Dispair Upon My Erin’s Brow

“Alas for poor Erin!– her pride has gone by,
And the spirit is broken which never would bend;
O’er the rain her children in secret must sigh,
Y[?] ’tis treason to love her and death to defend.”
[Moore.

MR. GALLAHER:
When we contemplate the present distressing situation of unhappy Ireland, the heart sickens to see the tyranny and oppression exercised over the most ill-fated, most oppressed of countries. We have seen it since to his maridian of glory, and we now behold it the most sorrowful, the most miserable of nations,– enfeebled and heart-broken by the most cruel and most unheard-of wrongs. Its present calamitous situation presents a striking conviction of misrule and tyranny, no where yet exhibited in the annals of the world. And why is it that England, galling, haughty England, thus crushes and persecutes a generous people, who have ever been her best shield in the hour of danger, and her greatest support in her literary and political institutions? Simply because Catholic Ireland determined to be free and independent, and to bestow her own favors as she pleases,– refuses, sternly, to support a pampered, hired, established priesthood, whose services, instead of accepting or receiving, she scornfully rejects and most cordially despises. After tamely submitting for three hundred years, at the point of the bayonet, to yield in obedience to an ordinance which imposed on every one to pay, and that in spite of him, whatever was unjustly demanded to support luxury, idleness, and religion made a mockery of,– Ireland (because, forsooth, she has dared now, with the true spirit of liberty, to raise her voice against the iniquitous tax), must groan under martial law, must submit (submit, I hope not) to trials by courts-martial, and to every degrading and humiliating condition that the macininations of a tyrannical government could devise, or an idle, almost useless clergy, jealous of its own interests and fat livings, could enact and determine, for the complete annihiliation of the once rich field that yielded to them so much richness and luxuriousness. But their day (at least I hope so) has passed by.

Too long have they galled Ireland, and too long have they propped their altars with the sword and the gallows. These foundations give way– and sober sense proclaims, if a religion must needs stand by the rack, better had it totter into the nothingness out of which it originated. Let that church, it cries out, only be countenanced and acknowledged, which asks a man’s free consent, without compulsion or worldly inducement. To such a church as this, no one, when from pure conviction he joins it, can deny his most hearty, unqualified support. But can I be blamed, if I refuse support to a community whose principles I abhor, whose tenets I hold to be erroneous, and whose laws I deny to be imperative, either to force me to be a member or a supporter of whatever measure it may please to adopt? Certainly not. Then, Ireland, you have no right. God, or common Justice, demands not of you to permit yourself openly to be plundered, and keep in extravagance any Mr. St. Paul, Mrs. St. Paul, masters or misses St. Pauls. You have one church to keep, and one is quite enough– more is a burthen. The first establishers of the gospel never sought to gain proselytes by the spilling of blood or the exactions of money. No– it was by meeknesss, charity, and strong appealing language, backed by real disinterestedness, and the most painful sacrifices. How different this, from the Apostles of England! who will first rifle your pockets, and then force you to an union with them in principles– principles, perhaps, to you the most revolting and unmeaning. However, this last, of late days, has not been so much sought for– but the first must be yielded to; or the rack, dungeon, and confiscation, must be the consequence. Did I not fear I should too long occupy the attention of my readers, I might enter into a feeling description of what must be the heart-rending situation of bleeding Ireland at the present moment. An instant’s reflection will bring her sad picture before our eyes. Let us consider the terror, the dismay, the general consternation that must be throughout the whole country, at the announcement of a most barbarous law, subversive of all liberty, of all peace and harmony. A law that makes the mother shudder for her babe, and tremble for the safety of her husband– a law that keeps the aged father and mother in constant agitation and suspense for the safety of their sons– a law which, in fine, like an unquenchable fire, striding irresistibly through every street and dwelling, threatening death and destruction to all around it, proclaims the life and the property of every individual to be at the disposal of a few bloodhounds of mercenary soldiers, only employed, not to distribute justice and to judge impartially, but the butcher and plunder all that can be in the least suspected of being disaffected to England’s diabolical grinding monarchy. The right to hear trials is taken from the proper judges and magistrates and juries of the land: And why? Every man may guess. For it is plain that the parliament of England has only designated such measures as these to prevent all appeal, all justice, and honest and humane rules of acting, that the death-bell may toll for miserable Ireland her sad, last parting knell.

The friendly allusions to the state of Ireland, in your paper of a few days back, gave rise to this article and the following lines:

Why hangs despair upon my Erin’s brow?
Why melancholy sad, — so gloomy now?
Is there no solace to sasuage thy pain,
Or no kind friend to bid thee live again?
Have all thy patriots, all thy heroes died,
And art thou left to mere “less foes consign’d?
Flies there no Brien to expel the foe–
No Emmet to chastise– to strike the blow?
Wild and distracted art thou left forlorn,
Stript of thy glory– of thy freedom shorn!
Lash’d to the pillar, thou’rt scourg’d a slave,
Though free-born, proud, and still a nation brave.
Sunk into wretchedness, you pine away,
A sad memorial of a tyrant’s sway.
No soften’d heart, no sympathising tear,
Bids thee to hope, to prosper, or to cheer.
Thy exiled sons to other realms must roam,
To seek that peace they cannot find at home,
With sorrow, anguish pictured in thy face,
You mourn the destiny that ‘waits thy race.
Still do we hope you yet may rise again,
And stand triumphant, to thy tyrant’s shame.
Thy Daniel– terror to a host of face,
Marks death and vengeance where his lance he throws:

For tho’ beset by myriads of the curs’d,
And howling lions on the patriot burst,
Yet Heav’n his guide, and Freedom his bright star,
Unhurt, he conquers ‘midst the unequal war.
By him whose shield has stood the test of time,
Whose tongue was armies, and whose strength was thine,
Shall in the field the palon of Victory take,
And every bolt of bondage shall he break.
Then, courage, Erin! all’s not lost to thee–
Some patriots live who’ll die to met thee free;
Some thousand warriors on thy ramparts stand,
Who’ll bleed for Emmet’s home, for Brien’s land.

H.