, their lips green from eating dock leaves and
water cresses. The father, very often wasted and worn, lay down and died
of either hunger or a broken heart, the rest of the family usually following.

From one end of the country to the other this terrible condition of af-
fairs existed, some districts, of course, being worse than others. The govern-
ment looked delightfully on. The landlords now decided on a general evic-
tion. Organized crowbar brigades commenced the terrible work, and from
one end of the country to the other the people were thrown out on the road-
side. The blowing up and burning of houses, the crash of falling walls, the
wails of the sick and dying and groans of the strong and desperate, mixed with
the curses of the brutal landlord hirelings, reverberated throughout the land.

15

Did England try to prevent the evictions? No! She was simply delighted.
The Irish question, the knotty Irish question was at last going to be settled
in an unlooked for way.

This fact should be understood. Irish eviction means total eradication,
the rooting out of the whole family. There is no hope or shadow of hope
after being once evicted, no work, no land; emigration is the only alternative.

The triple calamity of famine, plague and eviction drove the people lit-
erally emigration mad. Sadly, sorrowfully, silently, broken-heartedly, sul-
lenly and in blank despair they left, not buoyed up with the hopes or aspira-
tions of the average emigrant. Their real sorrows and trials had as yet only
begun. They scattered themselves everywhere, — Scotland, England, Aus-
tralia, Canada and the United States. They were packed into ships like
sardines in a box, where a total disregard for all sanitary laws prevailed, and
in their weakened condition they became easy victims of the dreaded ship
fever, and the steady splash, splash of throwing the dead into the ocean be-
came familiar to all. Whole families died on the trip across, and it was noth-
ing unusual to have one member of the family reach these shores alive, the
rest having all perished. Emily Lawless estimates that "one-fifth of the
emigrants died from the dreaded fever alone."

Fortunately the New York authorities kept a record of the number of
sick immigrants entering port. This is what the records state:

Percentage of sick emigrants on English vessels 30

Percentage of sick emigrants on German vessels . 8 3/5

Percentage of sick emigrants on American vessels 9 3/5

The foregoing figures speak for themselves and are the most terrible arraign-
ment of English brutality that could be conceived. There were hospitals
to take care of the sick, and the Board of Aldermen of New York appointed
a committee to see how they were conducted. Here is an extract from their
report: "In one apartment fifty feet square there were one hundred sick and
dying emigrants lying on straw, and among them, in their midst, the bodies
of two who had died four or five days before, but had been left for that time
without burial." They further found putrid meat, decayed vegetables and
bad flour especially purchased for the strangers.

This is a terrible picture, yet it only introduces the subject. Henry
Giles, in his lectures, comes as near picturing conditions as they existed as
any man could. One would think that Ireland's abject condition would
draw a sigh of sympathy from England. No such thing. From one end of
England to the other the people on the whole were chuckling with glee. The
London Times exultingly declared that "A Catholic Celt in Ireland would
soon be as rare as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan." High and low
rich and poor were delighted at the turn affairs had taken.

England, diplomatic to the last, and rightly judging that the poor emi-

16

grants would stir up sympathy in the United States, pursued them here as
unrelentingly as ever. Every possible agency she could engage was aroused
against them. The libraries were packed with books blackening the Irish
character. England's agents and secret service men found access to all
influential societies and by appealing to the old religious and sectional preju-
dices she succeeded in stirring up the "Know-Nothing" movement.

"Porter drinking propertyless knaves," "Departing demons of assassina-
tion and murder," "A population preternaturally ignorant and lazy," "A
race of cowards," "Eternal rebels against the despotism of facts," "Like a
witch of Endor mumbling curses because they could not burn at the stake
and shed blood as of yore," "They might be all right in a polling booth, but
could not handle a rifle" were some of the things said against them by serious
historians, and to complete the work of malignity, Froude made a tour of the
United States, exercising his talents to blacken them still more. A charac-
teristic propaganda article by J. T. Buckingham to the Know-Nothings of
New York City is quoted herewith:

"In the plenitude of that generosity which has induced us to feed the
hungry and clothe the naked, we have warmed into life the torpid viper and
fanged adder that already begin to show their teeth and spit their venom
upon our dear and blood-bought privileges, our sacred and most cherished
institutions. Already the foreigners attempt to control our legislators to
nominate our magistrates and to brow-beat our voters at the ballot box ; and
if any of them are too diffident or too ignorant to talk to us in the tone of
defiance and domination, they sell their votes to the more enlightened and
crafty demagogue and perjure their souls at the hand of profligate leaders."

As late as 1855, Governor Gardener of Massachusetts recommended in
his inaugural address "an amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the
right of aliens to vote until they were twenty-one years in the country."
"The honor of the American flag," he contended, "should be confided to
those only who are born on the soil, hallowed by its protection; they alone
can justly be required to vindicate its rights." Fortunately for the Irish in
the United States, England did all she could to break up the Union, there-
fore her propaganda work was not quite so effective because of her hostility.

17

CHAPTER IV

Religious Persecution

Ireland's sufferings were many and varied, but the so-called Reformation
fell upon her the heaviest of all. The basest scoundrels on earth were en-
gaged in priest-hunting. Many of the hunters made a regular business of
it, employing a number of men as well as bloodhounds. A well-equipped
priest hunter was generally possessed of a smattering of education, and by
assuming the role of a priest he Very often succeeded in getting information
leading to their capture. The price of the head varied from time to time,
depending on the importance of the priest and the spirit of the times. It
was not unusual to capture five or six priests in one hunt. The English
state papers inform us that a Lieutenant Wood captured five priests and
three friars in one hunt. Henry Eighth commenced the work in a very
shrewd manner. He abolished all the old titles and created new ones. Any-
one who recognized him as head of the Church was treated in a princely
manner. To each new title he granted generous revenues by robbing the
churches and dividing the spoils between himself and the newly created
nobles.

Of course, the old Celtic Irish were proof against such materialism.
The converts to a man were Anglo-Irish. This was the commencement of
what was afterwards termed the Penal Code. Year after year brutal laws
were passed until, as declared by Montesquieu, "They were conceived by
devils, written in human gore and registered in hell." Every possible pun-
ishment that could be thought of was resorted to. This led to perpetual
war.

The Catholic religion was solemnly declared high treason. Commencing
in Henry Eighth's time, the horrors continued year by year until as late as
George First's time the inhuman, brutal and horrible law of castration was
passed. Is it possible that England would degrade herself by allowing her
Irish Parliament to pass a law that would make Nero blush with shame?
Such is unfortunately the case!

To debase Ireland and prevent her from being able to present her case,
education must be crushed; therefore, a price was placed on the head of a
schoolteacher. Is it possible? Yes. And what is England's excuse. The
Irish must reform and go to Protestant schools. Churches were closed.
The Irish were not alone commanded to go to Protestant Churches, but
they were compelled to support them. Schools, churches and colleges were
closed, type broken and every possible agency of education closed against

18

Catholics. A price was offered for the head of a bishop, priest, bard or a
wolf. This law gave birth to a school of priest hunters. The most success-
ful ones were specially trained in the Continent for such work. The Irish
maintained sixteen colleges in Rome, France, Spain, Belgium and Portugal
for educating priests who very often had a foreign accent. A Portuguese
Jew named Garza captured five priests in one year in and around Dublin,
according to John Mitchel. Catholics could not go to school at home, nor
could they be sent abroad. Discovery of such a crime as education wrecked
and ruined the parents of the child or man.

Catholics could not own property except by connivance. They could
not make a will, take a lease or become the guardian of their own children.
They could not sit in Parliament or vote, in fact, they could not enter the
Parliament house as observers. Any Protestant who informed on a Cath-
olic owning property became possessor of the same. Upon being summoned,
Catholics were compelled to testify when and where they had last heard
Mass. Refusal meant fines and flogging.

If a wife turned Protestant, a jointure was fixed upon her by law. If a
boy or girl consented to turn Protestant, he was placed in the hands of a
Protestant and well supplied with his father's property if his parent had
any. If a priest turned Protestant, he was granted a pension by the govern-
ment, even if the rope were about his neck to be hanged.

A Catholic could not enter a walled city at night. A Catholic could
not practise law, sit on a jury, act as judge, practise medicine or handle a
gun. How could the spark of faith be kept alive under such circumstances,
you will ask? By the noblest sacrifice that a nation ever offered. A stream
of priests kept pouring into Ireland. Assuming the garb of beggars, farm-
ers, jobbers, minstrels or actors, they lived in caves, in the woods, in the
bogs, away from the haunts of man. Word would be given that Mass would
be said at a certain time in some secluded spot or lonesome byway where the
faithful would gather, very often to be surprised and to meet their doom at
the hands of a brutal soldiery. There is hardly a place in Ireland where
some noble martyr did not offer up his life for his faith. It was calculated
with cold-blooded exactness that one hundred years of such persecution
would completely obliterate every trace of the Catholic faith.

