economists and political agitators have, of late, drawn attention to the “positive sinfulness” of the increase of chapels and religious buildings side by side with the increase of poverty. This may have existed up to the last half-century, but, as surely as the seasons change, a new era for Ireland is close upon it, and the increase of what is called the “religious vocation” is not the bugaboo that it once was.
One should pay a hearty tribute to the patriotic efforts of the Gaelic League to inspire throughout Ireland a wholesome and invigorating sense of nationality, and to guide its energies into industrial and intellectual channels. This movement, from within and without, is doing noble work, and, if it is uninterrupted in its progress by religious or political jealousies, Ireland may yet come to her own again.
More than seven centuries have rolled onward since the English have become intimately connected with Ireland, and yet how little is really known of the land and its people, in spite of all that the political economists, the ecclesiasts, and the antiquarians have written concerning it.
Professor Van Raumer, a German, in his “Letters from Three Kingdoms” (which it is only proper to say has been criticized before now as a mass of bold trivialities and solemn inaccuracies), says that he never knew what poverty meant until he travelled in Ireland. Its existence, to a very large extent, is undeniable; and, in times of stress and strife, it has even become virulent; but ragged dress, frugal fare, and mean houses do not always indicate actual distress. The trouble seems to be with those who commit themselves to written observations that they never appear as apologists, but condemn, from the start, anything and everything which falls below a certain preconceived standard which they may have unknowingly set.
In spite of the fact that the population in certain parts of Ireland was proclaimed as being, at the beginning of the Victorian era, at its lowest ebb, – in many parts of Ulster conditions have since changed but little, – there was often no apparent haggardness or lack of nourishment to be observed; the children notably, like the children of the slums in great cities, were rosy, chubby, and high-spirited – a very good indication of the general health of a community. This is one of the anomalies of travel and observation which cannot be explained.
A statement was made in the public prints, at the beginning of the year 1903, that Ireland had lost, in the twelvemonth previous, a population equal to that of Limerick, the fourth largest Irish municipality, and greater than that of at least one Irish county (Carlow). This awful drain by the outflow of the virile young of both sexes should be controlled by the well-wishers of Ireland’s prosperity.
What the future is to bring forth for Ireland is doubtless quite problematical; but there is no gainsaying that the hour is ripe for any action which it may seem advisable to take. It is difficult to believe that even the fieriest of the patrons of Ireland can fail to perceive England’s present willingness to make what perhaps she thinks is a sacrifice, but which in any event is intended as an atonement for the past, and an eager desire for the prosperity of the country at her doors. There are many respects in which Ireland is eminently fitted by nature for prosperity. There is hardly to be found anywhere in the world such natural facilities for the development of a great mercantile marine as exist on the eastern coast from Londonderry and Antrim to Waterford and Cork, and Belfast to-day contains one of the world’s greatest and most able ship-builders. There is, it is said, no part of the country which stands at a greater distance from a waterway to the sea than four and twenty miles. The country has immense stores of iron, still unutilized, mainly because of the scarcity of native coal; but some day, in this epoch of cheap and rapid transportation, they will yield a rich harvest. There was once a considerable industry carried on in the copper-mines of counties Waterford, Wicklow, and Cork, but of late it has greatly declined. So it is with the sulphur-mines of Wicklow, which at one time yielded nearly a hundred thousand tons per annum. The bogs, which cover one-seventh part of the surface of the whole island, have never yet been turned to such economic uses as most certainly await them – the production of a really well-cured compressed peat fuel. There are vast deposits of lignite, already proved to be of great depth, but which can be worked on a large scale only at a greater expenditure of capital than has yet been applied. In point of fact, Ireland is potentially a rich country, but her mineral deposits have been practically neglected. It will be a happy day for England when she finds, as she yet may, a prosperous and contented Ireland at her doors.
A prosperous Ireland means, ultimately, a healing of whatever sore remains open; and may, perhaps, mean the removal of the last bar against the real federation of the English nation. The recent visit of Britain’s king and queen may be taken as a good omen, and its effects may turn out to have been far-reaching. At its least, it stimulates good-will on either side, and does its own quota of work in the inspiration of a hopeful spirit in a natively buoyant people, who have long chafed at neglect. At its best, it may hope to make one of the loveliest countries in the world a place of popular resort, with the inevitable result that its advantages will become more widely known and better exploited than they have hitherto been.
It has long been the opinion of many Irishmen, and of many British well-wishers of Ireland, that the permanent establishment of a royal court would be of much service to the country. It is claimed that this idea is not dictated by any spirit of “flunkeyism,” but rests on a sound business basis, which, after all, if a sordid view, is an essentially practical one. Such a court would promote trade, and trade would feed industries that are now starving; and, while it would carry these material blessings in its train, it would have its proper sentimental value also, and would do its share, and no small share, either, in the final reconciliation of two countries which have long, to their common disadvantage, been divided.
Any one who reads has heard considerable of “the unfinished chapter” of the nineteenth century of Ireland; how Ireland “oft doomed to death, is fated not to die;” and of “the Exodus.” Yet, after all, these affairs of apparent moment have really very little import to-day. Ireland is by no means dead, nor ever will be, as things point now.
The history of Ireland during the past hundred years has indeed been vivid. So has the history of most other lands. It is merely a sign of the times.
The year 1849 found Ireland in as wretched a condition politically, and socially, as she ever had been. 1846 and 1847 had been famine years, when people lay perishing and the land lay untilled. No crops were raised and no rents were paid. The corn laws had come into effect in England, and the tax on foreign corn, which gave to Ireland a real advantage with respect to grain, was withdrawn. The economists advised cattle-raising as a substitute, and pointed to the fact that, as an English statesman had said, “Ireland was clearly intended to grow meat for the great hives of English industry.” How the transformation from a grain-raising to a cattle-growing country was to be made, instantaneously, he did not say.
The project did not receive immediate favour, as might be presumed, and was the real cause of the impetus given to migration to the United States, “the home of the free.”
The streams of fugitives swelled to dimensions that startled Christendom; but the English press burst into a pæan of joy and triumph – for now at last the Irish question would be settled! Now at last England would be at ease. Now at last this turbulent, disaffected, untamable race would be cleared out. “In a short time,” said the London Times, “a Catholic Celt will be as rare in Ireland as a red Indian on the shores of Manhattan.”
The press, indeed, in England, was most uncharitable, and, assuredly, in more instances than one, quite ignorant of that about which they were writing.
Religion was, of course, their chief point of attack. It is always a safe card to play, if one wants notoriety merely, not only for as impersonal a thing as a public journal, but for an individual as well.
The Irishmen who remained, the emigrants’ kindred, their own flesh and blood, their pastors and prelates, could not witness unmoved this spectacle, unexampled in history; the flight en masse of a population – as it then seemed, and the figures
