THE DONNYBROOK ELEMENT IN THE IRISH STRUGGLE.
English country life to be a little insipid, prefer a society less reluctant to resort to physical force, and like a spice of danger, --.-danger, that is, of a broken head—infused into their popular sports. Impelled by the melancholy which, and not joyousness, is the distinctive note of the Irish character, they like their excitements to be fierce, and regard a riot out of which men are carried to hospital, mach as Rugbeians regard what their parents consider a most dangerous bout at football. When their leaders, therefore, call on them to resist the law, they feel a double, or even a threefold emotion of pleasure. They can gratify their long-standing hate of the " foreign " Government ; they can comfort the party which they think will abolish rent ; and they can revel in the fierce delight of a dangerous shindy without reproof from the priest or rebuke from country-side opinion. They do not care for wounds of a curable kind ; they are full of courage of a sort—a very good sort it is, when they are drilled and disciplined—and so long as the police use only batons, they would rather fight them than any other opponents. Any scrimmage is a joy to a school ; but fancy a scrimmage with the ushers I Imagine school- boys summoned to break windows in the names of moral right and the reputation of the school, and we have a fair idea of an Irish crowd, armed with blackthorns and stones, and told in the name of patriotism and Erin to "go for" the police. A Mitchelstown riot with the cartridges left at home, is for the " boys " of a South Ireland district a scene combining the luxury of excitement hi a land where excitements are few, with the conscientious gratification of a duty done. The absence of good-humour, as Englishmen understand good- humour, which marks such a scene, marked also the old faction-fights, and is no barrier to an enjoyment which proceeds not from the sources which move laughter, but from a heightened fever of the blood, If the law is too strict, enjoyment is diminished, the risk which is unregarded being a wound, not an imprisonment ; while if the police fire, enjoy- ment disappears, and is succeeded by a sort of black rage, arising not from cowardice—that is a foolish charge, in the face of Irish military history—but from a conviction of helplessness, from a horror among a large proportion of the " boys " of dying unshriven, and, as we believe, though We cannot understand it, from an idea that a volley, though the chance of one is implied in the legal armament of the police, is in some way or other a breach of the rules of the game. Mack thought Napoleon a perfect barbarian for fighting in the depth of winter. If this is not so, it is impos- sible to understand the distinction which is drawn in Ireland, in the popular mind, between firing by the police and firing by soldiers.
This temper places at the disposal of Irish agitators a kind of popular army, very formidable, nearly ubiquitous, and obeying rules which cause a stupefied bewilderment in their English opponents. To all appearance, the people are in spirit in insurrection, yet they do not insurrect ; they fight the police savagely, yet compete for places in their ranks ; they resist and defy the law, yet complain with plaintive want of dignity whenever its lightest penalties fall upon them. Probably not a man of all who risk broken heads in a riot like that at Mitchele- town would go within a mile of the place if he were enre that the result would be a fine, which must be paid, of £5. The horseplay may be as rough as anybody pleases, but there must be "no tricks with a gentleman's wardrobe." The truth is, that the resistance which seems 80 shocking in its temper to Englishmen, and which is so shocking in its results on civilisa- tion and prosperity, is not at bottom so utterly malignant as is imagined, but is largely mixed with passionate enjoyment in excitement of any kind, and special enjoyment in a riot as a sport in which for a moment one has the luxury of letting one's passion go. The Irish "boy" does not want life in a drawing- room, but life in an excited crowd, maddened with politics he approves and hatreds he shares, and will follow his leaders against the New York police, with whom he has no political or
hereditary quarrel, just as readily as against the Royal Con- stabulary. Ultimately, when the" whiff of grapeshot" comes in which all modern revolutions end, and which may come in Ireland from a Home-rule Administration, he will recede in angry submission, aware that the game has become too earnest, not for his courage, but for his impelling motives ; but meanwhile, he makes government in English eyes almost impossible. Everybody defies it to the extent, at least, of hooting. It is not impossible, nevertheless, but fairly easy, if only the law, with its steadily equable pressure, is persistently carried out.
The Irishman has just the same advantage in the straggle within the wale of Parliament. The more stolid Englishmen sit amazed at the persistence with which their opponents obstruct or raise profitless and degrading scenes, and forget that their opponents enjoy the scenes and the obstruction. They are not joyous scenes, but they are exciting ; and to Irishmen of the type now sent up to Parliament, excitement is as old whisky. So far from feeling degraded by the scenes, the Mem- bers' vanity, individual and collective, is pleasantly titillated by their occurrence. The very root of the thirst for Home-rule, as apart from the agrarian revolution which Home-rule would legalise, is a kind of patriotism, partly real, partly brummagem, —a desire that Ireland should be visible as a separate entity in the world, and not be merged in " England " or the United Kingdom ; and after a scene with the Speaker, or an all-night sitting, or an expulsion, Ireland is visible, especially visible to every city in the States. When the Irish behave well, they are lost in the mass ; when they behave ill, they are dig- tinguished,—that is the unformulated thought which sustains many an Irish Member when his English opponents regard him as an utterly senseless brawler and spoiler of people's rest. The thought has a truth in it, too, of a sort, and helps with other things, such as the intense delight it is to an Irish- man to be a " Member " on any terms not involving un- popularity, to make a policy of endless worry seem to the leaders practicable and effective. If Irish Members hated scenes as the English Members do, they might still occur, for the whip of the Fenians is strong ; but they would be much less frequent, and marked by a widely different tone. It was a strong Irish patriot who told us that nothing except personal disfranchisement would ever effectually meet Irish obstruction, because nothing else would ever snake it really unpleasant and, as it were, over-.serious to the individual obstructive. Why should he mind, when his action worries the Saxons, and therefore gives to himself a pleasing excitement and popularity among his electors, and to his country visibility in Paris and through the States? The English view of the Irish oharacter is erroneous, because that character has for its foundation melancholy, and not cheerful- ness; but the old idea that in it " bedevilment " had a large space was more or lees true. Now, bedevilment in child or Irishman is terribly difficult to deal with, became while it is impossible to tolerate it, it hardly j addles the desperate treat- ment which yet sometimes proves to be the only cure. Patience in the pedagogue is indispensable, and also a perception that while the fit lads, he who restrains it must not look for liking or even tolerance, but only for kicks at his legs, bursts of fury, and absolute refusal to do anything that school regulations may require.
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