Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 17.djvu/426

 IRELAND 410 IBELAND

Republic, which is the Dail £ireann, against all abroad especially in the United States. Conditions

enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear in Belfast have steadily grown worse. Under the

true faith and allegiance to the same; and that auspices of the Orange authorities a S3rstematic

I take this obligation freely, without any mental program haa been carried on without government

reservation or purpose of evasion, so help me God." interference. Catholic houses have been burned,

The oath was administered in the Irish language. Catholic men, women, and children have been

A new conference was arranged a little later, and murdered, merely because they were Catholics;

Messrs. Griffith, Collins, Barton, Duggan and repeated attempts have been made to destroy

Gavan Duffy were authorized by the Dail on 7 Catholic churches; if the Catholics are found armed

October "as envoys plenipotentiary from the elected for defense they are liable to be flogged; they have

government of the Republic of reland to negotiate been flung into gaol in such numbers that the N. £.

and conclude on behalf of Ireland with the repre- Ulster government has been oblieed to lease an

sentatives of His Britannic Majesty, George V, a additional gaol in Scotland to which they are to be

treaty or treaties of settlement, association, and transported. The Sisters of Mercy and of Nazareth

accommodation between Ireland and the community cannot appear in the streets for fear of assassina-

of nations known as the British Commonwealth." tion; ancf the Catholic schools have been threatened

This parley took place and on 6 December, 1921, a with secularization. All the while in virtue of the

series of articles of agreement were si^ed by tiie acceptance of partition the other Irish Catholics

plenipotentiaries. As the articles provided for the have been rcnclered incapable of helping them by

inclusion of the Irish within the British Empire political measures.

and accepted the partitioning of the country, the Among the events of religious importance or inter- delegates in affixing their signatures acted contrary est in Ireland in recent years, in addition to the an- to their instructions. They explained later, how- nual pilgrimage to Croaghpatrick are the following : ever, that they had done so only after Lloyd The grant of special plenary and partial indul- George had confronted them with the alternatives gences and privileees to members of the Irish of immediate signature or immediate renewal of League of Daily JVlass (16 September, 1915), and the Reign of Terror in an intensified form. Under the Catholic TVuth Society of Ireland (12 April, the proposed agreement Ireland is to accept the 1917). The establishment of a feast of All the position of a Free State within the British Empire, Saints of Ireland on 6 November (23 February, with N. E. Ulster remaining a separate state. 1916); the extension of the feast of St. Columbanus, The Irish Government is to have control of con- 26 November, to all the Irish dioceses (29 January, stabulary, army, education, taxes, excise, postoffice, 1916); the restoration of St. Patrick's Day as a telegraph and telephone; the British Government holy day of obligation, with a dispensation from is to be permitted the use of certain Irish ports for fast and abstinance (13 May, 1919). The intro- navy purposes and sites for aeroplane stations; duction on 12 February. 1915, of the causes of the members of the Irish Parliament are to swear canonization of 258 Irisn servants of God, slain allegiance to the Irish Free State as by [British] by the English, and. of Fathers Fiacre Tobin and law established and fidelity to the British king; John Baptist Dowdall, Franciscans (23 July, 1919), finally, the king is to be represented by a Governor similarly done to death in the penal days; the appointed by the British Cabinet. A constitution beatification of Oliver Plunkett, martjrred Arch- is to be drawn up by the Irish Provisional Govern- bishop of Armagh (27 March, 1920). The approval ment, and if it is in conformity with the articles of the Holy See ^iven (13 June, 1917), to the of agreement, and approved at an Irish general elec- project of establishing a mission house to prepare tion, the British Parliament will incorporate it in candidates for an Irish mission in China; departure a bill and enact it by law. The terms of the of the first band of Irish priests on 27 March, December agreement were accepted later by the 1920, for that mission, and their arrival at their Dail by a small majority, in spite of the opposition headquarters, Hang Yang in Houpe, on 29 June by President De Valera. Meanwhile the Provisional following. The approval given by the Holy See Government is preparing to hold the election in on 9 March, 1921, of a litany of the Saints of the twentynaix counties, of which the future Irish Ireland for public use in all Irish churches. The Free State is to be composed. Just when a radical formation of the League of St. Brigid on 10 Jan- and dangerous difference of opinion regarding the uary, 1920, to combat the attempt to popularize election had manifested itself between the Free immodest foreign fashions in dress. The opposi- State and the Republic adherents Collins and De tion offered by the Irish hierarchy to the Bill Valera reached an agreement which secured an proposing to place Irish education imder the con- equitable and peaceful solution. trol of an English board subject only to the British By the acceptance of partition, which Archbishop Parliament, which would have been most harmful Walsh and the hierarchy had opposed so vigorously from an educational, national, or religious point in 1917 the Catholics in N. E. Ulster, without of view.

bein^ consulted or given any guarantee of civil or Among the prominent Irishmen who have died

religious liberty, have been handed over to the since 1914, besides those who fell in the fight for

mercy of fanatical Orangemen, over 20,(X)0 of whom independence, may be mentioned : Archbishop

in Belfast alone have been armed to crush Walsh (Dublin), Archbishop Healy (Tuam), Bishop

Catholicism. During the Reign of Terror the con- O'Dwyer (Limerick), Fr. James A. Cullen, S.J., the

vent in Lisbum had been wrecked and the nuns Apostle of Temperance, Dr. Walter McDonald,

forced into exile in England, the parochial home theologian and philosopher, Fr. Matthew Russell,

was burned to the ground, and the houses of S. J., poet, Fr. Edmund Hogan, S. J., Irish historian.

Catholics destroyed, all in one oiitbreak when Canon Peter O'Leaiy, the leading Gaelic writer and

£500,000 damage was done. Since July, 1920, over scholar.

8000 Catholic workingmen in Belfast, more than ^, ^^ „^ ^ ,.,.„. . ,^ ui- •.miav /^«r

1*UV1 rkf Tjohnm hat^ inutrht fnr tViP AlliPa in th<» MacNmix., PAa«e« o/ irw/i «w*ory (Dublin, IWO); O'Kbllt,

JSP",?^«?*^°^ naa lOUgnt tor the Allies m the jrdand: Siements of Her Early Story (Dublin, IWl); Fin-

World War, have been dnven from their work rxmcK, Ireland and the Making of Britain ilfewYotk, ivny;

under threat of death, without any redress; while Hatdbn and Moonan. Short Hin. of the Irish People from

their wives and children have been saved from *s% P'^^^'^l^^dS%^TT^^^''B^.

starvation only by the generosity of the Irish of the Irish Dominicans (Dublin, 1916); FinMAinDCB AKB