LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 17

LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

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affairs as the whole galaxy of gentlemen who assemble on the Clubhouse steps put together. Now, what is the reason of this extraordinary transformation? I often think that one of the bitterest reflections of the Irish gentry in these days of humiliation and helplessness must be that it is all their own fault—that they had the country and people for hundreds of years like potter's clay in their hands. If they had chosen to be the people's chiefs and leaders instead of being their slave-drivers, the Irish aristocracy might have had a great career. Unquestionably, rank and brilliancy and chivalry, and all the qualities that appertain to a privileged, leisured class, have always had a fascination for the Irish people. Men of that class who, instead of standing apart in cold and haughty isolation, have given their hearts and lives to the rescue of their down-trodden nation, are the heroes and idols of our history—men like Sarsfield, Grattan, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Davis, Smith O'Brien, and Charles Stewart Parnell. Did the Irish people ever ask what was these men's religious faith, or in what century their ancestors came over? The Geraldines when they settled long ago in Mallow Castle did not shut themselves up in a clubhouse, and give themselves airs. They fraternised with the people, they made themselves bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh; they fought for them and died with them.. And I wonder which is the nobler field of ambition—which is the more likely to shed lustre upon or give-stability to an aristocracy—the career of one of those Geraldines ruling like a king over every peasant from Listowel to the Galtee Mountains, or the career of the present head of the Geraldines, barricaded in his castle at Carton, composing pamphlets for the I.L.P.U., and unable to return a poor-law guardian for his own electoral division? … continue reading »

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