England declared that any Catholic ecclesiastic coming into Ireland
against the law would be executed as a traitor. Therefore, England justifies
herself on the ground that she warned them. The Germans warned the
world that they were going to sink the Lusitania. This only justified her in
her own eyes; she could not convince the world that she was right.

In order to remove all doubt as to the horrors of the Reformation in
Ireland we will quote Dr. John Milner, a noble-minded English bishop who
went to Ireland to study the subject. He informs us that the currycomb
and bowel ripping knife were freely used, that "beating in the priests' skulls

19

with cobble stones was a favorite way of killing them." He tells us that
good Queen Bess granted safe conduct passports to fifty-one monks stationed
in the island of Scattery on the Shannon, and as soon as the ship upon which
they embarked was a little distance from the shore, they were all set upon,
thrown into the sea and drowned. ■

Various forms of torture were used in killing Catholics, especially priests
— throwing them into lime-kilns; tearing them apart by mill wheels; tying
them to a galloping horse and pulling them along the ground ; crushing their
skulls with their own girdles ; throwing them from high points, towers, gates,
etc.; breaking their bones with hammers. The Catholic Encyclopedia
gives the names of two hundred and forty-two martyrs who are now going
through the process of canonization, all Catholic clergymen who died for
their faith in Ireland. All this could have been avoided by simply changing
their faith, England will say, therefore, that it was their own fault. Why
should they superstitiously adhere to a degraded faith, was England's brutal
query?

To add insult to injury, England has charged Ireland with being ignor-
ant, after deliberately making her so. English historians, one after another,
have a stock in trade abuse against Catholics. The Inquisition, St. Bar-
tholomew Massacre, Guy Fawke's plot, etc., are told of, but they know noth-
ing of Henry Eighth's seventy-eight thousand murders, Elizabeth's slaughter
of thousands of priests and bishops, the Massacres of Glencoe, Mullagh-
mast and Scattery. They know all about Smithfield's and nothing of Ty-
burn. Irish history is strangled; it cannot be taught in Irish schools, and
England has made it unpopular in the United States because of her super-
diplomacy. Even Colonial laws under English rule of not so many years ago
were so brutal that they allowed the ears of Quakers to be clipped off, their
tongues pulled out and red hot irons plunged through them, to say nothing
of putting them to death. What can we think of a race of people that dug
up Oliver Cromwell's remains one year after he was buried and hanged the
skeleton to a public gibbet. Not yet satisfied, they dug up his old mother
and did the same to her.

Surrounded by such a chain of multiplied horrors and calamities, the
people never faltered, never weakened, never showed the white feather. Irish
fathers and mothers saw their sons and daughters swept into slavery and
shame. They lost their language, lost their laws, lost their lands, houses,
property, money and were actually reduced to serfs. Only enough of them
were allowed to live to hew wood and draw water, and yet they kept the
priceless gift of their faith untarnished, and to it they clung with passionate
devotion. Misery, want, pain, rags, hunger, thirst, the rack, the gibbet,
the bowel ripping knife everlastingly hung over them, yet they never wav-
ered, but looked forward to a bright future, hoping and trusting and pray-
ing, knowing that the term of their thralldom would some day end.

20

Just by way of illustration, we will mention a few of the bishops who
were martyred for their faith sooner than live in wealth and luxury by con-
forming to English materialism.

Archbishop Plunkett, Primate of Ireland, quartered in the year 1681.

McQueely, Archbishop of Tuam, tortured, 1645.

O'Hurley, Archbishop of Cashel, tortured, 1584.

Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, tortured, 1584.

0 'Haley, Bishop of Mayo, tortured, 1578.

O'Brien, Bishop of Emly, tortured, 1586.

O'Gallagher, Bishop of Deny, tortured, 1600.

O'Devanny, Bishop of Down, tortured, 1612.

Herlihy, Bishop of Ross, tortured, 1579.

Dungan, Bishop of Down, tortured, 1628.

Tanner, Bishop of Cork, tortured, 1579.

William Walsh, Bishop of Meath, tortured, 1578.

Robert Netterville, an old, bed-ridden priest, was captured at Drogheda.
He was dragged along the ground, beaten with clubs, kicked brutally and in
this manner he was allowed to live three days until death came to his relief.
The Bathe brothers, two priests, were beaten, dragged along the street, tied
to stakes and shot by Cromwell.

In Elizabeth's reign, in the town of Clonmel, Tipperary County, a Father
Enright was in jail, the English hoping that he would conform. A Mr. White
bribed the jailer to let him out to say Mass. The authorities were warned
and made a raid on White's house, searched it thoroughly, but could not
find the priest. The soldiers probed everywhere with their bayonets, all
to no avail. It happened that the priest was placed under a pile of straw
which was thoroughly bayoneted by the soldiers and in doing so they ran
him through in two places. Such was his mastery of mind over matter that
he never betrayed himself, but escaped. Although seriously hurt, he was
not mortally wounded. White was arrested and given until next morning
to live if Father Enright did not apprehend himself. The good priest was
informed of the situation and hobbled towards the jail to give himself up.
He was offered power, place and pension if he would take the oath of allegiance.
This he manfully refused to do. He was then hanged, his head cut off and
placed on the jail tower. This is a fair sample of what Ireland suffered.

Let us again quote J. Milner. "P. O'Hurley, O. S. F., Archbishop of
Cashel, who falling into the hands of Sir William Drury in the year 1579,
was tortured by his legs being immersed in jackboots filled with quicklime,
water, etc., until they were burnt to the bone, in order to force him to take the
oath of supremacy, and then with other circumstances of barbarity, executed
on the scaffold, having previously cited Drury to meet him before the tri-
bunal of Christ before ten days, who accordingly died within that period
amidst the most excruciating pains."

21

The same authority states, "In Elizabeth's reign it was a usual thing
to beat with stones the shorn heads of the priests till their brains gushed
out. Others had needles thrust between their finger nails and flesh or the
nails themselves torn off. Many were stretched upon the rack or pressed
under weights. Others had their bowels torn open or their flesh torn with
currycombs."

John Mitchel, a Protestant minister's son, tells us that "Archbishop
Healy of Mayo County was captured, had his bones broken with hammers
and sharp instruments driven in between his finger nails and flesh. In this
manner he was tortured, combined with other indignities, and then executed."

It is not necessary to call for any authority in proof of the truth of the
statements made here. We will close the chapter in the words of the well-
known Protestant writer, Godkin:

"The 18th Century was the era of persecution in which the law did the
work of the sword more effectually and more safely. Then was established
a code framed with almost diabolical ingenuity to extinguish natural affec-
tion, to perpetuate brutal ignorance, to facilitate the work of tyranny by
rendering the vices of slavery inherent and natural in the Irish character
and to make Protestantism almost irredeemably odious as the monstrous in-
carnation of all moral perversions. Having no rights or franchises, no legal
protection of life or property, disqualified to handle a gun, forbidden even
to acquire the elements of knowledge at home or abroad — forbidden even to
render to God what conscience dictated as His due — what could the Irish
be but serfs? Is it not amazing that any social virtue could have survived
such an ordeal?"

22

CHAPTER V

Ireland's Struggle for Freedom in the Battlefield
and Legislative Halls

In order to fully estimate Ireland's claim we must briefly review her
struggles. Let no man think for a moment that she laid down after the
first shock of battle.

Year after year, century after century found her engaged in war after
war, winning battle after battle. Making sacrifice after sacrifice, but, in
the end, she was always vanquished by the foul invader. A mere recital of
the battles would become monotonous, so will group the struggle into epochs.

Many times England was beaten to her knees, only to come back through
some strange luck, for instance, such as the United States going into the
present war, famine, wind, etc. We will here group together Ireland's many
victories, but it is only fair to state that they were often defeated.

In the first one hundred years Ireland had twenty-one wars with Eng-
land, during which time they won thirty-nine big battles, to say nothing about
private strife, skirmishes, forays, and the battles they lost. To better illus-
trate : great battles were won over the English according to the Four Masters,
in the years 1185-88-92-95-96-1212-13-21-27-33-47-48-50-53-57-58-60-
62-63-64^-70-75. In some of those years the Irish won many victories and
also lost many. Our main object is to prove that we did not surrender with-
out a bitter struggle.

The English were literally swept out of Ireland. Edward Bruce was From
crowned King, and with the aid of his famous brother, Robert, England 1315t0
was defeated in twenty-seven big battles. Famine saved her this time.

In this year a great battle was fought at Limerick in which the Deputy, 1350
the Earl of Desmond, was killed and his army destroyed.

Art Second McMurrough, Prince of Leinster, fought England for forty-
two years, won over twenty great battles. Killed Richard Second's son in
one battle, disastrously defeated Richard, who conducted two great cam-
paigns and personally led the two largest English armies that ever trod on
Irish soil. After his second defeat, he hastened back to England, only to
lose his head and crown to the Lancastrians who conspired against him in
his absence.

