TOLERATION IN THE FIGHT FOR IRELAND

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 122

TOLERATION IN THE FIGHT FOR IRELAND

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tion so spurious that nobody less ignorant of the affairs of Ireland than that characteristic Ulsterman, Mr. Arnold Forster, would take it seriously. It is easy enough, indeed, to understand why the landlords should be eager to separate the Presbyterian farmers from their Catholic brethren, and why the capitalists of Belfast should prefer to see their stubborn Orange workers listening to Colonel Saunderson denouncing Home Rule, rather than see them, with their labour banners outspread, marching shoulder-to-shoulder with their Catholic brother-workers, as happened not many moons ago, to the consternation of Unionists who are not Trades-Unionists. But we will seek high or low in vain for any reciprocal reason why the Presbyterian democracy in the country, or the Orange democracy in the towns, should foregather with the ruling class in hall and factory as kith and kin, and play their game and draw out their chestnuts from the fire, rather than claim kinship with the majority of their fellow-countrymen, rough-fisted and toil-worn like themselves, who have made it possible for a Presbyterian farmer to live and thrive, and who are in the forefront of the movement for revolutionising the lot of all who toil. The Ulster aristocracy of land and trade claim two bonds of kindred with the non-Catholic masses—the claim of race and the claim of religion. It is only in very recent years the claim has been insisted upon. The cry of a common religion was not heard when the Protestant farmers of County Down were expelled by tens of thousands in the clearances which gave the American Revolution its stout Irish Protestant soldiers. The sacrosanct tie between lord and yeoman was not loudly proclaimed in the days when the Presbyterian hearts of steel swept into Belfast and captured the gaol there. The Ulster Presbyterians were not so richly feasted with offices nor … continue reading »

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