ILLINOIS
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
Production Note
Project Unica
Rare Book & Manuscript Library University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign 2015








f
PRICE OHE PENNY.
LECTURE
ON
or
a
DELIVERED IN THE
Round Room, Rotundo, Dublin, ON MONDAY, APRIL 26th, 1880,
John O'Connor Power, Esq., M.P,
The Right Hon, The Lord Mayor Presided.
DUBLIN :
SHERIDAN & LINCOLN,
1880.Probably of all the topics that ever were chosen for the instruction and enlightenment of our people there never was one of more vital importance or greater utility than the following—“ The Philosophy of Irish History.” We live in an age of advancement, wherein “ the pen is mightier than the sword,” and it is such men as O’Connor Power and A. M. Sullivan to whom we owe a deep debt of gratitude for guiding us on to philosophy—and to the noblest of all philosophies—the philosophy of history. There are thousands of our young countrymen whose hearts pant to be in the glorious track of the great and good—and they sketch from the lava past a future of great eminence. No fissures can intervene as impediments. We deduct from the philosophy of Irish history the motives which actuated the minds, the sentiments, and the actions of the greatest of Irish statesmen; and we glory in decorating these with some of the most brilliant ornaments of English literature. In this train we view with pride the immortal relics of Richard Brindsley Sheridan, Dean Swift, Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith, and, greatest of all, Thomas Moore, with a long retinue of prominent actors on the world’s stage whose work is not yet consummated.
Beholding, then, these immortal meteors, philosophy points us on to the magnanimous freedom and glories of the future, and with the ashes of the great repeating themselves in the deeds and thoughts of such men as our persevering and noble lecturer, let our ensign be emblazoned with the heroic words of the great American poet (Longfellow) :—
“ Let us then be up and doing With a heart for any fate ;
Still acheiving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.



The Lord Mayor, in introducing Mr. O’Connor Power, said he would address them upon a theme which must command their best sympathies, and would elucidate it in a manner to cause them the greatest satisfaction
Mr. O’Connor Power, who was again loudly cheered, said, apart altogether from the claim which any organisation formed for Catholic purposes must have on Catholic support in a purely religious sense, the association on whose behalf he appeared that evening was deserving of the highest encouragement on this simple ground on account of the efforts which it had made to promote the habit of study and self-improvement amongst the young men of this Catholic city. Many of their most intelligent young men failed to realise how much the glory and the prosperity and the happiness of life depended upon self-reliance and selfexertion. The character of the child depended upon his teachers, the character of the man depended upon himself, and if his career was to be ever useful or distinguished, he must, on the very threshold of life, make himself the architect of his own fortunes and mould his destinies with his own hand. From what he knew of the St. Kevin’s Branch of the Catholic Union, he believed it was not a very controversial body, that it was a body which believed that this was the latter end of the 19th century and that therefore it was a practical and common-sense organsa“ tion, and he believed that its efforts towards infusing this6
spirit of self-reliance and self-exertion amongst young men were well worthy of heartiest encouagement and the warmest support from all who were labouring honestly and sincerely for the elevaion of the people of Ireland. Now to invite their attention to the subject set down for their consideration, this evening he started with the simple proposition that there was a moral law governing the lives of nations as of individuals. The operation of this moral law in the history of the Irish nation was what he meant by the philosophy of Irish history. Now Ireland had established a certain position amongst the nations. They would see what that place was by a reference to some of those great periods of the past which illustrated Irish character and the condition of the Irish people. The people of Ireland could certainly not be accused of having been false to their convictions. He would like to fix attention upon a few great events which appeared to have had a most powerful influence on the character and condition of the Irish people. It was not merely because of her unexampled sufferings that Ireland’s history was a study of much interest to foreigners, but also because in this island home of ours all the great issues which lay at the root of human action in public affairs, and which controlled the destinies of mankind had been fought out the issues between Church and state, between authority and freedom, between class and class, between creed and creed,, between party and party, had been brought into conflict, and while it is universally said by writers at both sides oi the Channel that Ireland had never been wanting in allegiance to legitimate authority, her distinguishing mark in history was her unconquerable, unpurchasable devotion to faith and to freedom. Yes, the divine spirit of religion and the patriotic sentiments of nationality, which the bribe7