The Duke of Lancaster, surrounded with England's greatest generals
collected another mighty army. Art swooped down on them at Kilmainham

23

and won the most brilliant victory of the time. The Duke was badly
wounded, carried into the city of Dublin, whose stout walls saved the wreck
of his army.

Frem Ireland was in a continuous state of war against England.

1540 Con O'Neill,

1600 Shane O'Neill,

Silken Thomas,

Gerald, 15th Earl of Desmond,
Bryan O'Neill,
Hugh O'Neill,
Hugh Roe O'Donnell,
struck England some awful blows. England's greatest generals and over
twenty large armies were destroyed in the great Irish victories of Kilmallock,
Athlone, Blackwood, Canillo, Monastir Neny, Graufin, Gurt-na Pisa, Glen-
dalough, Dublin, Maynooth, Ballahoa, Deny, Cossog-Derg, Enniskillen,
Battleford-Bridge, Portmore, Benburb, Clontibret, Armagh, Killoter, Pass
of Plumes, Crome, Corsleibh, and the Yellow Ford.

In this series of wars over twenty of England's greatest generals were
defeated and many of them killed. Failure and destruction of crops ruined
the Irish who were compelled to yield.
1640 to From 1640 to 1691 Ireland was again in a continual state of war.

1691 The Civil war of 1641 was followed by Cromwell's Butcheries. Out of

the general salughter shines the great victory of Benburb, won by the cele-
brated Owen Roe O'Neill.

Then came the

Williamite War, and although the Irish won at

"Athlone,"

"Ballyneety,"

"Limerick" and other places. And although Sarsfield covered himself
with undying fame, they were in the end overpowered and the Irish army
volunteered to go to France, where they formed the "Irish Brigade," so fa-
mous in history. The manhood of Ireland now turned towards France and
the United States, and the nation fell into a comatose condition lasting a
hundred years.

Wolfe Tone succeeded in once more rousing the spirit of the people, and
after efforts never before excelled by one man, he succeeded in getting the
French government to equip a fleet of fifty Battleships, well manned, com-
manded by three great admirals. 15,000 veteran troops were on board.
The grand armament left France for Ireland, December, 1796. A storm of
unnatural severity broke and scattered them like chaff. A thick fog also
settled over them, to addto the confusion, and once more England was saved

24

by the elements. Again the Batavian Republic collected a great fleet of 26 1798
Battleships, 15,000 veteran troops, and offered them to Ireland. The ex-
pedition was ready for months and could not start, being becalmed. This
is known as the Trexel expedition and was one of the best ever organized.
And England was again saved by the elements.

Once more Tone succeeded in having France furnish another force for
Ireland. Once more it was wrecked by a storm. Tone was captured and
either murdered or committed suicide.

Small battles were fought here and there in the Rebellion of 1798; the
Irish won at

"Mount Norris,"
"Oulart Hill,"
"Wexford,"
"Gorey,"
' ' Tubberneering, ' '
"Castlebar" (By the French),
"Carnew."
How England forced the people into rebellion for the purpose of bringing
about a union we cannot touch upon. As a fair sample of her brutality,
however, we will refer to how Father John Murphy was treated. George
Taylor, historian, states: —

"Lord Mountnorris ordered his head struck off and the body thrown
into a house that was burning, exclaiming at the same time, 'Let his body
go where his soul is.' "

Rev. James Gordon states: —

They "cut open the dead body of Father Murphy, took out his heart,
roasted the body and oiled their boots with the grease that dripped from it."

This story is so horrible that, were it not vouched for by such a witness
as Captain Holmes of the Durham Regiment, many would doubt it.

John Mitchell informs us that Hunter Gowan, a Captain of Yeomanry,
carried the finger of a papist in his pocket to mix the drinks with, etc.

The 1803-46-67 and 1916 affairs we will pass over. To give an idea of
English justice, no farther back than three years ago, Connolly, one of the
leaders of the Dublin Rebellion, was captured in a dying condition. To die
an honorable soldier's death would not satisfy English brutality, so they
marched a firing squad into the hospital, propped him up in bed and poured
a stream of bullets into his body.

The foregoing will give us at least an idea of how Ireland struggled for
her freedom in the field of battle and although she has not been successful,
yet she has been instrumental in humiliating the Common enemy ^on many a
battlefield, and we are as determined as ever not to^quit.

25

LEGISLATIVE STRUGGLE

We will now briefly cover Ireland's constitutional struggle for self gov-
ernment.

The Statutes of Kilkenny were enacted by the English in Ireland, as
we have shown in the first chapter. The Irish were then considered eternal
Rebels whom it was no crime to kill, and in every age the Celtic Irish have
been treated in a like manner. They were never considered except as ene-
mies and slaves.

Through English stupidity or vanity many of the colony broke away and
adopted Irish manners, customs, etc.

The Statutes of Kilkenny were aimed at such and to better protect
England against Irish ideals, what is known in history as Poynings Law was
enacted.

Henry Seventh, First of the Tudors, sent to Ireland as his Deputy, Sir
Edw. Poynings. A meeting was called at Drogheda and the announcement
made that no more laws could originate in Ireland. The Irish council could
propose a law and send it to England, where it could be altered, annulled,
amended, or in fact, treated as England thought fit.

Some contend that Henry acted through spite because the Irish favored
the Lancastrians in "The Wars of the Roses."

In order to keep Ireland under control, it was necessary for England
to exercise great care, and in making the Irish Parliament a mere conference,
she protected her interests. It was barely possible that in future generations
the colony might become Irish; therefore, a restraining hand was necessary.
Ireland was and is often charged with selling out to England. There was
not one single Catholic vote cast for the union. We should remember that
for a very brief space, when William and James contested for supremacy in
Ireland, a Catholic Irish Parliament was elected in the storm of Civil War,
and, although for generations they suffered many wrongs, yet their first act
was: —

"To establish free schools and the following, considering the circum-
stances under which they met, will forever redound to Ireland's glory:

"We hereby declare that it is the law of this land, that not now, or ever
again, shall any man be persecuted for his religion." (May, 1689.)

No wonder that Lecky would say, "The Protestants were guaranteed
full liberty."

Prior to the Independence of the United States, Parliaments were con-
trolled by a few. Every big man owned members of Parliament. The Bur-
roughs were often auctioned for sale. 6,000 voters elected a majority of the
members of Parliament of all England. They only had about one voter to
every one hundred persons.

26

In Ireland through her system of stuffed Burroughs, only 72 out of 300
members were elected, and at that the Catholic population had no vote at
all except for a very brief period.

After Ireland was crushed in the Williamite war the Catholic population
was scattered. The Garrison then took a turn out of the Presbyterians and
struck fiercely at many of their industries. The Irish House of Lords refused
to be controlled by the English House, leading to a bitter controversy which
resulted in Act 6, Geo. 1st. England declared by that act that Ireland was
a subject country and England could bind her. The destruction of Irish
Industries and the persecution of Presbyterians created an opposition to the
government giving birth to the Patriot Party.

We must always remember that Lucas Swift and, in fact, all of the Irish
leaders of that period, were not alone Protestants, but in the great majority
of cases despised the Catholics and looked upon them with contempt.

Wolfe Tone was the first who came out unqualifiedly in favor of Cath-
olic rights. He clearly saw that with seventy-five per cent of the people
disqualified, England could easily keep them under control.

But why go back to the Statutes of Kilkenny Poynings' Law, William's
or George's Law? Have we not in Ireland to-day an English Garrison,
trained, tutored and bred in such a manner that they hate their own coun-
try with all the concentrated fury and blindness that the curse of bigotry
stamps upon them? Sooner than see their own country free, they would
give up their lives.

The man of to-day who wants to look honestly into Ireland's claims and
seriously consider its justice does not have to go back over five years to know
that as soon as a Home Rule measure was put on the Statute books of Eng-
land granting Ireland a small share of freedom, the English garrison, led by
Carson, armed and equipped an army and swore by the holy bones of William
the German that they would kick England into the Boyne water before they
would accept any law from Ireland. This is the story of to-day, and it's the
story of Ireland for seven hundred and fifty years, and the most insulting
part of it all is, England tells us to unite, otherwise she won't listen to us.

Just as the Colonists in the United States were slowly lashed into a spirit
of resistance, so also was Ireland. If Grattan struck for complete separation,
the map of Europe would be different to-day. His foolish idea about main-
taining independence under the British crown and the most absolute stupidity
of the garrison, thinking that they could maintain their freedom with five-
sixths of the people disfranchised would not seem to be the acts of men who
were as bright and intelligent as there were in any legislative body then in
the world.

