PATHETIC HISTORY OF EMERALD ISLE
Few countries look back upon a history so tragic so heart breaking as Ireland’s and few countries have produced such patriots. In fact, Ireland’s history is one of romance and bloodshed, the one linked with the other. All this is touchingly, vividly told in the following address delivered before the Ancient Order of Hibernians in this city last Thursday night by E. J. Slattery, National Lecturer of the A. O. H. National Director, State President of Massachusetts for four years, State Senator for two terms in Massachusetts and candidate for Lieuten[an]t Governor on the Democratic Ticket in 1900.
Before going over a history of the A. O. H. in Ireland, which is nothing more than a part history of the saddest and most woeful periods of the eventful life of Ireland, I desire to draw a contrast.
Those of us who have been fortunate enough to have been born in the “Land of the free and the home of the brave” can look back through four hundred years of our country’s history and behold the great Columbus discovering a new country then sleeping in quiet repose, yet destined to become the foremost nation in the development and civilization of humanity; a new country that in a few hundred years threw off the garb of English servitude and stood forth a mighty power for Christian freedom, proclaiming to the world the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness;” a nation that in a century and a quarter of national life towers aloft as the beacon light of civil and religious liberty, the pride and glory of her people, and the life and hope of the down-trodden of every land and clime; a nation that I believe will in God’s good time be commissioned to shatter the shackles of monarchial bondage and open wide the doors of universal liberty to God’s children throughout the Christian world. If the true American can draw inspiration from the short brilliant history of his Country, how inspiring then must the history of Ireland be to the Irish race as the look back through a thousand years before the great Columbus planted the cross of Christ on the Island of San Salvador, and behold one of God’s humble missionaries landing on the coast of Ireland, for the sole purpose of bestowing upon a pure and peaceful people the gift of the true faith.
Grave doubts were at first entertained by the Irish people, but the humble missionary preached the faith of God to them and implored them to be patient and listen to the story of the birth of the son of God in the stable at Bethlehem; he begged them to be tolerant and listen to the story of Christ crucified on Mt. Calvary. They were patient and tolerant but were doubtful of the doctrine of the triune God; they could not understand a God the Father; a God the Son; and a God the Holy Ghost. The missionary then picked from its native soil a little Shamrock and holding it in his hand he explained that nature of the three leaves, each receiving its life blood from the same body, and with that beautiful illustration, the emblem of a nation was born and the Irish race converted to the true faith, and the name of our patron Saint immortalized.
The Irish are truly an ancient race, as, long before Rome was founded, they had their schools in science, law, architecture, astronomy, and medicine, and were consequently an enlightened people. They had their Druid religion, but they were far above mere paganism. They believed there was a Supreme Being who would reward the good and punish the wicked and no better evidence of the intellectually and nobility of the ancient Irish race can be given than the story of St. Patrick’s introduction to the King of Tara. The scene was most dramatic in all its surroundings, the King, the Druid Priests, [?], and the most famous bards of Ireland assembled and awaited the arrival of the Apostle.
Orders were issued that no courtesy be given as he was considered in the nature of a prisoner, but when he appeared before the King and his assembled ministry, clothed in white with a white mitre on his head and the staff of office in his hand, his presence was so holy and majestic that some of the nobility instantly paid him respect. For hours he contended for the true faith, while some of the Druid priests clamored for his condemnation, but Dublac the archminstrel of the royal monarch of Tara, arose with harp in one hand and said: “Hear me, O high king and chieftains of one land! I now declare that this man who comes to us, speaks from God– that he brings a message from God. I bow before Patrick’s God. He is the true God and as long as I live this harp of mine shall never sound again save to the praises of Christianity and its God.” The monarch arose while the assemblage patiently awaited the judgment that was to make Ireland a Christian nation, and the whole Irish race should rejoice in the fact that from the sacred hill of Tara, came the proclamation for civil and religious liberty, as the king said, “I cannot forsake the faith and traditions of my forefathers; I cannot believe as some here, but go, saintly man, throughout the land, and teach with perfect freedom the doctrines of thy faith.” And thus a bloodless triumph, the greatest and grandest in the history of the world was achieved, viz:– the conversion of a whole nation from paganism to christianity. Not many years after, the great king, Laegain, himself received the Sacrament of Baptism, and the Christian religion was embraced by the whole Irish race, and their saints and scholars were commissioned to christianize what is today known as Europe. They gave to Germany 150 saints, many of whom wear the crown of martyr to the faith; they gave to France 45; to Belgium 30; to Italy 13; and 8 to Norway and Iceland.
