HOME RULE AND SECTARIANISM.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.") SIR,—The danger of the renewal of bitter sectarian animosity and consequent civil strife in Ireland in the event of Home
Rule has been recently greatly increased, not only through the promulgation of the decree Ne Tonere, but even more through the political domination which has been rapidly gained within the last few years by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. This order is ostensibly a benevolent and reli- gious association—strictly sectarian and Roman Catholic in its constitution—but it has also a most active political side, organised by an inner body called the Board of Erin, and bound together as a secret society. The order boasts descent from Elizabethan times, and looks back to Rory Oge (Moore as its originator. R traces its history through the Whiteboys, Defenders, Ribbonmen, and other secret associations of the last two centuries. Devitt, who was himself a member of the order, states in his "Fall of Feudalism " that it is "now perhaps the most powerful pro-Celtic organisation in the world, and is the trans-Atlantic offspring of the Ribbonmen of Ireland." A notorious branch of the Ribbon conspiracy was known as the Molly Maguires, from the name of the proprietor of a shebeen house on the borders of Cavan, where many of the worst of the Ribbon outrages were planned. Your readers will find instructive light thrown on the operations of the De- fenders and Ribbonmen in Ireland and the Molly Maguires in Pennsylvania if they consult Lecky's "History of Ireland" and " Democracy and Liberty," M. Davitt's " Fall of Feudalism," and Mr. William O'Brien's " Olive Branch in Ireland."
Historically the Ancient Order of Hibernians has been fiercely antagonistic to the Presbyterians and Orangemen of the North of Ireland; and to-day the President of the Board of Erin is Mr. Joseph Devlin, M.P., the Secretary of the United Irish League, by whom, as Mr. J. Redmond says, "the real Government of Ireland is carried on at the office, 39 Upper O'Connell Street, and who is the real Chief Secretary of Ireland." (New York World, Nov. 11th, 1910.) These are the " Molly Maguires" whose domination Mr. Wm. O'Brien, M.P., thus describes :—
"It meant to treat a million of their Protestant fellow country- men as irreconcilable enemies by digging an impassable chasm between them. It meant acting on the sublime doctrine of Mr. Dillon that their hereditary enemies were now the under-dog. It meant that one-fourth of their countrymen were to be treated not to a policy of reconciliation, but of retaliation. It meant, in plain English, boycotting them, persecuting them, making their lives intolerable for them in their native land, and making intoler- able also the lives of such Irish Nationalists as dared to preach the doctrine of peace for them, of toleration, of forgiveness for the past, of co-operation for the future."—Freeman's Journal, Jan. 7th, 1911.
80 Merrion Square, Dublin. am, Sir, &c., ARTHUR W. SAMUELS.
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