The United States set Ireland a fine example. She commenced to agi-
tate for freedom. Finally, in the year 1780, Grattan introduced his famous
Bill of Rights. It was easily voted down. About 75,000 volunteers, well

27

armed and equipped, threw down the gage of battle to England, and with
shotted cannon trained on the Parliament House, they called for Self-Govern-
ment or war. England granted their request. Grattan now introduced his
bill of rights. England was always proof against a good argument, but not
against a cannon, so she gave in. Ireland was free, and many thought that
the chains would be stricken from the Catholics in a short time.

England shone forth now as country never did before. The United
States, France, Spain and India pounded her into a standstill. Ireland was
then numerically greater than the United States. Nothing could prevent
her from gaining complete independence except the accursed bigotry of the
times.

England took advantage of it and stirred up trouble through her super-
diplomacy and propaganda work. Whether we like it or not, and no matter
how much it pains us, compared with England in the field of diplomacy, the
rest of the world are mere children. She has been able to impose on the
world and make it believe that she is right even when she is robbing and
plundering.

The work of ruining Ireland was easy. The first step was to disband
the volunteers. This was easily done through the Earl of Charlemont's
treachery, he being commander-in-chief. The French Revolution also helped
to line up the aristocracy, by half hanging free quarter and pitchcapping a
rebellion was stirred up. Pitt, Lords Cornwallis and Castlreagh were given
full power. A place bill, putting seven million dollars into their hands, was
passed and titles were freely dispensed.

A certain Lord Blacquere organized a shooting club, composed of des-
perate assassins, whose duty it was to shoot down any patriot who assailed
the government. These men were stuffed into Parliament. Lord Ely re-
ceived $225,000 for the vote of his burroughs. The bribe money was taxed
on the Irish people and so England easily carried the question. To make it
appear decent, she promised the Catholics emancipation.

The passage of the Union is rightly looked upon as one of the foulest
crimes in history and should be rightly considered as such. Lord Clare
declared, "There is not a nation in the habitable globe which has advanced
in cultivation, in manufactories with the same rapidity, in the same period
(1782-98) as Ireland." Of course, England well knew that, and to prevent
Ireland from expanding, she ruined the country. Gladstone declared, "I
know of no blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man than the mak-
ing of the Union between England and Ireland." Harold Begbie, English
author, states: "Ireland was swindled out of her national independence;
and the traitors in her own camp were either rewarded with titles or paid
like cash tradesmen with enormous sums of money which a shameless England
did not scruple to charge upon Ireland. England first set herself to con-

28

quer, then to exterminate, and afterwards to beggar the inhabitants of Ire-
land by this act of union like a common scoundrel."

Lecky, the anti-home ruler, stated, "The sacrifice of nationality was
extorted by the most enormous corruption in the history of representative
institutions."

It is not the intention of the writer to go into the details of Ireland's
struggle after the passage of the Union, as space will not permit. It took
twenty years of almost civil war to win Catholic Emancipation. For every
act in behalf of Ireland placed on England's statute books the Irish members
had to fight as men never fought before. Many of them were sent to jail,
some were shot at. Even to-day thousands of Irishmen are in jail for loving
their country, and John Redmond is authority for the statement that in the
one hundred and nineteen years of union, England has given the Irish eighty-
seven Coercion Bills. Yet we are supposed to cheer for her.

29

CHAPTER VI

How Irish Industries Were Crushed

It is almost impossible to believe that any civilized country would so
deliberately plan the ruin of another as England planned Ireland's ruin.
Were it not for the various enactments already referred to, we could not
without hesitation accept the story of Ireland's commercial ruin. It is need-
less to say that England would not scruple to destroy any foreign industry,
much less the industry of a country that she despised as heartily as she did
Ireland, which she succeeded in degrading to the lowest level of any people
in the civilized world.

As briefly as possible we will point out the facts and in this connection
McManus will be mainly used as our authority. In the year 1339 England
appointed an admiral whose duty it was to stop all traffic between Ireland
and the continent. This was the commencement. In 1465 Edward Fourth
prevented foreign vessels from fishing in Irish waters without an English
permit. The reason he gave was that he "deplored the prosperity of the
Irish trade." In the year 1494 England forbade the exportation from Ire-
land of any manufactured article without permission from England, and
even then the Irish were compelled to send their goods to English ports for the
purpose of taxing them.

Law after law was passed, until the year 1548, when the merchants of
England began to arm private vessels for the purpose of attacking, plunder-
ing and destroying Irish ships. In 1571 Elizabeth confiscated the commerce
of Munster, and the law ordained that no shipment could be made even to
England except by an Englishman or a merchant approved by the govern-
ment.

As early as the year 1447, England declared Irish money useless and
flooded Ireland with a debased currency. The Irish naturally favored their
own coin in preference to the spurious article, and England therefore de-
clared it treason to refuse to accept English money. In addition to Parlia-
mentary enactments, private agencies were at work discriminating against
and trying to destroy Irish industries. Just as soon as an industry began
to gain headway, complaints were made and laws enacted to crush it. Henry
Eighth prohibited the shipment of Irish cloth from Galway.

In 1663 sweeping laws were enacted against Irish trade. All foreign
ships except English boats manned by Englishmen were denied admittance
into Irish ports. The Irish shipping industry alone gave England much

30

concern. In spite of laws, they found an occasional loophole and it took
about three hundred years to crush it completely.

The manufacture of cloths of any kind caused England great uneasiness.
Ireland was then noted for her woolen industry. She had the finest sheep-
raising pastures in Europe, the best wool and very industrious people. The
frieze is an echo of what Ireland once was in the woolen line. In the year
1660 the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland asked for more repressive laws to pre-
vent manufacturing, his main reason being, as he stated, to "keep the Irish
in nakedness and beggary." In the year 1660 the woolen trade was killed by
legislation. Ireland, however, had the raw wool left and commenced to do
a thriving business. England, although she needed the wool, decided to
abolish it by forbidding its exportation. In order to get the wool, however,
Irish sheep were permitted to be sent to England to be sheared and at the
same time the price was fixed. This law rooted out the raw wool industry.
But in order to finish it completely, it was recommended that the manufacture
of wool should cease even for home use. Therefore, the Irish could not make
the cloth to cover their own bodies. In spite of the severity of the law, how-
ever, the industry was not totally suppressed until the good and glorious
William of Orange's time. In the year 1698, approved by the Lords and
Commons of England, it was decided "To totally prohibit and suppress the
same under pain of forfeiture of goods, the ships that carried them, and five
hundred pounds fine." William, with thorough Dutch ideas, finished Ireland
as a manufacturing nation.

Ireland now turned to linen and developed it. In the year 1705 Eng-
land rooted out the industry by passing laws prohibiting its importation to
her colonies, and at the same time granting bounties to her own manufac-
turers. Catholic Ireland was now well plundered and the various enactments
against linen struck the Presbyterians also, but so determined was England
to pauperize Ireland that they were not spared, and as the Lord Lieutenant
declared, "The result is the ruin of Ulster and the flight of the Protestant
population to America."

The cattle trade was very important to Ireland. As early as 1665 laws
were passed prohibiting the shipment of cattle. Ireland then turned to the
shipment of dead meat, which was soon prohibited. The hides were left,
and Ireland turned to the development of that branch of manufacture. Even
that was prohibited.

Ireland next turned to the making of butter and cheese, which were also
banned, after which times became so terrible in Ireland that a man could
buy a cow or a horse for a dollar. As late as William Fourth's time, tobacco
was crushed and legislated out of Ireland as far as its growth was concerned.

George Second destroyed the glass industry, and not content with crush-
ing it, England forbade the importation of glass into Ireland from any coun-
try except her own.

31

Blow after blow was aimed at Irish fisheries. As late as 1819 twenty-
seven thousand boats employing one hundred and fifty thousand men were
engaged in this industry. Through various tricks of law, England crushed
it by withdrawing subsidies, etc., until less than twenty thousand men are
now engaged in this work. In a word, England controls ninety-eight per
cent of the commerce of England, Ireland and Scotland, while Ireland con-
trols only one-half per cent. And yet England has covered her work so
effectually that the world knows very little about her methods. Froude in
his history states, "England governed Ireland for what she deemed her own
interest, making her calculations on the gross balance of her trade ledgers
and leaving her moral obligations aside, as if right and wrong had been blotted
out of the statute books of the universe." In the whole range of history it
would be impossible to find another country that has persecuted a race as
relentlessly as England has persecuted Ireland. You may think of the pro-
gressive laws that England has passed in the interest of Ireland of late years.
England has never passed a law that was not wrung from her by the hardest
kind of fighting.

POPULATION

Ireland's population was often and repeatedly swept away. As we
have seen, Ireland was in a continual state of war from 1169 to 1691, and
every Englishmen who tried to extend his estates met with fearful opposition.
At the close of each big war the Irish were reduced lower and lower in the
social scale until only the hewers of wood and drawers of water were left.
They were killed off, banished or sold as slaves.