For six centuries after the death of the Irish Apostle, the Irish race lived and prospered in Christian virtues and happiness. Sacred temples dedicated to the service of God, dotted the isle, and her educational institutions were the pride of her people. Turn back the pages of the history of seven centuries; lift the curtain of seven hundred years of British tyranny and oppression, and we behold a free, educated intelligent Catholic nation, a nation which Usher, the Protestant historian has said, “was the home of civilization and literature, learned Ireland.” A nation of which Lord Camden said, “We were moved by the example of our fathers for a love of learning and we went to the Irish, renowned for their philosophy.”
The great French historian, De Montalembert, informs us in his history of the Irish race; that “The schools of Ireland educated and trained a population of poets, paint[?]ff, philosophers, historians, architects and musicians, and her schools were free to all her people.”
“Who,” says Dr. Milner, “Were the luminaries of the Western world, when the sun of science had almost set on us? Who were the instructors of nations during four whole centuries, but the Irish? To them you are indebted for the preservation of the Bible, the Fathers and the classics; in short, of the means by which you, yourselves have acquired whatever literature you possess.” Grand old Ireland! “From thy shores on darkened Europe Did the light of science blaze.”
At that time Ireland was free from the yoke of British tyranny and stood erect in the vigor of her national independence, enjoying the fruit of civil and religious liberty and freely giving to the world the benefits of her educational and religious institutions, and we should never forget that Ireland stands alone in the history of the world as the Isle of Saints and Scholars. How familiar the story that there is on the other side of the broad Atlantic a beautiful island famous in story and song, an island whose sons and daughters are exiles in every quarter of the globe, an island whose children and descendants have no peers in their unfaltering devotion and uncompromising loyalty to the faith of their fathers and the shrine of their nationhood!
That little island– Ireland– is located in the Western part of Europe, and is the hoe of the Irish race, a race that has no parallel in the history of the world in the wrongs they have endured and the sacrafices they have made for home, faith and fatherland. In vain you will peruse the history of nations for a sadder chapter than the story of Ireland’s wrongs. Of the wrongs of Ireland, Dr. Johnson said, “The misery of the ten persecutions of the primitive Christians did not equal in magnitude or atrocity the woes inflicted upon Ireland by England. On England’s government of Ireland, Carlyle has said, “A government which permits men to die of hunger in the midst of plenty ought to drop a veil over its face and walk out of court under conduct of proper officers, saying no word, expecting now of a surety either to change or die.” Almost fifty years ago the London Times gave the world the following passage, “For generations the proprietors of the land in Ireland have been spartans among a helot peasantry– almost planters among the negro slaves. The object of that policy which the British government had exercised toward Ireland had been to debar her from the enjoyment and use of her own resources and to make it completely subservient to the interest and opulence of Britain. ” The author of “Ireland Vindicated” writes, “The monopolizing spirit of England has pressed like an incubus on the sister island, blasting all its blessings, and entailed on it unutterable woes.” Paulding, in his work entitled, “The United States and England,” writes, “The history of Ireland’s unhappy connection with England exhibits from first to last a detail of the most persevering galling, grinding, insulting and systematic oppression to be found anywhere, except among the Helots of Sparta.” Thus England is condemned in immeaurable terms by foreign and Standard English authority for her unrelenting and unparalleled cruelty and oppression of the Irish people to which I add the burning condemnation of our lamented Wendell Phillips when he said, “England has held for seven centuries to the lips of her sister, Ireland, a poisoned chalice. Its ingredients were the deepest contempt and most unmeasured oppression, injustice such as the world hardly saw before. Ireland is the most deplorable instance of modern history that a great and noble people may for centuries together, be involved in the same injustice and infatuation and all the highly praised forms of the Constitution be paralyzed by the force of passion and prejudice. Kings, Lords and Commons have, alternately, or simultaneously, wronged Ireland.” Phillips never withdrew that condemnation of England.
