TOLERATION IN THE FIGHT FOR IRELAND

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 115

TOLERATION IN THE FIGHT FOR IRELAND

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over. The Irish over-readiness to commence a quarrel, and the still more Irish eagerness to forget it, are typified in the story of Grattan, who rushed to the Fifteen Acres to shoot the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then watched by his bedside with the tenderness of a Sister of Charity. They are illustrated still more vividly by his encounter with his illustrious fellow-countryman, Henry Flood. Their quarrel left to the schoolboys of all ages two masterpieces of invective, and to the Irishmen of all ages the regret that two of the greatest figures in our history should have marred their glory by a contest so vulgar in a moment so sublime. There are few pleasanter things in Grattan's noble story than to know that only a few days afterwards he was penitentially unsaying his sarcasms of that stormy hour, and endeavouring to compensate from a good heart for the exuberance of a rash genius. Two English statesmen in the same circumstances would probably have whispered their impressions of one another in smoke-rooms or jotted them down with a pen of poison in their diaries, instead of vociferating them in the House of Commons. England would have suffered less by the backbiting than Ireland did by the hard-hitting; but, worldly wise interests apart, it is not certain that human nature is any the greater sufferer by the open folly than by the secret malice.

But we need not look for the secret of Irish quarrelsomeness in any ingrained bias of the race, when we have but to investigate any of the feuds which divide Irishmen to see that these feuds have been specially created by our English governors for the purpose of keeping Irish classes and creeds asunder. Irish quarrelsomeness is English policy. It is not a provision of nature. It is the invention of cunning conquerors. One of the grotesque assumptions of the opponents of Home Rule is that the … continue reading »

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