Elizabeth, in the most cold-blooded manner, deliberately set about to
mop up Munster, and she succeeded so well at the end of an awful war that
the people were driven into houses which were set on fire and the people
burned to death, as described by Paul DuBoies. The tiger Cromwell, who
tore up and rooted out two-thirds of Ireland's population and sent the people
to "hell or Connaght," reduced the population to a few, and as he stated,
the glory of his murders belonged to God alone. And with other circum-
stances of barbarity he banished approximately 100,000 to the Barbadoes,
selling them into slavery for life.

After each extermination the population would begin to grow again, and
they had once more reached respectable numbers in the time of William of
Orange. Great numbers were killed in the war, and it was then, after a
long series of oppressive laws, that the people scattered to the United States
or France, until there were only a little more than a million left in all Ireland.

Again they commenced to grow, and in spite of evictions and all kinds
of odious laws, Ireland had a population of over five millions in the year 1801,
while England in the same year had less than ten millions. In 1846 Ireland
had approximately nine million souls, therefore in seventy-five years her

32

population has decreased over fifty per cent, while the population of England,
Scotland and Wales has more than doubled itself in that space of time. In-
stead of Ireland outnumbering Scotland three to one, Scotland actually out-
numbers Ireland.

Ireland is withering, decaying and falling to pieces; there is no hope
for her prosperity or regeneration under English law, even though they meant
to be honest with us. The fact cannot be reiterated too often that there has
always been an English colony in Ireland who have been doing England's
work and are still doing it. They are the office-holders and have a monop-
oly on all positions of trust. They hate Ireland a thousand times more than
the average Englishman hates it. With consummate diplomacy, England
calls upon the people to get together and unite, and through her incomparable
propaganda she can make the world think that the Irish are divided, that
they cannot unite and therefore it would be stupid to attempt to do any-
thing for them.

The question is often asked, could Ireland maintain herself as a distinct
nation? She did so before, longer than any other known country. Some say
that she would be swallowed up by some other hostile power. Ireland is
three times as large as Belgium, or nearly so. She is nearly three times as
large as Holland; over twice as large as Switzerland; over twice as large as
Denmark. Are they swallowed up?

In addition, Ireland is surrounded by a stormy sea with a distinct indi-
viduality, and above all, England's law has been a crime and a blunder, driv-
ing the people away from the country and reducing them year by year in
numbers, through under-industry and over- taxation. An English Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer was appointed by Parliament in the year 1893 for the
purpose of a thorough inquiry into Ireland's claim that she was overtaxed.
He had a corps of experts who went back to the date of the Union, and after
a painstaking study they arrived at the conclusion that Ireland was overtaxed
#13,000,000 a year. It is.no use dwelling on an established fact. No matter
how we look upon English rule — from an educational, a commercial or popu-
lative standpoint, we must agree that it is a scourge. It costs Switzerland
forty shillings a year per head to administer the laws of her country, while
it costs Ireland seventy-five shillings per head to be bound up in slavery.

33

CHAPTER VII

After what Ireland has accomplished for the United States it is discour-
aging to think that England through super-propaganda work has been able
to gain her ear especially in trying to make it appear that the Irish have not
been true, that they were pro-German during the war.

The Irish well knew that America's entry into the war would save England
and in all probability strengthen her hand for more persecution of their race,
and yet they were loyal under circumstances that would have shaken any
other race on earth. This is no theory ; it is absolutely true. We know that
America is the daughter of Europe. Some call England the mother coun-
try. The Germans and the English are the same race, and yet it did not
save them from assaulting each other. England crushed Spain, Holland,
France and kept Russia land locked and prevented her from becoming a com-
mercial rival.

We have had more trouble with England than with all Europe combined.
Therefore, we should be very careful in dealing with her. Why should Ire-
land be allowed to remain the only unfree race in Europe after the United
States has said that she went into the war in the interest of Democracy and
small nations? If this is not so, our declaration of principles is a farce.
Washington in his Farewell Address, with prophetic wisdom foresaw two great
dangers to the United States, and he solemnly warned the people against
them. The first was to beware of entangling alliances, and the second was
a warning against Anglomania or Francomania.

Why should the United States desert Ireland in this great hour of world
achievement? She smashed Spain to set Cuba free. What did Cuba ever
do in comparison with Ireland? Poland, Armenia, Belgium, Bohemia, Czecko
and Jugo Slavia combined have not done as much for the United States as
Ireland has. If it is right for England to crush Ireland and rule her against
her will, it is right for Russia to crush the Poles, for Germany to crush Bel-
gium, for Austria to crush the Czecks. There is no exception; if it is right
for one, it is right for the other. Finns, Poles, Bohemians, Serbians, Bel
gians, Albanians, Armenians, Slavs, Jugo Slavs, Czecko Slavs and Jews
are justly looking for their freedom. Ireland alone is the only outcast race.
England owns one-fourth of the globe. She knows that the fate of nations
cannot be foreseen with certainty; therefore, to secure herself, a League of
Nations that would protect her is to her liking.

True, we had a League of Nations before, called The Holy Alliance, en-
tered into after the last world war. England found it to her interest to break

34

it. There can be no real peace while one nation insists on governing another
nation against its will. Ex-President Taft called the Irish an Internal Prob-
lem. The Revolutionary war was really more of an internal question.

Did President Wilson consider the Irish a domestic question when he
said: —

"We shall fight for the things that we have always carried nearest to our
hearts; for Democracy — for the rights and liberties of small nations."

When the American soldiers, including at least thirty-five per cent Irish,
were pouring forth their lives with a bravery and a devotion never equalled
before, did our President say we are fighting for Democracy and for the free-
dom of all nations except Ireland?

Ireland is as truly a nation as any in Europe. Has she not struggled
longer, sacrificed more, and fought harder? She has in fact suffered and
struggled and bled more than any other race, and at the last election the
ballot stood five to one in favor of Self-determination. England, of course,
in order to justify herself, will make it appear that the Irish were false, pro-
German, unfit for self-determination, etc.

As a matter of history, the Hessians and Brandenburghers did as dirty
a piece of work in Ireland in the Williamite War and in the Rebellion of '98
as they did in the United States in the Revolutionary War.

For the benefit of those who accuse the Irish of being pro-German, Gen-
eral Crowders' report informs us that less Irishmen claimed exemption than
any other race in proportion to their numbers, including the English.

The following is an extract from an Article by R. L., for the "New States-
man", London: —

"Ireland's record in the war has been, from the point of view of the
Allies, magnificent. The magnificence of the Irish contribution to the cause
of freedom has been only less amazing than the flood of calumny and belittle-
ment that has been consistently poured on it ever since August, 1914. Ire-
land has made a greater voluntary contribution of men to the Allied forces
than any other unfree nation in the world. That is the leading fact of the
situation. Sir Charles Russell, speaking at a Red Cross Meeting at Dublin
a few weeks ago, declared that Ireland had given 250,000 men to the British
army and navy; and this leaves altogether out of account the equally large
number of Irishmen who have taken part in the war in the Australian, Cana-
dian and American armies. If these are added in, we need not hesitate to
accept Mr. John Redmond's estimate that 500,000 Irishmen have fought in
the ranks of the Allies for the liberty of the world. At the same time, as
was shown in the "New Statesman" some time ago, Ireland has been second
only to America itself in the supplies of food she has sent to England during
the perilous years of the war. Had it not been for the assistance rendered

35

by Ireland, both in men and foodstuffs, it is doubtful whether the Allies would
yet have been able to force Germany to submission. He would be a knave and
a fool, who, having accepted the services of half a million Irish soldiers and
sailors, would pretend that Ireland has not made an immense and foreseeable
contribution to the victory of the Allies, and who would reward the Irish
dead with a weak sneer, about the abundance of butter in Ireland in war-time.

INSURRECTION OF 1916

"It may be asked why, these things being so, has the average Englishman
been allowed to get the idea that Ireland has stood aside and sulked during
the war. Some people think that the insurrection of 1916 is chiefly to blame.
Well, there were not enough Irishmen in the Dublin insurrection of 1916 to
make up even one battalion of the Irish Guards. One was told at the time
that the Dublin insurgents numbered about a thousand. One has learned
since then that they were hardly more than six hundred. Clearly, if Ire-
land's freedom is to depend upon whether her services to the Allies have out-
weighed her dis-services, she has earned her freedom about a thousand times
over. For every Irishman who shouldered a rifle on the insurgent side, a
thousand Irishmen have borne weapons on the side of the Allies. I doubt
if one Englishman in a hundred thousand realizes this. If they did, they
would insist on seeing that their Irish Allies had a free Parliament restored
to them before the Peace Conference sits. Never was the need of a national
government proved more completely. Had Ireland possessed a national
government during the war, she would have had an organ for making known
her services to the civilized world. Canada, Australia and South Africa
have but to speak of what they have done, and all the world listens."