By English testimony of unimpeachable character, England stands before the bar of nations as guilty of the murder of millions of innocent Christian men, women and children, and also guilty of centuries of inhuman brutality in her efforts to exterminate from its native hearth an ancient noble race– a race of which Lord Camden has said, “From the deepest sources of antiquity, the history of the Irish is taken, so that in comparison to them, that of other nations is but novelty and a beginning– a nation of which Lord Spencer said, “The Irish are one of the most ancient nations that I know of at this end of the world, and come of as mighty a race as the world ever brought forth”– a race of which Sir J. Mackintosh has said, “No one I think can deny that the Irish were a lettered people, while the Saxons were still immersed in darkness and ignorance.” Ireland was a nation and her people an educated race of which Dr. Warner said to the people of England, “Ought we Englishmen rather not take shame to ourselves, that we have hitherto always treated that ancient gallant people with such illiberal contempt who had the start of the Britons for many ages in arts and sciences, in learnings and laws?” Yes Ireland was a nation of educated Christian people when England was struggling between barbarism and civilization, and well may the Irish race feel proud of the days of old when the harp of their country drew the attention of the world to the learning, religion and sanctity of Tara, that St. Patrick assured them would be “Pure and true with St. Peter at Rome;” proud of the days when Columbkille sang the praises of holy Ireland from the rocky shores of Iona; proud of Catholic Ireland as she is honored in the eloquence of her statesmen and glorified in the rich sweet melodles of her poets; proud of the country for which our forefathers and Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald and many others fought, bled and died; always proud of grand old Catholic Ireland for her loyalty to God and her patriotic devotion to the spirit and cause of Irish nationality.
The history of Erin was grand and illustrious until the pirate nation of the world selected virtuous Ireland for her prey, and the poisoned arrows of British tyranny were pointed at her heart. The accursed Strongbow landed on her shores, and from that hour her history has been written in the destruction of her sacred temples, her educational institutions, her industries; aye, in the best and purest blood of her most devoted sons and daughters.
Our great American historian, Bancroft, has well said, “The history of the colonization of America is the history of the crimes of Europe.” If Bancroft is correct, England stands before the bar of justice as the arch criminal of the world. For seven hundred years she has labored by every inhuman device conceivable to the mind of man to destroy the national spirit of Ireland, and scatter her Christian people as mendicants throughout the world, and no nation in Christendom has suffered the cruelty, persecution and death that Ireland has been the victim of at the hand of England.
The inhuman slaughter of the Jews by the Russians should be deplored and condemned by all Christian people, but heartless and inhuman as it is, it is not a circumstance compared with the wholesale butchery, murder and starvation of the Christian people of Ireland by England through her murderous and brutal monsters, Henry the Eighth, Queen Elizabeth, and Cromwell.
England’s cruel treatment of Ireland has changed only in method what she failed to do by sword. She is endeavoring to do by her inhuman system of extortion and consequent enforced emigration, which is slowly but surely sapping the young life blood of the Irish race.
In 1853 England put into operation in Ireland a system termed “Identity of taxation.” The result of the new system was to increase the taxes of Ireland $10,000,000 per year, consequently Ireland is obliged to support the most expensive system of government, her people made poor and her government exceedingly expensive by English law.
