Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/287

 HISTORY.] IRELAND 271 llion 98. on of lt. aiu liu j_ which, necessary as it was, caused dreadful hardship, and among the Catholic Irish in America Fenianism took its rise. One good result of the famine was thoroughly to awaken Englishmen to their duty towards Ireland. Since then, purse-strings have been even too readily untied at the call of Irish distress. Great brutalities disgraced the rebellion of 1708, but the people had suffered much and had French examples before them. The real originator of the movement was Theobald Wolfe Tone, whose proffered services were rejected by Pitt, and who founded the United Irishmen. His Parisian adventures detailed by himself are most interesting, and his tomb is still the object of an annual pilgrimage. Tone was a Protestant, but he had imbibed socialist ideas, and hated the priests whose influence counteracted his own. In Wexford, where the insurrection went farthest, the ablest leaders were priests, but they acted against the policy of their church. The inevitable Union followed (1st January 1801). Pitt had long before (1785) offered a commercial partnership which had been rejected on the ground that it involved the ultimate right of England to tax Ireland. He was not less liberally inclined in religious matters, but George IIJ. stood in the way, and like William III. the minister would not risk his imperial designs. Carried in great measure by the same corrupt means as the constitution of 82 had been worked by, the Union earned no gratitude. But it was a political necessity, and Grattan never gave his countrymen worse advice than when he urged them to &quot; keep knocking at the Union.&quot; The advice has, how ever, been taken. Emmet s insurrection (1803) was the first emphatic protest. Then came the struggle for eman- cipation. It was proposed to couple the boon with a veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops. It was the ghost of the old question of investitures. The remnant of tha Catholic aristocracy would have granted it ; even Pius VII. was not invincibly opposed to it; but Daniel O Connell took the lead against it. Under his guidance the Catholic association became a formidable body. At last the priests gained control of the elections : the victor of Waterloo was obliged to confess that the king s govern ment could no longer be carried on, and Catholic emanci pation had to be granted (1829). The tithe war followed, and this most oppressive of all taxes was unfortunately commuted (1838) only in deference to clamour and violence. The repeal agitation was unsuccessful, but let us not be extreme to mark the faults of O ConnelPs later years. He doubtless believed in repeal at first; probably ha ceased to believe in it, but he was already deeply committed, and had abandoned a lucrative profes sion for politics. With some help from Father Mathew he kept the monster meetings in order, and his constant denunciations of lawless violence distinguish him from his imitators. His trial took place in 1844. There is a sympathetic sketch of O Connell s career in Lecky s Leaders of Opinion; Wyse s History of the Catholic Associa tion gives the bast account of the religious struggle, and much may be learned from Fitzpatrick s Life of Bishop Doyle. The national system of education introduced in 1833 was the real recantation of intolerant opinions, but the economic state of Ireland was fearful. The famine, emigration, and the new poor law have nearly got rid of starvation, but the people have not become frankly loyal, for they feel that they owe more to their own importunity, to their own misfortunes, than to the wisdom of their rulers. The literary efforts of young Ireland eventuated in another rebellion (1848); a revolutionary wave could not roll over Europe without touching the unlucky island. After the failure of that wretched outbreak there was peace until the close of the American war released a number of adventurers trained to the use of arms and filled with hatred to England. Already in 1858 the discovery of the Phoenix conspiracy Fenian- had shown that the policy of Mitchel and his associates ism. was not forgotten. John O Mahony, one of the men of 48, organized a formidable secret society in America, which hif historical studies led him to call the Fenian brotherhood. The money raised in the United States was perhaps not less than 80,000, but it is due to O Mahony to say that he died poor. In Ireland the chief direction of the con spiracy was assumed by James Stephens, who had been implicated in the Phoenix affair, and who never cordially agreed with O Mahony. Stephens was very despotic a true revolutionary leader. As in all Irish political con spiracies there were traitors in the camp, who kept the authorities well informed, and in September 1865 the Irish People newspaper, which had been the organ of the move ment, was suddenly suppressed by the Government. The arrests of Luby, O Leary, and O Donovan Rossa followed, all of whom, with many others, were afterwards prosecuted to conviction. Stephens for a time eluded the police, living with little concealment in a villa near Dublin, and apparently occupied in gardening. But in November he was identified and captured, much evidence being found in his house. Ten days afterwards he escaped from Richmond prison, and it is now known that some of the warders were Fenians. Another conspirator, sometimes called O Brien and some times Osborne, afterwards escaped from Clonmel jail. American papers stated that Stephens was in actual want in New York in the winter of 1880, but he has since been heard of at Paris. The promptitude of the Government perhaps prevented a general insurrection, but there was a partial outbreak in February and March 1867, chiefly in Kerry, Limerick, and Tipperary. There was an affray, if it deserves the name, at Tallaght near Dublin, and a plot to seize Chester Castle was discovered and frustrated. The police, who behaved extremely well, were often attacked, but the Fenians abstained from plunder or from any acts which might estrange the rural population. The peasants, however, though for the most part nationalists, did not care to risk their lives in such a wild enterprise, and the young men of the towns furnished the only real force. Weather of extraordinary severity, which will long be remembered as the &quot; Fenian winter,&quot; completed their discomfiture, and they suffered fearful hardships. There was enough sympathy with the movement to procure the election of O Donovan Rossa for Tipperary in 1867, when he was actually undergoing penal servitude. John Mitchel, whose old sentence was unreversed, was chosen by the same con stituency as late as 1875, but in neither case was the vote a large one. It became the fashion in Ireland to celebrate annually the obsequies of the &quot; Manchester martyrs,&quot; as the three Fenians were called who suffered death for the murder of police-serjeant Brett. The Roman Catholic Church has always opposed secret societies, and some priests had the firmness to discountenance these political funerals, but strong popular excitement in Ireland has generally been beyond clerical control. Even now the Fenian spirit is not extinct, and one of the brotherhood, named Devoy, announced a new departure in January 1879. Devoy and his friends have certainly had considerable influence upon the recent agrarian agitation, which they have from motives of policy placed in the front, while keeping a separatist movement in reserve. The Fenian movement disclosed much discontent, and was attended by criminal outrages in England. The abolition of the Irish Church Establishment, which had long been condemned by public opinion, was then decreed (1869). The land question was next taken in hand (1870), and