Extract from an Article appearing in the Boston Globe by Capt. Thos.
McMahon of the Irish Guards:—

HAS GIVEN 58.1 PER CENT.

"When the war began, Ireland sent into the righting zone some 15 regi-
ments distinctively Irish from all four provinces. And as the war developed
there were the London Irish, Liverpool Irish, Tyneside Irish. And in the
Scotch, Welsh and English regiments were many more Irishmen.

"Then there came from overseas some regiments like the Vancouver
Irish Fusiliers, the Quebec Irish, a South African Irish regiment. And from
Australia came others, some 50 per cent of the men from there being of that
race. And we had thousands in the navy.

"We raised the 10th, the 16th and the 36th Irish Divisions, and we sent
thousands across to keep up the strength of our units. Yet a few days ago

36

I read in a paper here that Ireland had contributed but 10 per cent of soldiers,
while Scotland and other places had contributed 40 per cent.

"Official figures available show that up to January last, Erin had con-
tributed 58.1 per cent of her available man power. Now these figures mean
only the men who were listed following a military census. It does not in-
clude the men who were in the English army and Navy when the war broke
out.

"Nor does it include those Irishmen working in Britain who swelled the
ranks of the units across the Channel, men who if at home would have gone
into Irish regiments.

IRISHMAN FIRED FIRST SHOT

"A trooper of the Irish Dragoons fired the first shot that opened the war
between Germany and England when the Huns started their big drive, and
the retreat from Mons was on. The Irish Guards broke up the whirling
charges of the mounted Uhlans, The 2d Royal Irish Regiment was terribly
cut up stemming the tide. And the 2d Connaught Rangers, outnumbered
five to one, at the word of Colonel Abercrombie, made a charge that scattered
the Huns like sheep.

"It was the 6th Leinsters that topped Sari Bahir, the hardest spot on
the ridge, from which the Dardanelles could be seen. And to do this they
made a charge quickly when New Zealanders came retreating down the hill,
the Irishmen retaking the place in twenty minutes.

"Fight, fight and charge, was the story all along there. Just consider
fighting two hours and not advancing 100 feet. The Munsters and 6th
Dublins faced that, and then with a final charge up one side of a hill the
Munsters gained the top and victory. And to relieve these troops others had
to fight their way up, the 7th Dublins battling four hours one evening, ending
with a furious charge to clear the way to reach their comrades.

"In the general attack later on, when the Australians were cut off from
water, the Connaught Rangers earned the title 'The Courting Dangers' for
their charge to capture the wells held by the Turks. They poured across a
strip of land that took a terrible toll, but cleaned up the Turks. And these
same Rangers a few days later captured Hill 60, one of t'he most desperate
engagements in the closing days of the campaign.

MORE FANCIES THAN TRUTH

"What the Irish should do is to learn about what has been done by their
brothers across the ocean ; their brethren who crossed the seas from the Domin-
ions ; what their brethren in the American forces are doing now, so that they
can break down the barrier being raised against the race through false con-

37

ceptions founded upon cables from abroad, some of which are more fancies
than truth.

"Admittedly, the Irish have not been surpassed in fighting on any battle
front, and at times they performed the supposedly impossible, such as the
Suvla Bay landing, where Von Golz, the German genius, had constructed what
he and other prominent officers claimed was an impregnable position, a ver-
itable death trap for attackers.

"So it is time we said a few things about ourselves instead of letting the
people here get the idea Ireland's share of the war is trying to help Germany."

The most aggravating part of the whole Irish situation is to be compelled
to listen to a country that hired German troops against France, Ireland and
the United States when it suited her purpose to do so, and then we are charged
with being pro-German. Let us not forget that on many occasions England
charged us with being pro- American. Many of us may not have read of the
Irish prisoners captured by England in the War of 1812. Although they
wore the American uniform they were considered traitors and thrown on
board a ship and hurried to England for the purpose of being executed as
traitors. Fortunately, the United States had a President with backbone
enough to retaliate. Briefly, the facts are as follows: Colonel Scott, with
about two hundred ninety men, was captured at Queenstown Heights. The
English General Sheafe began to pick out the Irish prisoners, being governed
by their names and accent. Scott, at the risk of his life, yelled out to them
not to answer another question, and told Sheafe that for every Irish soldier
executed, he would see that an English one suffered a like fate. The pris-
oners were hurried to England. Scott was soon exchanged. He captured
Fort George and selected twenty-three Englishmen to be executed. Lord
Bathurst ordered forty-six American officers to be prepared for execution,
and President Madison ordered forty-six Englishmen to be ready to die.
Needless to say, England weakened, and twenty-one of the Irish prisoners
returned, two dying from natural causes.

That Ireland did more for the United States than any other foreign coun-
try we will easily show by pointing out a few of her accomplishments.

Sullivan struck the first real blow on land at Fort William and Mary.
O'Brien struck the first blow on the water at Machias Bay, while Barry be-
came father of the American Navy. Wayne, the great infantry leader,
Moylan, the great cavalry leader; Knox, the great artillery leader; Morgan,
the great sharpshooter leader; Stark, the hero of Bennington; Montgomery,
the first general who perished; Moore, who won the first battle, were all
Irish by blood or by birth.

The Declaration of Independence was first signed, first copied, first read
to the populace and first printed by men of Irish blood. The richest man,
the man who lived the longest after signing it, was Irish, while it was an

38

Irishman (Conway) who made the motion that was carried in the English
Parliament, recognizing America's independence. Ireland helped the Ameri-
can cause by sending out many shiploads of necessaries; in fact, Franklin
declared, "All Ireland is in favor of the American cause." George Washing-
ton Parke, Custis Washington's son, declared, "Before the coming of the
French, Ireland furnished in the ratio of one hundred to one of any foreign
nation whatever." The Irish showed their usefulness in the field of peace
also. The steamboat, submarine, lock canal, cotton mill, newspapers, farm-
ing implements, the telegraph and steel were invented and developed by
Irishmen and their sons.

The two great heroes of the War of 1812 were, strangely enough, con-
ceived in Ireland and born in the United States, Jackson and McDonough.
McDonough's standing claim was, "My keel was laid in Ireland and I was
launched in the United States."

The Butlers, of good Irish stock, developed five generals in the same
family, one of them having the honor to command the victorious American
troops at the close of the Mexican war.

In the Civil War, an Irishman (Gibbons) fired the first shot. An Irish-
man (Shields) first defeated Stonewall Jackson. A Celt (McClellan) de-
feated Lee at Antietam. Sheridan was the only general to turn disaster into
a brilliant victory. The last general to give up his life was the Irish-born
Thomas Smith. When Democracy or Slavery hung in the balance at
Gettysburg, Meade, always proud of his Irish blood, saved the Union. When
England was openly trying to line up Europe against the United States, the
wise Lincoln sent the good Irish Archbishop Hughes to Europe to counter-
act the foul work. The head of the Navy, Porter, was of Irish blood, while
second in command, Rowan, was Irish-born. One hundred seventy-five
thousand natives of Ireland served in the Union armies, while men of Irish
extraction constituted at least one-fourth of the Army, according to the
most accurate approximation. Irish loyalty to America was never hyphen-
ated, no matter who the enemy.

In this war we are just as loyal; we detest the Kaiser and every prin-
ciple that he stood for. The fact cannot be reiterated too often that between
the German Saxon and the English Saxon there is no difference.

Figures are not yet available as to the number of Irish engaged in the
war. In addition to the men from Ireland, large numbers enlisted in Eng-
land, Scotland and Wales, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand,
to say nothing of the United States. John Redmond and Michael McDon-
ough estimated them at half a million in 1916. Of the United States army
at least thirty-five per cent had Irish blood in their veins.

By way of illustration we will quote figures taken from the records of the
city of Waltham, Massachusetts, as follows:

39

Nationalities Represented on Service Roster

Armenians 2

French 145

Greek 5

Hebrew 22

German 27

Italian 72

Irish 695

Swedes 62

It will be some time before we can fully digest the work of the various
nationalities engaged in the war. It is no exaggeration, however, to claim
that the Irish stand now, as they have always stood, at the head of the list
in valor as well as numbers.

And now the whole world has been scourged by the greatest war of his-
tory, involving all creeds, races and colors — white, black, yellow, red and
brown — Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia — Christian, Moslem,
Pagan, Jew, Shinto, Confucian and Hindu — have added their portion to
the deluge of blood that has reddened the world. Old nations, great em-
pires, firmly imbedded oligarchies are crumbling into dust. Czars, Em-
perors, Kaisers, Sultans, Kings and Princes are swept away like autumn
leaves. In this awful cataclysm the oppressed nations of the earth are shed-
ding their century-bound chains of slavery. The map of the world is being
remade. America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, has startled
the whole world by proclaiming in the majesty of her might, "We shall fight
for democracy, for the rights and liberties of small nations."

