Ireland and the Home Rule Movement

d up by higher education of the better classes among the Catholic laity, the p

the Robertson Commission on University Education, as the repre

ising Act of Grattan's Parliament in 1793, were such that they made him declare that his coronation oath compelled him to maintain the Protestantism of the Un

pport an alien Church with the full weight of endowments and tithes, did more than anything else to maintain the

y reducing Dublin from the seat of Government, which in the middle of the [93]eighteenth century had been the second only to London in size and importance, to the status of a provi

. In point of wealth there was little to choose, and, most important of all, in respect of religion, though the minor clergy were very largely Tory and the Dissenters were allied to the Whigs, yet the Anglicanism

ed side by side in the maintenance of their respective privileges against the democracy, which, as it happened, was Cathol

foresight to perceive that the outcome would be an attack upon her prerogatives and an assault upon her position. The anticipations of both were well founded. Nine years after the Emancipation Act, tithe, which an English Prime Minister had declared was as sacred as rent, was by Act of Parliament commuted into a rent-charge [94]no longe

ionists twenty years ago, that Home Rule would spell Rome Rule, if used again to-day would to a very great extent fall flat. They have based this view, not on the as

he House of Lords during the last century, if examples of this were needed, would provide them in large numbers; and as to the question of whether it is better that the majority or the minority of a nation should be governed against its will, one need scarcely say which is the principle adopted in a normal system of Parliamentary government. The rapidity with which under Grattan's Parliament an emancipated Ireland ceased to be intolerant leads one to suspect that the bigotry of creeds which is attributed to us as a race is not a natural characteri

Government for political reasons, was presented to the Irish House of Commons by Henry Grattan, protesting against the exclusion of Protestants from its halls. In the ranks of the Volunteers, who secured free trade

tenance of the Union John Mitchell was a Unitarian, Thomas Davis an Episcopalian Protestant, and Joseph Biggar a Presbyterian. At this moment of the Nationalist Members of Parliament nine, or more than ten per cent., are Protestants, and one may well ask if the Orangemen have ever had a like proportion of Catholic members of their party, and à fortiori what would be thought of the suggestion

y after the union of her Parliament with that of England, the Church of the majority of the people was for the sake of peace established and has remained in this privileged position ever since. In view of the use to which the "No Popery" cry has been put in its be

in France, a letter declaring that in his judgment the Royal veto should be exercised on ecclesiastical appointments in Ireland. Under O'Connell's leadership, the bishops, clergy, and people of Ireland refused to submit to the decree,

ntinued to be pulled, as is seen by what Melbourne told Greville in 1835, after the latter had expressed the opinion that the sound course in Irish affairs was to open a negotiation with Rome.[11] "He then told me ... that an application had been made to the Pope very lately (through Seymour) expressive of the particular wish of the British Government that he would not appoint MacHale to the vacant bishopric-anyone but him. But on this occasion the Pope made a shrewd obser

f the nineteenth century to the Government is urged as evidence of a consistent tendency on the part of the Church in Ireland, the political views

scourage the agitation, and three years later, when the Whigs under Lord John Russell were in office, Lord Minto, Lord Privy Seal, who was Palmerston's father-in-law, was sent to Rome in the autumn recess to secure the adherence of Pius IX., then in the first months of his Pontificate, to the same line of action, and to bring to the notice of His Holiness the conduct of the Irish priesthood in supporting O'Connell. The fact that neither Gregory XVI. nor Pio Nono made any response to the

lations as these? The law prohibits any intercourse with Rome, and the Government, whose business it is to enforce the law, establishes a regular, but underhand, intercourse through the medium of a diplomatic agent, whose character cannot be avowed, and the ministers of this Pro

useless concessions to the Catholics, without firmness and justice."[13] It is only fair to Lord John to say that in the following year he ordered a Bill to be drawn up to legalise intercourse with the Pope and to put an end to these repeated acts of pr?munire on the part of Ministers of t

ughout the Continent made it essential that the Foreign Office should be in a position, in dealing with the chancelleries of Europe, to obtain direct recognition, and as a result first-hand information, as to the attitude of the Holy See in any situations which might arise; and the acceptance by Parliament of the change of policy which the Bill was intended to effect, on the understanding