could not conquer, and which the bayonet could not subdue, had given Ireland the name she possessed to-day in the literature of the civilised world—a name inseparably associated with Christianity, with patriotism, with self-sacrafice for conscience sake ; aye, and with public liberty and with national honour. The conversion of Ireland by St. Patrick and his admission into the Christian republic stood out for all time as the greatest event in Irish history. Compared with it, other events, however fruitful in great consequences, were only like shadows quivering on the stream of time. For it was the source of all the power and glory which Ireland enjoyed in the age of sanctity and learning, and its mighty consequences were traceable in every subsequent stage of her career—traceable throughout the fierce wars of the Danish invasion, traceable through all the duplicity and hypocrisy of the Anglo-Norman invasions; but more gloriously than all the days of religious persecution, when ©ur fathers cheerfully laid down their lives in defence of the sacred rights of conscience All historians united in testifying that the ancient Church made Ireland the university of the world, and her light shone bright and pure above the dark clouds of ignorance which enveloped the greater part of Europe, for the golden tongue of Dupanloup, and the diamond pen oi Montalembert had both been employed to preserve in shrines of precious eloquence the records of the labours and achievements of the monks of the West. And if the Church of God was powerful to-day in England itself, and in every spot of that wide dominion through which English power had been able to extend^ unquestionably it was owing to the scattered children of the Irish race, who had carried with them the seeds8
of faith, and by their missionary zeal had converted many desert into blooming vineyards of that one true Church which had withstood the storms of 1,400 years, and which we, Catholics, believed and knew was destined to continue till time itself should be no more. It was impossible to form an adequate idea of the spirit or the meaning of Irish history without noticing the extraordinary military ardour which had always characterised the Irishman. Spenser, no friend of Ireland, gave his testimony to Irish courage. “ I have heard,” says he, “ some great warriors say that in all the services they had seen abroad in foreign countries they never saw a more homely man than the Irishman, nor one that cometh on more bravely to his charge.” An Irishman who served in the Franco-Prussian war, and was now one of his honoured colleagues in Parliament, told a story of the joy which inflamed the hearts of the Irish section of the foreign legion when the commander on one occasion placed them in the post of honour leading a charge on the enemy’s lines. They acquitted themselves bravely, and the commander subsequently delivered a speech thanking them for their noble conduct. One brave fellow who stood with his arm in a sling, and who did not understand the French language, inquired what the commander was talking about.
“ Oh,” said his friend, “ he is returning us thanks,” to which the wounded hero replied, “Ah, to the devil I pitch his thanks, will he let us have another charge!” Why was it that a brave, courageous, and patriotic people were subject to a foreign yoke ? He was not speaking as (a politician but as a philosopher; and he said that a race endowed with such qualities as these should never tremble at the thought of beiqg free, and should never have forfeited9
its freedom. Truth compelled him to say that except at intervals which had been far too rare in our history we had been a divided people, and there could be no doubt that the same spirit of sectional isolation had often since the days of the Normans been a fruitful source of our national weakness and our national misfortune. From one point of view divergence was inseparable from progress, for if they could not advance together they must advance in fragments, and to that extent he did not pass a sweeping condemnation upon everybody who struggled for an opinion exclusively his own. He would point to the battle of Clontarf, the glory of which dimmed the disgrace of all the miserable feuds and jealousies of the previous 200 years. Brian proved on that occasion what united Ireland could accomplish when given a fair field for the exertion of its power, and just as the fierce waves which were driven by the hurricane were broken into spray on some rock-bound coast, so came and perished the last waves of the Danish invasion on the shores of Clontarf.	Later on, a flag
which bore the motto, “ Faith and Fatherland ” concealed every provincial distinction in its ample folds, and he need not tell them that Ireland was united with Grattan and the Volunteers in ’82, and that she was united still later in 1829, when O’Connell won Emancipation. He was anxious to be impartial, and he was not afraid to be truthful in his references to Irish history. He had mentioned that the characteristic defect of Irishmen in Ireland presented itself historically to everyone sincerely studying the question to get at the meaning and spirit of the annals of our country, but if the great moral law which he assumed to have always existed had been interrupted or suspended in its operation by circum10
stances over which they themselves were responsible, it had been interrupted and suspended in a far larger degree by the law of force imposed upon Ireland from without. And to this fact philosophy would attribute, rather than to any or all of the weaknesses of the Irish character, the defects of the Irish civilisation. He was far from saying that Irish civilisation could not be benefited by external influence. The founders of the Christian Church in Ireland employed external influences on the Irish mind. St. Patrick was an invader as well as Henry II. ; but there was this difference between the two—that the Roman missionary appealed to the moral force of the nation. He came to call the people to a nobler life and a higher civilisation, not like the English Monarch, with the lie of hypocrisy on his lips, with the rancour of national hate in his heart, with the weight of physical force in his hands. They ought to be impartial and very free from prejudice in talking about St. Patrick and Henry II. There could be no greater contrast in the same sentence than the mention of these two names; but he said that in that contrast and in the lesson of their respective merits they might behold the philosophy of Irish history. He contrasted the modes of invasion adopted by the two, and said that if St. Patrick was an invader, at all events he was the only invader whose swray had been universally acknowledged by the Irish race. The apostle’s successful mission made Ireland a nation of saints. It was destined also to make her a nation of martyrs. The heart sickened in contemplation of that mighty struggle; the pages which record it were steeped in blood and tears ; and he did not wish to dwell upon it at too great length to arouse passions which, thoughII