Ireland has a population of over four millions; she has a constabulary (such as we term “police force”) and in addition she is obliged to support and maintain a standing army. She has a Lord Lieutenant whose principal duties are to maintain the high standard of English nobility, for which he receives a salary of $100,000 annually, double the salary of the President of the United States. The judicial system is the same; judges whose services consist of two hours a day, receive salaries twice as large as the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. If England could read aright the lessons of history, and try to understand aright the true Irish character, she would be fully convinced now withstanding her seven centuries of oppression and her present system of extortion and enforced emigration, that the Irish race is as firm in the faith of St. Patrick and as immovable in its loyalty to the principle of civil and religious liberty as at any time since that bright Easter morning fourteen hundred and seventy-four years ago, when St. Patrick stood on the sacred hill of Tara and preached the salvation and redemption of man through the honor, love and glory of a crucified God.
The Irish race owe a lasting debt of gratitude to the grand old time-honored Ancient Order of Hibernians, that for over three hundred years has been so inseparably connected with the cherished traditions of the Catholic Ireland. It is the foremost Irish Catholic organization in the world, and its mottoes of today are “Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity.”
The organization as its name clearly indicates, is of Irish origin, and is composed of Irishmen by birth, and the male descendants of the Irish race, by either parent who are practical Roman Catholics; not nominal Catholics, but men who obey the constitution, practice what they preach, and exemplify by their lives the true faith of St. Patrick.
The exact date and place of the origin of the Ancient Order of Hibernians is not definitely known, as various writers and historians differ on that point, but the exact hour when, and exact spot in Ireland where our grand old Order was conceived and given birth is not of itself an essential question compared with the fact that in the dark and trying hours of the life or death of Catholic Ireland, it was organized and endowed with a commission as holy and as Godly as was ever committed to the care of mortal man; viz. the preservation of the faith of St. Patrick to the unborn millions of Catholic Ireland, and the protection of the lives of the Catholic clergy and the faithful of the country, against the exterminating policy and murderous brutality of England.
To adequately portray the birth, history and progress of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, it will be necessary to review the condition prevailing at that time which made it necessary for Irishmen to form oath-bound organizations for the protection of life and property.
Back in the dark, dire and sorrowful period of Ireland’s life, known as the days of the “penal code,” when laws enacted in England made it a crime in Ireland for man, woman or child to adore the God of humanity, according to their light and conscience; back in the days when the “penal code” was conceived in England and enacted by the British Parliament for the government of Ireland, and for which Edmund Burke said, “The code against the Roman Catholics was a machine well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingeduity of men.” Back in those direful days when by English law the Catholic child was rewarded for the betrayal and ruin of the parents, when all over Ireland the Catholic clergy, the successors of St. Patrick, were by English law, declared outlaws, and the holy sacrifice of the Mass and the sacred temples dedicated to the service of God declared public nuisances, when by English law no Catholic could obtain property, and those who may have had a home were forced to surrender it to the son or daughter that would betray the faith of their father or mother, when by English law, daylight plunder and robbery of Catholics was encouraged, rewarded and legalized by so-called courts of justice; when, by English law, Catholics were prohibited from holding positions of honor or trust in the public service of their native land, and the teachings and doctrines of their Christian faith perverted; when, by English law, a price was placed alike on the head of a Catholic priest and the wolf when, “The dogs were taught alike to run Upon the scent of wolf and friar.” When poor old Ireland stood helplessly by and witnessed the enforced transportation of thousands of the youth and bloom of the country to the Barbadoes, while Cromwell put man, woman and child to the sword, and when the heart of Erin was bleeding and the Irish people in almost helpless despondency, the grand old time-honored Ancient Order of Hibernians, as by Divine inspiration, was given birth in a lonely glen in Kildare, where the founders assembled under the canopy of God’s blue sky and by solemn vow to God and men, declared that henceforth their lives would be devoted to the preservation of the Christian faith for which Christ died on Calvary, and for which St. Patrick consecrated his life, labor and love in Ireland.
