Art. 6.-IRISH HISTORY SINCE THE UNION.

History of Ireland, 1798-1924. By the Rt Hon. Sir James O'Connor, K.C. 2 Vols. Arnold, 1925.

THE publication of this work is a matter of great historical and social importance. The majority of the writers of Irish History have been but too ready to represent incidents in the past as bearing upon the political controversies of the present day. This cannot be said of them all. The late Richard Bagwell, D.C.L., though a man of the strongest Unionist views, succeeded in his well-known History of Ireland in Tudor and Stuart Times,' in giving an impartial view of the events in those days. Froude in his brilliant writing cannot conceal a violent anti-Irish bias. Lecky, one of the most scrupulous of men, though a sincere Unionist to the end of his life, started with an excessive admiration of Irish popular movements, from which he was never able to emancipate himself.

It is important to know who Sir James O'Connor is, and to consider the environment in which he was

brought up. His whole life has been spent in an intensely Nationalist atmosphere. He is a Roman Catholic and deeply attached to his country and his Church. After some time spent in practice as a solicitor, he was called to the Bar, and very rapidly went to the top of his profession: he became Solicitor-General, then Attorney-General, then a Judge of the High Court in the Chancery Division, from which last position he was promoted to be a Lord Justice of Appeal. As a lawyer he stands in the very front rank, and few Irishmen of his time have possessed a contemplative power so deep, or a vision so keen. Above all, he stands out as a man of the highest courage. The well-meaning self-righteous Englishman he convicts of criminal stupidity-yielding when he should stand firm and inexorable at the wrong time. The self-deceiving dishonest Irishman, living and moving in the great game of deceit, he tramples on with scorn and contempt. His legal training has put him in a position, from which he can look on affairs with an eye more or less impartial. There are not many who will be able to agree with him throughout, Vol. 246.-No. 487.

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but there is hardly any one who will fail to recognise the transparent honesty of a writer, who though still a Home Ruler, and one who approves of the Treaty, has no words strong enough to denounce the means used to bring it about. While full of admiration for Mr Kevin O'Higgins, whom he considers a prodigy, he has his doubts as to the future, and is by no means convinced that political assassination is a sound foundation for any Christian State.

The old catch cries which have been the stock of every agitator from O'Connell to Parnell, and by which the minds of the Irish and a large number of the British people have been poisoned, ought henceforth to be heard no more. Among the more prominent of the false beliefs which have held the field so long and have been responsible for the embittered relations of Great Britain and Ireland are the following—that the English Government deliberately provoked the rebellion of 1798 in order to carry the Union; that the Union was carried by a vast scheme of money bribes; that Roman Catholic opinion was unanimous against it; that Pitt broke his word; that Ireland's prosperity languished under the Union; that Ireland was over-taxed under it; that England caused the famine of 1848 and took no real steps to relieve it; that in the landlord and tenant struggle the right was always on the tenant's side. The writer ruthlessly demolishes all these baseless and mischievous beliefs, but we cannot be certain that they will not emerge in some form if required, in the future. Sir James draws a wonderful picture of O'Connell, perhaps the greatest demagogue that ever lived. He had all the qualifications for swaying at will an emotional and ignorant people: he had a commanding figure and a magnificent voice; he knew every turn and twist of the Irish peasant's mind, and could appeal effectively in turn as pleased him, to his religion or his greed; his success as an advocate was immense, though he could hardly be called a lawyer at all; he is reputed to have received the largest income ever made at the Irish Bar-80007. p.a.; he was eloquent, ingenious, and tricky; he browbeat and insulted judges, and his speeches were nearly always unscrupulous if not dishonest. When he became a professional agitator he sacrificed all his legal career, but