years earlier, were forgotten in 1850, when, in the matter of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, the Prime Minister

that a Secretary of Legation, nominally accredited to the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, was kept in residence in Rome, where he served as a de facto Minister to the Vatican. This state of

and passed into law, substituted for these words the phrase "Sovereign of the Roman States," and in consequence, after the loss of the Temporal Power, the Act was repealed by the

natural polity can only be secured by means of a series of subterfuges such as these employed by Unionist Governments, both Whig and Tory, by which, while [

oop and the Orangemen would begin to bray, and there was no choice, one must suppo

t, morally responsible, and he asked the English Cardinal for his assistance. To this Newman replied that the Pope was not supreme in political matters, his action as to whether a political party is censurable is

, had he been willing, have been double that amount-which was made to Grattan by the emancipated Irish House of Commons, but more exact parallels perhaps are to be found in "O'Connel's Rent," which Greville described as "nobly paid and nobly earned," or in the great collection which marked the popular appreciation in Great Britain of Cobden's services in securing the repeal of the Corn Laws. [102]In the autumn of 1881, when the Parnell Tribute was initiated, the Land League agitation was in full swing in Ireland, and about

and Mgr. Jacobini, the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation De Propagati

not be approved, and consequently it cannot be tolerated that any ecclesiastic, m

s time the subscription list amounted to less than ￡8,000. Within a month it had doubled, and by the end of the year it amounted to ￡37,000. The amount of the mortgage was ￡13,000. As Parnell, in a characteristically laconic way, put it in his evidence before the Commission, "The Irish people r

hop of Dublin. A letter on the subject fell into the hands of the editor of United Ireland, who published it in his paper, and so in this way thwarted the objects of the second Errington missi

Spain, the most Catholic country in Europe, while submitting to the Pope implicitly in m

gn, which was then launched-of which it has been said that no agrarian movement was ever so unstained by crime-was of the following nature:-The tenants of a locality were to form themselves into an association, each member of which was to proffe

mpaign and boycotting on the ground that they were contrary to both natural justice and Christian charity. With the Decree was sent to the bishops a circular letter, signed by Cardinal Monaco, the Secretary of the Holy Office, which contained the following statement:-"The justice of the decision will be readily seen by anyone who applies his mind to consider that a rent agreed upon by mutual consent cannot, without violation of a contract, be d

ments in Cardinal Monaco's letter to the effect that the contracts were voluntary or that the campaign fund of the [105]Land League had been collected by extortion. A meeting of forty Catholic members of Parliament assembled in Dublin, and in the Mansion House in that city signed a document denying the allegations about free contracts, fair rent, the Land Commission, and the rest, declared that the conclusions had been drawn from erroneous premises, and while asserting their complete obedience to the Holy See in spiritual matters, no less strongly repudiated the suggestion that Rome had any right to interfere in matters of a political nature. Mass meetings were held in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, and in Cork, which indorsed this position by popular vote. The Orangemen were delighted at the imminence of a schism, and the disco

ts foes to threaten the allegiance of Ireland, and with it th

promulgated with full and intimate knowledge of all the circumstances, retorted-"As a matter of fact we believe that the English Government has taken no steps, direct or indirect, to obtain the pronouncement, whi

ad been made. The forecast of the Tablet as to Mgr. Persico's return to Ireland to see that the terms of the decree were enforced and applied, was not correct. The responsibility for the decree was everywhere laid on his shoulders, and the Tablet for April 27th, 1889, records

but further, so he told the Cardinal in his letter, "I must not reside in London so as to give not the least suspicion that I have anything to do with the British Government." As to the promulgation of the decree, it was done without his knowledge and, what is more, against his judgment. Having arrived [107]in Ireland in July, 1887, he had conc

