200 STRAY- AW AYS 



In some ways, however, it is the points of diver- 

 gence between the Ireland of Then and Now that 

 are the more sahent. In the chapter entitled 

 " Patricians and Plebeians," Barrington unhesitat- 

 ingly divides Irish country society into four classes ; 

 these are the Common People, Half-mounted Gentle- 

 men, Gentlemen every inch of them, and Gentlemen 

 to the backbone. The difference between the two 

 latter orders was one of money only, and would seem 

 to have been scarcely worthy of definition, but the 

 barriers between the Gentlemen, the Peasants, and 

 the " Half- mounted " (or, as a later use has it, " Half- 

 sirs ") were practically unassailable. These barriers 

 are shaking now ; abolished, says the new school of 

 patriots, eagerly anticipating that ecrasement of the 

 exclusive order of the " Gentlemen to the Back- 

 bone," to which their most strenuous efforts arc 

 directed, unaware of their own at least equal exclusive- 

 ness, who deny to any save themselves the right to 

 be called the people of Ireland. It is singvilar that 

 the spread of education, even of such education as 

 has been thought good enough for Ireland, and the 

 influx of American ideas, should have evolved the 

 very bigoted insularity which characterises that party 

 which is certainly the noisiest, if it is not the most 

 important, in the Ireland of 1918. 



It is only those who do not know Ireland who 

 offer pronouncements about her; yet it may be said 

 that it is hard to believe that these immature Repub- 

 licans represent that well-loved Ireland, that " dear 

 Isle in the Waters," whose place is hidden deep in our 

 hearts; harder still to believe that they are sincere 

 in the faith they proclaim. Irishmen may, and often 

 do, trumpet their conviction of their transcendent 

 superiority, but it is the very heart of self -distrust 

 that is in them that often inspires their vehemence. 



