LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 26

LOST OPPORTUNITIES OF THE IRISH GENTRY

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which have sometimes made revolution a name of dread and horror in other lands. The Irish people have not the slightest dislike to a man merely because he has a good coat to his back, or because he comes of an ancient family. The objection to Mr. Parnell's class is that it produces only one Mr. Parnell to ten thousand aliens or enemies and oppressors of the people. If in the morning the Irish gentry proposed frankly to draw a wet sponge over the past, there is not a prominent politician in Ireland who would answer with a churlish or contumelious word. They would be welcomed. They would be honoured. The Irish nature has the softness of our own honeyed meads—

There is dew at high noontide there, and springs in the yellow sands, On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Irish forgiveness is to be had to this hour for the honest asking. A single Smith O'Brien redeems a whole pedigree of Murrough the Burners and Black Inchiquins.

The change which the wizardry of one great old man has wrought in the course of a single year in the feelings of the most extreme of us towards the English people is an assurance that no prejudices are too ancient, no wrongs too cruel, no grudges too deep-seated, to yield to the first appeal which English genius and sincerity have ever made to the infinite tenderness of the Irish heart. There will be false gods no more in Ireland; but for good men and capable men who have a heart for the miseries of their countrymen and the will to labour for their alleviation, there is still, and there will be always, welcome, honour, and gratitude, no matter what their class or from what race they may have sprung. But the longer the Irish gentry continue at enmity with the Irish people the harder will be the terms of their inevitable surrender when it comes. Forty years ago they might … continue reading »

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