Page:An Ulsterman for Ireland.djvu/27

AN ULSTERMAN FOR IRELAND passed in 1800 and the re-establishment of the jobbing Parliament of Irish landlords contemplated with so much reverence by Mr. Grattan. That; Parliament is a very fine thing to talk or sing about. It has historic associations of a theatric sort; but no Irish peasant or working man will ever pull a trigger for the sake of restoring it.

What, then, is the true value of that mighty movement that has stirred the millions of our Catholic countrymen for so many years? What hope—what faith is it that has sustained them through so many famines—that has drawn them together in multitudinous assemblages on a hundred hillsides to call the earth and the heavens to witness their wrongs and their resolves? What is this great vague national aspiration, think you? To impose penalties on your worship?—To take forfeited estates from Saxon aristocrats and vest them in Milesian aristocrats?—To enjoy the honour and glory of seeing Irish nobles and gentlemen sitting in College Green?

My good friends, what Irish Repealers really want is, that they may have leave to live, and not die; they want to be made sure that what they sow they shall also reap; they want a home and a foothold on a soil, that they may not be naked and famishing beggars in their own land. In one word—they demand Ireland for the Irish—not for the Irish gentry alone. They desire not to rob the Protestants, but to bridle the exterminators, be they Protestant or Catholic (and some of the cruellest are Catholics). They demand back, not forfeited 17