In the trials and vicissitudes of time the organization changed its titles, but never changed its purpose, as from time to time it appeared as the Defenders Confederationists, Blue Ribbon Boys, White Ribbon Boys, and finally after the relaxation of the enforcement of the “penal code” and generation of seclusions, it emerged from its oathbound conclaves, and recesses, and its officers and members, proud of its glorious achievements, resolved that the grand old order must be preserved as an inspiring monument of future generations of the Irish race in which the scattered children of Erin must be reunited in the indossoluble bonds of Friendship, Unity and Christian Charity.
The memory and patriotic deeds of the men who founded, preserved fought and died for the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and the civil and religious liberty of their country will forever be enshrined in the hearts of their countrymen. A country that has given to the world such men as Swift, Burke, Grattan, Flood, Curran, Goldsmith, Davis, Moore, Emmett, Tone, Sarsfield, Montgomery, O’Connell, Mitchell, Meagher, Parnell, Russell, Redmond, Dillon, Davitt, and O’Brien, a galaxy of statesmen and warriors of which any nation might well feel proud.
In the year 1836 some members of the order who had emigrated to this country were anxious to found the organization in the young Republic, which was destined to become the future asylum and home of so many of their kith and kin wrote their brothers in Ireland for instructions and assistance to which they received the following extract,
May 4th, 1836. — Brothers, Greeting,– Be it known to you and to all it may concern that we send our few brothers in New York, full instructions with our authority to establish branches of our society in America. The qualifications of membership mut be as follows:–
“First, all members must be Roman Catholics and Irish or of Irish descent, and of good and moral character, and none of your members shall join in any secret societies contrary to the laws of the Catholic Church, and at all times and all places your mottoes shall be Friendship, Unity and True Christian Charity.”
After strongly invoking a strict adherence to the laws of the order, and a vigilant protection and care of the emigrant Irish girls renowned for their chastity, the document was signed as follows.–
Patrick McGuire County Fermanagh
John Reilly County Cavan
Patrick McKenna County Monahan
John Derkin County Mayo
Patrick Reilly County Derry
John Farrell County Meath
Patrick Boyle Couny Silgo
Thomas O’Rorke County Leitrim
James McManus County Antrim
John McMahan County Longford
Patrick Dunn County Tyrone
Patrick Hamill County Westmeath
Daniel Gallagher Glasgow
John Murphy Liverpool
and thus we find in the United States, the Ancient Order has for seventy years endeavored to undo the diabolical work of the English government, by reuniting our people in bonds of Unity and Friendship and exemplifying by words and deeds our beautiful motto “Christian Charity.” For those seventy years the A. O. H. has given aid and succor to many an Irish emigrant boy and girl, and has worked in the vineyard of Christian Charity by expending millions of dollars to keep the wolf from the door of Irish emigrant families; the splendid work of our grand old order during the famine days of ’46, ’47, and 48, should never be forgotten, when hundreds of thousands of the Irish race were driven into exile and hundreds of thousands more starved to death on the highways and byways of Ireland, while England abounded in plenty and her English and Irish landlords lived in idle debauchery. Those were the appalling scenes that drew from the heart and pen of Kate Sullivan, the poetic and pathetic picture of the starving Irish child appealing to its starving mother.
“Just three grains of corn mother,
Just three gains of corn,
To keep the life that’s in me
Until the coming of the morn.”
Yes, our grand old order has cared for its sick, nursed its dying, and buried its dead with reverential respect. Today it numbers 2000,000 [200,000?] and ramifies the whole country, existing in every state and territory, disseminating Christian virtues in Irish Catholic homes, and teaching undying allegiance to the eternal principles of civil and religious liberty.
