The Loyalty Of Irish Catholics To A Country That Had Scant
Justice To Give Them Has Been Proven On Every Battle Field From Far
India To The Crimea.
No history of England's wars in these later times
can be written truly without acknowledging the Irish blood given like
water for England's honor.
Scotland has been more favored of late years, although the time is not
so far distant when her language, her dress and ancient customs were
also proscribed. Watching this, I have found myself wishing that some
Irish Walter Scott would arise whose pen would make Ireland's lakes and
glens, mountain passes and battlemented rocks, ruined castles and
mouldering abbeys, famous and fashionable as Scotland's brown heath and
shaggy wood, till the Queen would love to have a home there, and the
nobles of the land would follow in her shadow.
I have changed my opinion on this also. The nobles come to covet the
homes of the people. The Highlands of Scotland seem destined to become a
hunting ground. The hardy mountaineers, guilty of no crime, must give up
their hamlets and shielings, the inheritance of their fathers, at the
order of any trader who has coined the sweat of his fellow men
successfully into guineas, or any idle lord who has money. If "a death
grapple of the nations" should ever come to England will she miss the
Connaught Rangers, the glorious 88th who won from stern Picton the
cheer, "Well done 88th," or the Enniskillen dragoons so famed in song
and story, or the North Cork that moved to battle as to a festival? Will
she miss "the torrent of tartan and steel" that charged at the Alma, or
the cry that "the hills of grey Caledon know the shout of McDonald,
McLean and McKay, when they dash at the breast of the foe?" Will she
miss the clansmen of Athol, Breadalbane and Mar? Will the exterminating
lords who must have hunting grounds at all hazards come to the front
with squadrons of deer or battalions of rabbits? Surely it is an aweful
thing to sweep the inhabitants of a country for gain. If Britain ever
has to call on these Varuses for her legions, or to repeat George II.'s
cry at Fontenoy, will the enemy be able to countervail the Queen's
damage?
I would earnestly plead with the authorities, even yet, to try a little
conciliation instead of such strong doses of coercion. History tells how
cheaply the disturbed Highlands were pacified compared with the expense
of coercing them, which was a failure. The tithe of the expense for
bayonets would, I am convinced, make the West of Ireland contented and
make future prosperity possible.
THE END.
End of The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland, by Margaret Dixon McDougall
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