rt, and that the decree is based upon the same! Not only all the Roman correspondents but all the newspapers avec le Tablet en tête proclaim and report the same thing! I wish that my report and all my letters had been studied and seriously considered, and that action had been taken from the same! Above all, I had proposed and insisted upon it, that whatever was necessary to be done ought to be done with, and through, the bishops." Of this there is ample proof in the earlier letters, and the proposal which he made was that the four archbishops and one bishop for every province should be summoned to Rome to "prepare and settle things." Writing on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1888, he said to Manning:-"I agree fully with your Eminence that the true Nunciatura for England [108]and Irel

t Britain of the Holy See, and that their anxiety to secure this was in some measure connected with their desire to override the feeli

which has been reprinted, reiterates the disclaimer of re

fice, and the first knowledge I had of the decree was on the morning of the 28th April, when I received the bare circular sent me by

res," says the Tablet, "comprise those of all the Catholic peers in Ireland (14 in number), four Privy Councillors, ten honourables, two Lords Lieutenants of counties, nineteen baronets, fifty-four deputy-lieutenants, two hund

I believe, had time to eliminate the last taint of No Popery feeling in which for generations he and his forbears have been steeped. The existence of this anti-clerical spirit, and, what is more to the point, its expression with the proverbial tactlessness of the political convert, for such a one the Protestant Nationalist usually is, make it very essential that the Catholic clergy should walk warily and avoid giving any handle to their detractors, for in Ireland, and perhaps most of all in the Church in Ireland, there is need to use the prayer of the faithful Commons-"that the best possible construction be put on o

a year with the education question. By that time I am certain Parnell's party will have become seriously disintegrated. Personal jealousies, Government influences, Davitt and Fenian intrigues, will be at work upon the devoted band of eighty. The bishops, who in their hearts hate Parnell, and don't care a scrap for Home Rule, having safely acquired control of Irish education, will, according to

influence of the Roman Catholic priesthood than the lower classes in the towns."[17] But how is one to reconcile either of these declarations with his action in [111]1886, when, the tremendous force of the Catholic Church not having come over to the Tory si

Now I would cool the ardour of these potentates for Mr. G. by at once offering them the largest concessions on education-primary, intermediate, and university-which justice and generosity could admit of. I would not give them everything before the general election, but I would give a good lot, and keep a good lot for the new Parliament.

osed with the offers or been forced by the rigours of ecclesiastical discipline into compliance, appears to me not proven, as is also the imputation that the people have in any [112]degree departed from the lines of O'Connell's dictum-that we take our theology from Rome, but our politics we prefer of home manufacture. If the action of Cardinal Cullen with regard to the Tenant League in 1855 be a

r of the Jacobinical principles of the French revolution created among them an antagonism to any violent agitation, which admittedly or not drew its inspiration from that source, but the names of Dr. Doyle of

d that in his opinion "it ought to be cherished as a good, though not the most preferable good if a choice was now to be made, and not tolerated as an inevitable evil. It is extraordi

at within a couple of years there can exist no doubt whatever that the Protestant population of Ireland will form the majority, and Rev. A.R. Dallas, one of the leading proselytisers in the country, borrowing a Biblical metaphor, announc

been put down to clerical obscurantism? The priest in politics we have been told ad nauseam is the curse of Ireland, but clerical interference is not unknown in English villages, and one has heard of dissenting ministers whose hands are not quite unstained by the defilement of political partisanship. It is not the habit that makes the monk, and it is possible for sacerdotalism to be as rampant among the most rigid of dissenters as in Church itself. An example of the falsehoods which have at intervals to be nailed t

alien Church, it is a little surprising to hear this taunt from Englishmen and Protestants. Relieved, as the people have been only in the last generation, from this obligation it is not strange that the work of providing churches for their own worship should have been undertaken. The Catholic churches have in large measure been built by the contributions

ic clergy has been singularly little abused," goes on to add in connection with the topic on which we are touching that "without a doubt a good many motives are unfortunately at work in the church-building movement which have but remote connection with rel

praise, assent

ering teach the

nd, and yet af

ault, and hes

which I have quoted is omitted, and in spite of the fact that nearly forty pages are devoted to an Epilogue containing answers to his critics, the

h is more important-of all notion of the value of evidence, are, I understand, eagerly snapped up and readily believed by pious Prot

