BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
(To THE EDITOR or TH2 " EIPECTAT02."1 Sra,—No one who stands on the edge of the Mull of Kintyre —as I stood a few days ago—and saw the long line of the Irish
Coast almost beneath his feet—the mainland of Scotland being nowhere visible, only the island of Islay rather dimly in sight— but would feel how unnatural it is to think of severing, sharply and decisively, the union between Britain and Ireland; and that what nature had so evidently coupled together no men should seek to put asunder. Historically, too, this county of Arygll has always been the great link of union. By its very derivation, Oirer Gael—Eastern Gaels, could only have been given it by dwellers in the Weet; that is, in Ireland. I believe in one of the old Irish annals it is said somewhere that the mountain range of Drumalban divides Bruinalban from Bruineire—that is, the uplands of Alban (the modern Breadal- bane) on the East from the uplands of Eire or Ireland (the modern Argyllshire) on the West. For the Scots (that is, the Irish of those days) occupied this county as a sort of advanced post; much as the Scoto-Irish to-day occupy North- Eastern Ulster. Is this, I wonder, a sort of historical quid pro quo?
In this district, too, all the great Irish Christian leaders who made Ireland to be called the Island of the Saints are on every side commemorated. They evidently saw no division between the two islands. St. Ciaran of Clonmacnoise is here the patron saint of Campbeltown, and that lie was often here in person is manifest from his very remarkable cave near this.
So,too,here are dedications to St. Kevin of Glendalough, and St. Cainneach (in Scotland called St. Kenneth), and, of course, St.
Columba. St. Columba and St. Adamnan, typical Irishmen though they were, never thought of confining their labours to the Irish colony of what is now modern Argyllshire, but went unweariedly into the farthest eastern parts of Scotland; and their followers Saint Aidan and St. Cuthbert, in their new Iona in the very heart of the Sassenach at Lindisfarne, went, as we all know, far and wide in their zeal for the Gospel, justifying Bishop Lightfoot's words that not Augustine but Aidan is the Apostle of England. While in civil matters the descendants of Aidan, the King crowned by Columba, became kings first of Pictland and eventually of all Britain. The whole careers of these statesmanlike Irish Saints of the sixth and seventh centuries surely allow us to say that if they were alive now they would be using their best endeavours to bring about not separation between the two islands, but sonic working arrangement.
And if it be said that Rome soon stepped in and won first England and then Scotland from these Irish missionaries, that is true; but did not Rome eventually get Ireland also and, what is more, Rome has Ireland still. Was it not, Sir, Rome who once made Ireland a gift to an English king? It would be worthy, then, of the noblest Christian statesmanship of the Vatican to bring Ireland to-day into a living federation with Greater Britain, with which physically and historically she has always been marked out to be united.—I am, Sir, &e.,
A READER or THE " SPECTATOR."
Previous page
