1827.] ' The Catholics of Ireland. 1 1 



the resources and condition of Ireland, must be the annihilation cause 

 and effect the tearing up by the roots, and casting forth of that 

 accursed Party spirit, which no man but one who has lived in Ireland can 

 credit the extent of. Our first step must be to make the country habi- 

 tableendurable to others than those who have no power to escape from 

 it. For it is trash to talk of Absenteeism of the non-residence of the 

 wealthy as other than as a stab to the very heart of prosperity in Ireland. 

 Does she not want, to degradation and to starving, that better order of 

 labour that more profitable employment which would arise from the 

 expenditure of large sums annually, in objects of convenience, of luxury 

 and splendour ? Does she not want, still more pressingly, the presence 

 and example of a class of persons, whose tastes (at least) convenience, 

 habits and advantage, are interested in the maintenance of order, moral 

 sense, and general security, about them ? She will never obtain this 

 advantage she never can obtain it while every village, every parish, 

 in her dominions, is the hourly scene of personal and party discord ; or 

 while the bare suggestion of religious or political discussion raises her 

 whole population like the sound of a tocsin in fury, and thirst for 

 bloodshed, from one end of the country to the other. Ireland is a fertile 

 country a cheap country blessed with a mild and wholesome climate ; 

 governed (as far as transactions between man and man are regulated) by 

 equitable laws : what foreigner for ease, for economy, or retirement 

 takes up his residence in Ireland ? 



As Irish society stands now, neither creed or dogma form any real 

 matter of consideration ; the name the mere nominal distinction 

 Catholic or Protestant is enough. Those who are the most regardless 

 upon the religious part of the question, do not hate each other the less 

 savagely the less part thought of mercy or forbearance on the political 

 part of it. Every Catholic, as the law at present stands, is born a marked 

 ' and an excluded man : this fact alone, though he possessed the virtues of 

 an apostle, is enough to blast his moral sensibilities, and warp and 

 influence his conduct throughout life. His Protestant neighbour no 

 more than his equal in wealth, in lineage, or in acquirement perhaps his 

 inferior in every one of these is born to rule over and surpass him ! 

 And there is no strength in human sufferance to submit to this. From 

 students, they come together to the Bar ; ten years are passed, and the 

 Protestant must step before his Catholic rival take precedence of him in 

 the court give the law to him from the Bench, in his profession. 

 In political life, the first may sit within that House, from which the 

 last must be excluded. As a churchman, he succeeds to high dignities, 

 to wealthy revenues and emoluments, which his proscribed neighbour 

 may never hope to enjoy ; but which his proscribed neighbour must help 

 to pay for. Now, where the common chances of fortune produce this 

 inequality, the loser forgives the triumph ; but we repel the insolence of 

 a superiority, which apart from merit or exertion is provided for by 

 law. A man, without wealth without talent character without 

 visible superior pretension of any kind, cannot be tolerated merely in 

 virtue of his belonging to a particular class, or faction to bestride, and 

 overbear, and bully, and soak up all countenance or authority from the 

 otherwise more naturally powerful, and more meritorious individuals 

 who surround him. Wherever any unfair job of this kind is attempted, 

 wherever a system of favoritism (backed merely by superior force, or 

 undue influence) is contrived to be introduced, the unfailing conse- 



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