ages, inculcated by a priesthood thirsting for marriage fees, and virtue itself is in this way depicted as being nothing but the bye-product of grasping avarice. I would not have thought it necessary to have touched on this subject if I were not assured of the vast circulation of the type of books to which I refer, which are

which for partisan reasons plays on the bigotry of English people by the booming of such books, no matter how scurrilous or how vile are their innuendoes. The comment of M. Paul-Dubois on these attempts to foist on the Catholic Church responsibility for the evil case in which Ireland finds herself,

trymen. They have discouraged violence, and the weight of their Church has always been directed against secret societies, and if their power has been great it is only because they have been in full sympathy with their flocks. [117]In 1848 the clergy made such efforts to check the excesses of the abortive insurrection of that year that Lord Clarendon, the Viceroy, wrote to Lord John Russell to tell him that something must be done for the clergy, but the bigotry of the English and Scottish people stood in the way. The No Rent Manifesto of 1881 fell flat owing to the ecclesiastical condemnation which it incurred on the ground that it involved

ls in Ireland, which, it should be noted, are at the same time those of least expense to the State. The cleanliness and neatness of the premises, the supervision and management on the part of the Community, the order and tone of the children, are all highly praised; and in a further Report on Intermediate Education, prepared by the same Inspector of Schools jointly with a colleague, will be found equally strong insistence on the wel

satire-the Drapier Letters-and who appreciate the fact that Berkeley-the most distinguished of Irish Protestant bishops-was refused the Primacy of Ireland because he was an Irishman, and that to appoint any but an Englishman or a Scotsma

est une violence; la continuance de cette violence est une persecution." You would find it hard to make me believe that had England been the scene of a similar anomaly, with the r?les, of course, exchanged, the feelings towards the Catholic Church, even forty years after its disestablishment, would be the most cordial. [119]The proposals of Pitt for the State payment of the Catholic priesthood were constantly revived and advocated throughout the century. Lord Clarendon's views, which have just been quoted, were a mere echo of the

s eyes to this among the other serious problems of Irish government. It required all the violence of desperate men to call, attention to a con

600,000, and of this two archbishops and ten bishops received one-tenth. The mode of solving the inequitable state of affairs which produced least resistance lay in the direction of concurrent endowment. Earl Russell suggested the endowment of Catholics and Presbyterians and the reduction of Episcopalian revenues to one-eighth of their existing amount. To the Presbyterians

were denounced for having sanctioned sacrilege. In the end the Church saved from the burning more than in any equitable sense she was entitled to claim. The Representative Body, which was i

cost of maintenance of Maynooth. The history of this grant dates from the ￡9,000 given to the College by the Irish Parliament, which was increased by Peel in 1844 to ￡26,000 a year. When in the following year he brought in a Bill to make it a vote of,￡30,00

e figures, which represent the whole of her receipts from public funds, amply bear witness, [121]but that she g

lergy minister, and as the population of that sect amounts to very little more than half a million it appears that there is one parson for every 363 parishioners, 800 Presbyterian ministers serve nearly a half million of people in the proportion of one for every 554 of that communion. 250 Methodist ministers are sufficient for 62,000 people in the ratio of one for every 248, and the 3,711 Catholic priests, who serve nearly four million of souls, are in the proportion of one for every 891, while in England the priests of the same communion amount to one for every 542. These figures show the measure of truth in the alleged swamping of Ireland with priests. In proportion to the number of their flocks all the other denominations have a

ndergone the experience of spending a Sunday in Belfast. The truth is that attacks on the Irish priesthood came ill from Englishmen or Anglo-Irishmen who have found in the Catholic Church the most powerful agent of social peace in the country. That Irishmen have on this ground any reason

gracefully depicted, and it is difficult to see how such a figure of genial kindliness could have been portrayed in such a quarter or have received such general acceptance if t

, failing a sympathetic aristocracy, would, in a normal condition of things, provide popular leaders, is the only thing which has maintained any such undue predominance on the part of the clergy in secular affairs as exists. With the development of an educated Catholic laity, among some members of which one may expect to see evolved that cr

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