From the rising to the setting of the sun, no other race and no other
nation has fought as long or as hard as Ireland has for her freedom. She has
suffered more and retained her ideals longer than any other race, and in this
hour of great events is it too much to expect, too much to hope that the day
dawn of her freedom is nigh? Every indication points to the fact that Eng-
land will once more use her old argument, the bayonet and bullet. In that
event, the Irish in the United States must steel themselves to humble Eng-
land's power, which they will do if that country ignores Irish claims. The
Irish in the United States must give a fair and unanimous warning that they
can favor no treaty that will bind our race hand and foot, making them the
outcasts of the earth. We are Americans first, last and all the time, but
we abhor now, always did, and forever will, any law, league or treaty that
would make us British Americans. Our immediate mission should be to
organize solidly, cohere and bring forth the fighting spirit of our race for the
purpose of warding off the blow that is aimed at our heads, hearts and prin-
ciples.

40

Men who have in the past, because of lack of interest, pressure of busi-
ness or a disregard for England's methods, held aloof from organizing should
at once become active. The business and professional men must add their
weight, experience and sound practical knowledge to the movement. We
must organize in a permanent manner, create enthusiasm, watch our enemies,
prepare for propaganda assaults, and be prepared through the pulpit, the press
and every legitimate agency at our command to rub England up instead of
down. If we show the right spirit, and mean what we say, we can build up
a strong and lasting public opinion that will make England's influence doubt-
ful or negative. Through a system of public meetings, pamphlets, and the
right kind of well directed enthusiasm, we can educate the American people
to the justice of our cause.

To-day we are the only liberty loving race of slaves on earth. The
Irish in the United States must remove the stigma and they can do so only
by a carefully planned, thoroughly organized, well equipped and absolutely
unselfish society that will direct the many and important functions necessary
to combat the forces that we know are arrayed against us.

41

CHAPTER VIII

Propaganda

Without doubt, England's greatest victory was in gaining the ear of the
world. Her propaganda has saved her on many occasions. At the outset
we should know that when England desires to do a piece of work she does
it; when she has an end to gain, she can use all classes and conditions of
people to gain it.

We should consider this point very carefully. The Printing Press and
the Reformation were contemporaneous. Henry Eighth promptly saw the
power of the press and used it to further his aims, and of course he had to
condemn the old order of things. In a word, the English press was founded
on bigotry and perpetuated by deceit.

Ireland remained true to the old faith, therefore we can readily under-
stand how easily and naturally it came to England to follow a well-thought-
out plan of propaganda abuse. She has been able, and has in the most com-
prehensive and consummate manner, through her propaganda works (hav-
ing every possible agency of publicity at her command) assailed the Irish
race with a persistency and a rancor unknown to any other people on earth.
Into every walk of life, business, religious and professional, she has carried
her underhanded, and sometimes open, work. Any person of literary talents
or fame may be employed and pensioned by England.

To illustrate, we will briefly refer to a few of England's leading histor-
ians and literary men who devoted their time and talents to making the Irish
character appear the vilest and lowest on earth. The Irish were referred to
as cowards, drunkards, moral degenerates, immoral, base, low, sanguinary
murderers, licentious, incestous wretches. In fact, there is not a crime known
to man that we are not charged with as a race, not by the so-called sub-cellar
writers, but by men whose fame is world-wide. Who would suspect Spencer,
Milton, Macaulay, Gibbon, Hume, Froude, Mahaffy, Orpen, Carlyle, Arnold,
Story, Chart, Carte, Falkiner, Bagwell, Fletcher, Kipling, Bryce and Defoe
of having engaged in such foul propaganda work, to say nothing of many
others with lesser reputations? Their object is to cover every field, leave
nothing undone, nothing to chance — the Irish must be made to appear the
scum of the earth.

It was the writer's intention to cite a brief extract from each of the fore-
going authors, but space will not permit. We must therefore content ourselves
with making a general charge against every one of them, as they have delib-
erately and with vicious intent insulted us and slandered our race or faith.

42

Their works are what we might call propaganda proper, of which the world
knows so little, especially the main object that England aims at.

First of all, England has easily shaped the literary policy of the English-
speaking world. We may not like this, but there is absolutely no doubt about
it, which we will fairly prove, by calling attention to a fact that may not at
first seem of prime importance, yet it well illustrates why England has made
the world listen to her. I have before me a "History for Ready Reference
and Topical Reading," extending, as the author, J. N. Learned, states, "to
all countries and subjects, from the best historians, biographers and spec-
ialists," The work consists of six volumes covering nearly 5000 pages, and is
composed of extracts from the best writers as the author thought. At the
end of the fifth volume, a list of the authors' names is given, consisting of some
2500 books, and of this great number, England has supplied about 1750. An
American history of the world for American schools is stuffed with nearly
seventy-five per cent English ideas. In other words, England has supplied
more books for a world's history than all the rest of the world combined.
This is not fiction: it is a fact. We refer you to it — look it up.

England has been able to stuff the libraries of the world, and until Ire-
land can do likewise, she will never be able to meet England. Talk is cheap,
but books count.

This may appear a mere incident to many. It proves, however, that our
literature is born in England and that it is crowded with assaults on Irish
and Catholics. Under the English Colonial Laws, if we look over the stat-
ute books of the time, we will find how deeply rooted and firmly imbedded
their hatred of us was. We are referred to as "Sons of Satan," "Malignant
Irish," granting toleration to all sects "except Catholics." The observance
of Christmas was declared "superstitious" and the observers were fined.
These laws forbade Irish or Catholics to come here. The very colony that
the Catholics settled, Maryland, deprived them of the right to vote. The
Cross was cut out of the Puritan flag as early as 1634, while John Adams
called Holy Communion "sanctified effluvia." Jefferson hammered the
Catholic Church even on his death bed, and Benedict Arnold gave as an
excuse for his treason that the Catholics would have too much power. C. W.
Eliot tells us that the English Colonists cut the ears off the Quakers, plunged
red hot irons through their tongues, to say nothing about executing them.

As late as the year 1800 Father Cheverus, afterwards Cardinal, was ar-
rested for marrying a couple in Maine. Through every line of Colonial
law, enactments were passed against Catholics. A few days ago I picked
up an old geography, dated 1828, by J. Olney. It had a few words to say
about the characters of the various races:

"The Welsh — Honest, brave and hospitable."

The Scotch — 'Temperate, industrious, hardy and are distinguished for
education and morality.

43

The English — Intelligent, brave, industrious and enterprising, but pos-
sessed of great national pride.

The Irish — "Quick of apprehension, brave, active, hospitable, but pas-
sionate, ignorant, vain and superstitious."

Webster defines Jesuit in part as "A crafty person, an intriguer."

Parkman, the great writer, defines the Jesuit constitution or rules as
"superstitious rubbish." Wallis, in Ben Hur, refers to the Irish, when describ-
ing the galley slave as "red-headed savages." "Ten Nights in a Barroom"
insults the Irish on nearly every page. Even the child story, "Robinson
Crusoe," written by a bigoted English minister of the gospel, insults the
Catholics.

Josiah Flint, a college graduate, put forth a book in the year 1907,
"Tramping with Tramps." It is very interesting — treats the tramps of many
countries and refers to them as follows: "In this country the main offenders
are generally of Irish American parentage. More criminals trace their an-
cestry back to that country (Ireland) than any other where English is spoken .
Indeed, in America it is considered something out of the ordinary if the crim-
inal cannot attach himself to the Emerald Isle."

Not content with her open method, England has employed a class of
anonymous writers whose works are so horrible that to mention them would
make us blush with shame. We will call attention to one filthy work which
occupied space in the Boston Public Library for twenty-five years, Shelf No.
3469 A 40. The name of the book is, or rather was, "The Past, Present and
Future of the Roman Catholic Irish of New England," by Uncle Sam, Jr.
Throughout the book the Irish Roman Catholics are pictured without a re-
deeming trait. Every crime and every depravity is charged up against them.
The burning of the Ursuline Convent is justified and gloried in. General
Sheridan is described as "a drunken bummer, away from his post of duty."
Ninety per cent of all our paupers, thieves, murderers, are charged with being
Irish. They are called the scum of the earth, bounty jumpers, deserters.
He refers to as Irish, ninety-five per cent of the depraved women, and also
speaks of the Irish priest with the shape of a man and the look of -a beast.
He charges the Irish with attempting to murder Washington, the Catholics
with murdering Lincoln and Garfield, and finally he contends that the Roman
Catholic Irish originated from a wolf and an ape.

It is with sorrow and shame that we refer to this type, but it is abroad
and covers a certain field. It would be stupid to close our eyes to a painful
fact, and the fact is that we have in every community agents who picture us
as the vilest creatures on earth.