The A. O. H. and Catholic Ireland have been bitterly schooled and trained to know that the sacred cause of human liberty knowns no bounds, no race, no climes; it is the inherent right of God’s children, black or white, and it matters not whether the struggle is by poor and oppressed Poland, as she cries aloud in the spirit of her Koscinsko and Pulaski against the tyranny of Warsaw, or ancient Greece in the hereic memories of her once proud Athens; with bleeding Armenia protesting against the red-handed, cold-blooded and inhuman Turk, or the Irish heroes of ’98, sacrificing their noble lives on the altar of their country in their patriotic efforts to rid their native land of a reign of tyranny and oppression such as has no counterpart in the civilized world. All these struggles and causes are identical with those that fired the heart of Patrick Henry and gave to history the patriotic sentence, “Give me liberty or give me death;” identical with those which inspired Thomas Jefferson when he gave to mankind that imperishable document that proclaimed the independence of “Thirteen free and united Colonies,” and the right of her people to “life, liberty and the persuit of happiness,” identical with the causes which made Cornwallis and King George bow in humble humiliation at Yorktown and made the name of Washington immortal in the history of civilized nations; identical with the causes which nerved the spirit and strengthened the arms of the brave Mexican patriots when they stained their native soil with the blood of the usurper Maxmilian, and again placed the land of Montezuma among the free Republics of the world.
If any of our fellow citizens question the loyalty and devotion of the A. O. H. and true born Irishmen to a “government of the people, for the people and by the people,” I will quote for them an incident that occurred just before the outbreak of the rebellion in ’61, as it is given in Bagnal’s history on “The American Irish.”
“In 1860 the Prince of Wales (the present King of England) visited this country. The governor of New Yrok ordered out the militia to parade in honor of the royal visitor from England. Col. Corcoran of the famous 69th refused to parade his regiment, saying that “as an Irishman” he could not consistently parade Irish born citizens in honor of the son of a sovereign under whose rule Ireland was left a desert and her best sons exiled or banished. Col. Corcoran was suspended and ordered for court-martial, and several companies of the State militia of New York passed resolutions prohibiting foreigners and Irish Catholics in particular, to membership in their companies. On April 17, ’61, Sumpter was fired on. Lincoln’s famous proclamation appealing to the patriotism and manhood of the Union was issued, and the Companies who resolved that no Irish Catholics should be admitted to their ranks responded to Lincoln’s call by disbanding, while Col. Corcoran then awaiting court-martial, rallied his gallant “69th” and at the head of a regiment of Irishmen, everyone enrolled in the A. O. H., marched to the front to bear the brunt of battle and if necessary, sacrifice their live son the altar of their adopted country, that the Union should remain “one and inseparable, now and forever.” The love and loyalty of Col. Corcoran in ’61, for civil and religious liberty, and a Union of, for and by the people, is born in the heart and soul of every true-born Irishman.
The American race love, honor and revere the name of their immortal Washington, and the Irish race love, honor and glorify the memory of their martyred Emmet. One fought and won, the other fought and lost, both for identical causes, and both fought against the same oppressor.
And now, my dear friends, may I not say that when we assemble to celebrate with reverential respect the glorious deeds of those who have lived and died for Catholic Ireland, we at the same time salute the Star Spangled Banner; “long may she wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
As a son of Irish Catholic parents, ever proud of the faith of St. Patrick, I have with you saluted the Stars and Stripes, and now as a son of Massachusetts, and in the name and spirit of our American liberty founded on the maxim of one of the fathers that “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God,” and in the firm belief that there is a fatherhood in God and a brotherhood in man, may it not salute the patriotic struggles of Ireland and her heroes dead and gone. Long may their memory and glorious deed’s live in the hearts and lives of their countrymen and inspire generations yet unborn to deeds of patriotic devotion and unselfish sacrifice in defense of the God-given rights of man, for the poet has written thus:–
“That whether on the scaffold high
Or in the battle’s van,
The noblest place for man to die
Is where he dies for man.”
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