he was well compensated by the famous Tribute; in the first year after Emancipation it reached 50,000l., and from 1829 to 1834 he swept in more than 91,000l. In the matter of personal courage he stands high, and the way he faced d'Esterre, a noted duellist, was admired by all classes. He poured the foulest abuse on his opponents and on the English people-'the most besotted and dishonest that had ever been in the world.' He called Wellington 'a stunted corporal,' 'the chance victor of Waterloo-Lyndhurst, a lying miscreant,' 'a contumelious cur'-Hardinge, a one-armed ruffian '-D'Israeli, 'a disgrace to his species'; he declared that nineteen out of every twenty English women had illegitimate children before marriage, and yet he fawned on and flattered George III and presented a laurel crown to George IV when he landed at Kingstown in 1821. Sir James O'Connor believes that he debauched the Irish people morally and mentally, and that much of their dishonesty and shiftiness of character is due to his successful example. When he was sent to Richmond Penitentiary for sedition, the Roman Catholic Bishops framed a prayer for public use, beseeching God that grace might be granted to him and his friends to bear their trials with fortitude, but the prisoners had a royal time. The Governor and the deputy Governor turned out of their quarters to make room for them; they had their own servants and were supplied by their friends with every luxury. O'Connell, the most attractive of hosts, entertained distinguished guests at a grand banquet every night. Then came the writ of error, and the House of Lords by a majority of one set aside the proceedings, and put an end to these delightful festivities -base English Justice! The Liberator, when liberated, went home in a cab-which was a sad error, for his stage managers had other views. The book gives a most amusing account of the great prisoner being obliged to return to the prison, where he begged to be taken in. This was managed with difficulty, and on the next day he was liberated by the people of Ireland in a procession six miles long with bands and banners-the hero sitting on the top of a triumphal chariot of three platforms and drawn by six horses.

The man was a mass of contradictions.

He was

sincerely religious and passionately attached to his wife and family at the same time he had strong animal passions and seems to have indulged them promiscuously. He was detested by the young Irelanders, by Grattan, Gavan Duffy, the poet Moore, and many other Irishmen on the popular side. It is plain that Sir James O'Connor is of opinion that the Liberator, on the balance, injured the country he loved, to a far greater degree than hẹ served her. O'Connell condemned violence and abhorred bloodshed, but his unmeasured language could not but create violence. His great achievement was Catholic Emancipation in 1829, but by that time the tide of English public opinion was strongly flowing in favour of the measure. It is only fair to him to say, notwithstanding the opinion of Grattan, that he anticipated it by a decade. Moreover, he was certainly a great personality and a man of European fame. Whatever his faults, and they were many and grievous, he could not have attracted and retained the affection of the majority of his countrymen, if he had not possessed many great and generous qualities.

The book presents most luminously the facts connected with the famine of 1848. Ireland had none of the potentialities of a manufacturing country. The population multiplied rapidly owing to the encouragement of early marriages by the Church, and soon after the Union it was doubled. The agitators and the clergy thundered against emigration as a crime against the nation. Subletting, the curse of Ireland, which was prohibited by many British statutes, was encouraged by them. Fairly sized holdings disappeared and were replaced by specks on the earth's surface, insufficient to provide sustenance for one person, much less for two and their progeny. One-third of the population was always on the verge of starvation and the potato was their only food. The blight in 1847 turned the whole crop into a mass of rotting vegetation and an enormous helpless population looked on in black despair. The Irish people at home and abroad have always been told that the famine was caused by the Government, and that England stood by and gloated over the sufferings of the wretched victims. This is the kind of poisonous lie that has driven many an Irishman to the belief that

the murder of an English soldier or loyal policeman was not a crime. What is the truth of the matter? No sooner had the famine become an established fact than the best brains of the Civil Service were at once employed to organise relief: distribution of food and relief works were set on foot on a vast scale; Queen Victoria proclaimed a day of fast and prayer-a sum of 1,000,000l. was quickly raised by private subscription, and seven millions of public money were spent on relief, but notwithstanding such noble and generous action on the part of Great Britain, and great sacrifices on the part of the landlords afterwards to be so much abused-many thousands of poor people perished miserably. When it was too late, ill-regulated and panicky emigration took place, and the poor Irish were left at the American seaports 'festered and degraded.' The book then goes on to describe the Insurrection of 1848-the most foolish and ridiculous rebellion in the history of any country, and yet many of those who set it on foot were men of high character, and were neither mean, false, nor cowardly.

The Fenian Conspiracy of 1866 was in the main a by-product of the American Civil War. At no time did it cause serious anxiety to the Government, for the military command was in the capable hands of Lord Strathnairn, and the forces of the Crown easily controlled the situation. The trial of the conspirators in Dublin had one remarkable consequence, they were defended by the great Irish lawyer, Isaac Butt, and although he was till then a Conservative, he was so impressed by the honesty and sincerity of some of his clients, that he was moved to evolve the policy of Home Rule, which held the field down to the time of the Treaty. Butt fought his battle in the House of Commons with great brilliancy, and was assisted by a small but able band of Irish members, who always respected the rules of the House. Notwithstanding their efforts it cannot be said that they made any substantial progress in bringing round British opinion to favour Home Rule till there appeared on the scene the most extraordinary figure that ever took a part in any political movement-Charles Stewart Parnell. He had not a drop of Irish blood in his veins-his education was wholly English-he knew nothing of History-he read