I remember reading about an Irish military force employed on the Con-
tinent. Of course, they were not brave or manly enough to carry a gun, but
were occupied in cutting the throats of the helpless wounded soldiers.

44

As we have shown, the population of Ireland has been swept away be-
cause England has closed down her industries and legislated them out of ex-
istence. As a rule, one member of the family only remains at home, the
others are scattered into the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,
South Africa, England, Scotland and Wales. Whenever England is engaged
in war, many Irishmen, as a rule, rush into the opposing armies. Why have
they not rushed into the German army? You may think that they had no
opportunity. They had many opportunities. To be more to the point, we
will cite a case from Michael McDonough, author of "The Irish at the Front"
and "The Irish at the Somme." The Munster Division held a section of the
British line about Loos, April, 1916. They carried a large green banner which
attracted the Germans' attention, and the Irishmen were startled one morn-
ing to see two large placards nailed to boards and fastened to poles, upon
which the following was written in plain English:

"Irishmen, in Ireland's revolution, English guns are firing on
your wives and children. The English military bill has been refused ;
Sir Roger Casement is being persecuted. Throw away your arms;
we give you a hearty welcome. We are Saxons. If you don't fire,
we won't."

At that particular period of the war, things looked good for Germany. We
cannot describe the sentiments that actuated the Irish at that moment.
They knew England and despised her, yet they knew that they were fighting
an autocracy just as brutal. This was their answer. On that very night
they crawled out of their positions and went over the top. Upon arriving at
No Man's Land, the Germans opened fire on them and many were killed
and wounded. They then lay down as though dead, and after some time
they crawled forward as noiselessly as possible. In the words of McDonough,
"They sprang with fixed bayonets and terrifying yells into the trench. The
Germans, startled out of 'their senses by this most unexpected visit, scurried
like rabbits into the nearest dugouts. The notice boards were then seized
and borne in triumph to the Irish trenches, and they are now treasures among
the regiment's most precious spoils of vanquished enemies." . . . "Up to the
end of 1916 the number, taking the Irishmen in English and Scottish regiments
and in the forces of the different Dominions, is altogether about 500,000.''
To read "The Irish at the Front" and "The Irish at the Somme," as well as
other fields of carnage, is to better appreciate what they did.

General Marshal, an Englishman, stated, "They are the cream of the
army," and General Sir Bryan Mahon said, "No men could have fought
more gallantly or achieved better results."

The two best known cases of propaganda work in the United States
were those instituted to ruin Justice Cohalan and Jeremiah O'Leary. We

45

will say a few words about both. Justice Cohalan despises England in pro-
portion to his knowledge of her crimes. He has read the story of Ireland's
wrongs as few men have; he sympathises with Ireland's sufferings, and who
can follow the story of her ruin, degradation and extermination without
being moved, if his blood is any thicker than skimmed milk? The author of
this pamphlet had the pleasure of seeing Justice Cohalan preside at two
meetings. He is one of the finest characters imaginable. Mild and agree-
able, he is possessed of a charm of manner and a peculiar magnetism that at
once give a person implicit confidence in his sincerity. Sometimes one would
think by his far-away look that he was more of a dreamer than a man of
action, yet he is the very soul of action. He can control a convention, keep
in touch with a number of committees, and in fact, with the greatest ease he
can get a convention to do as much work in three days as another man could
in a week. He does not love England and has a powerful attachment for
Ireland. He was therefore considered big enough to discredit the Irish race
if the Piggotts succeeded in bolstering up a case against him. A campaign
of slander was waged against him. The average citizen can tell you about
the charges ; how few there are, however, who can tell about the outcome of
the case. Let us for the present draw a veil over the Grand Opera House
affair. It succeeded in bringing out one point very strongly — that Justice
Cohalan can think quickly and think correctly. Suddenly confronted with
a problem fraught with tremendous possibilities for good or evil, and having
only a few moments to decide, he at once sacrificed himself for the good of the
cause, and in doing so, he has lifted himself up as a man to be trusted in any
emergency. We know that the people of the great state of New York, and
in fact, of the whole United States, have unanimously agreed that he is the
man of the hour.

JEREMIAH O'LEARY

Like Cohalan, a conviction in his case would place the Irish in a doubtful
position. He was represented as being rich; his pockets were well lined with
German money, etc. England, for the first time, had the opportunity of
working openly. She had perfect liberty to swing her very powerful and
unscrupulous propaganda club. The Irish themselves are a great deal to
blame. Blind to England's methods, knowing nothing and caring less about
her wiles, conscious that they were right and thinking themselves secure in
the affections of America, they despised the falsehoods, as unworthy of refu-
tation, and expecting that America would not believe the charge, they drifted
along, little thinking of the damage, the Smiths, Balfours, Northcliffes, Ian
Hays and Plunketts could do, and their friends the Tafts, and others of the
same tendencies. Irishmen and men of Irish extraction or sympathies should
learn this lesson well. When England desires to ruin any man or country
she is generally able to do so in the long run. Let no man lull himself into

46

the silly theory that England is a decaying or a decayed nation, either in
war, peace, commerce or propaganda. You may think that she had her back
against the wall, crying for help, and that if it were not for the United States,
she would have been crushed. England was often in the same predicament,
yet she always got out of it. Take for instance, England's power before the
League of Nations. The four leading nations presented constitutions, and
whose was accepted? England's! This is painful, but true. England has
some strange power that shapes public opinion. She was engaged in what we
might call four world's wars. The elements and treachery saved her in one
war; French Huguenots in another; the Germans in another, and the United
States in the present one. England crushed democracy, propped up the
autocratic Bourbons in power, turned the clock of progress back, went into
a League of Nations called the Holy Alliance and was the first to break away
from it. At the same time she has made the world believe that she was fight-
ing for freedom and democracy. In turn, she has crushed the commerce of
Spain, Holland, France and Germany, and for generations she has kept Russia
a land-locked Empire. Her kleptic fingers have gripped one-fourth of the
globe. No matter what England does, whether it is turning the merciless
savages loose on this country, burning our Capitol, or keeping Turkey propped
up in Europe, she has the strange power of making the world think that she
is right.

Let no man underrate England. She has been at all times able to get
enough of people to do her bidding. Nor do we see any sign that her propa-
ganda proficiency is nearing the end. She is going to silence the Irish in the
United States if it lies in her power to do so. History repeats itself. Do
you suppose that if England saw in the United States her only dangerous
rival, she would not try to ruin this country? Germany often saved Eng-
land. The English people are Saxons mainly, and English kings are as Ger-
man as the Kaiser, even though the present one changed his name, and yet
England did not scruple to remove Germany.

Space will not permit even a synopsis of Jerry O'Leary's trial. It was
one of the most brutal trials ever held in America. The cables between
London and New York were kept hot, hints at great disclosures of Irish plots
as well as German plots were widely circulated. O'Leary was kept in jail
for nine months, every one belonging to him was arrested or ruined, his house
was sold, his family scattered, his four children going to different homes.
He was stricken with influenza and carried to Bellevue Hospital. Talk of
armistice frightened the propagandists and although his life hung in the
balance, it would be, in order to secure a conviction, necessary to try him
while the war passion was high. He was dragged before the court, suffered
a relapse and hovered between life and death for a long time. The story of
the trial appeared in the Gaelic American. The whole proceedings would
remind one of the Irish state trials. A packed jury, fortunately for O'Leary,

47

was lacking. We will mention 'one phase of the trial. A Government ei
ployee by the name of Martin posed as a sailor. He was well and thorough
coached and was used for the rebuttal evidence. It was very importa
that O'Leary in some way should be an accomplice of Roediger, and
O'Leary swore that he never saw or spoke to the man, Martin was requi
tioned into service, but fortunately he was a transparent liar and became
badly tangled up in his cobweb of falsehood that he nearly fainted. He w
very unfortunate in picking out the places where he swore he had seen O'Lea
talking to Roediger. He could explain nothing. At this point, Osborne,
confuse O'Leary, cried out that he had six more witnesses to prove the charf
O'Leary retorted, "Bring forth six more perjurers." The whole trial was
farce from beginning to end. The Gaelic American declared, in commenti
on it, "James W. Osborne, Jr., and H. Snowden Marshall should now blu
to ask an American jury to convict even a dog upon such corruption, op
perjury, bribery and persecution." Fortunately for the Irish race, the c£
fell through, and yet the propagandist would have us think that there w
a great Irish pro-German conspiracy in the United States.

There is not a race of people in the United States so intensely Americ
as the Irish. We are here by birth and blood to the number of twenty rr
lions — some say thirty. We are multiplying rapidly; it is our home and
must defend it against all comers, especially the English. They have giv
this country more trouble than all Europe combined. History repeats its<
England may do the same again. We must be on our guard.

Irishmen, if you consider this picture uncamouflaged, now is your m<
opportune time to repudiate it.

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