LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 15

LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

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who have taught us to do without them—who have forced us to do without them and to defy them; and what I mean to point out is that they must not be surprised if now and for evermore we base our confidence for the future of our country upon the might and the organisation of the democracy' of Ireland, and upon the sympathy and the cooperation of the democracy of England. That is the scope of the remarks that I shall offer to this assembly here to-night. I remember, not so very long ago, 'democracy' used to be thought an awful, almost a naughty, word among genteel people in Ireland. Some of us had no more conception what sort of uncouth animal a democrat was than Mrs. Partington had of the attributes of the allegory on the Nile. Irishmen were supposed to be nothing if not admirers of the old aristocracy. If you were to believe Charles Lever's novels, a man who was of ancient lineage might, without detriment to his popularity, desolate a whole countryside, he might beggar his tenants, and mortgage his property up to the eyes, he might get drunk every night of his life, and put a bullet through an unfortunate tradesman if he asked for payment of his bill. The Irish people were supposed rather to like that sort of thing from a gentleman of spirit, and the people put their hands to their hats for him, and voted for him, and fought for him, as if it were the best fun in the world to be evicted and swindled by one of ' the old stock.' It is the irony of fate that the very practices which the Irish gentry rebuke with a celestial grace in the Irish peasants of to-day as crimes of the blackest dye are only faint imitations of the pastimes of their own fathers and grandfathers. Tarring a bailiff and making him swallow his own latitats is a proceeding copied from the highest aristocratic precedents. Mr. George Robert Fitzgerald … continue reading »

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