noble and grand, might, perhaps, be reserved for other times and other occasions if Ireland should ever once again be called upon to prove her fidelity to conscience. It was only in the year 1793 that they were permitted to see the glimmering of the dawn of a brighter and a better day, when the law of the land might sanction the act of every man worshipping God according to the dictates of his conscience, for in that year a Protestant Irish Parliament so far recognised the civil existence of Catholics as to confer upon them the privilege of voting for the return of Protestant Members of Parliament, and so the farce* went on until one man arose in Ireland whose life contained the very largest and greatest compendium of the philosophy of Irish history. Need he say that he referred to the illustrious patriot and statesman, Daniel O’Connell? —who united the eloquence of Grattan with the courage of Wolfe Tone, the intrepidity of Lord Edward Fitzgerald with the wisdom of Edmund Burke, and the genius of Swift with the wit of Sheridan and the enthusiasm of Emmett. If they were to read something of the philosophy of Irish history in the lives of Ireland’s great men then he said this was to be noted particularly in the life of Daniel O’Connell—though always scrupulously constitutional in his movements, though always exuberantly loyal to the Sovereign in his addresses, they must never forget that O’Connell was the very last man to believe that the path of servility and obsequiousness was the surest road to Emancipation. Having reviewed the political career of O’Connell and the history of that period, he said that whatever statesmen might do they could not make any man worship God according to the dictates of another man’s conscience—the Lord Mayor might just as well try to12
climb the North Pole or to darn a stocking with the Egyptian monument called the Cleopatra needle. He must be a cold-blooded reader of the past—he cared not what the amount of his prejudice—who did not see that Ireland by her adherence to moral principle, to national -honour, and, above all, to religious truth, maintained for herself a reputation more glorious and enduring than might -could ever conquer or gold could ever buy. The exiled Irish carried with them to the remotest parts of the earth the same dual fidelity to the two true sentiments which contained in themselves the philosophy of Irish history. Having briefly referred to the history of the Irish Brigade, he said he believed that the glories of the past would pale as the moon paled before the light of day in the glories of the future, which should be written by the muse of history in describing what even we have been able to accomplish for the glory of our native land He need hardly say he took a patriotic pride, that he gloried in the sacrifices of the men who were not of the Catholic faith, and who proved by the ready sacrifice of their lives the sincerity of their devotion to Ireland He thanked God that Ireland should possess men who were not of the Catholic faith, and who were filled with the spirit of an unswerving and unpurchasable devotion to their country. Having passed an eloquent eulogy upon the labours of the Irish historians, the hon. gentleman concluded as follows—The hour is fast approaching when slavery’s crown of thorns shall be taken from the brow of Ireland and replaced for ever and for ever by the unsullied diadem of national independence.Oppression’s heart might be imbued
With kindling drops of loving-kindness, And knowledge pour,
From shore to shore,
Light on the eyes oi mental blindness.
All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrongs,
All vice and crime might die together * And milk and corn,
To each man born,
Be free as warmth in summer weather.
The meanest wretch that ever trod,
The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow, Might stand erect,
In self-respect,
And share the teeming world to-morrow.
What might be done ? This might be done, And more than /his, my suffering brotber-More than the tongue E’er said or sung,
If men were wise and loved each’other.T4
A GENTLE ECHO ON WOMAN.
In the Doric manner.
DEAN SWIFT.
Shepherd. Echo, I ween, will in the woods reply,
And quaintly answer questions : shall I try ?
Echo.	Try.
Shep. What must we do our passion to express ?
Echo.	Press.
Shep. How shall I please her, who ne’er loved before ? Echo.	Before.
Shep. What most moves women when we them address ? Echo.	A dress ?
Shep. Say, what can keep her chaste whom I adore ?
Echo.	A door.
Shep. If music softens rocks, love tunes my lyre.
Echo.	Liar.
Shep. Then teach me, Echo, how shall I come by her ? Echo.	Buyher*
Shep. When bought, no question I shall be her dear ? Echo.	Her dear*
Shep. But deer have horns : how must I keep her under ? Echo.	Keep her under.
Shep. But what can glad me when she’s laid on bier ? Echo.	Beer.
Shep. What must I do when women will be kind ?
Echo.	Be kind.
Shep. What must I do when women will be cross ?
Echo.	Be cross.Lord, what is she that can so turn and wind ?
Wind.
If she be wind what stills her when she blows ?
Blows.
But if she bang again, still should I bang her ?
Bang her.
Is there no way to moderate her anger ?
Hang her.
Thanks, gentle Echo ! right thy answers tell What woman is and how to guard her well.
Guard her wellDUBLIN :
SHERIDAN & LINCOLN,-
32, Lower Ormond Quay,