MR. STEPHEN GWYNN'S EXHAUSTED PATIENCE. [To MR EDITOR or 11111
" SPsCTATOR.1 Srn,—It is only to-day (September 24th) I have seen Mr. Stephen Gwynn's apologia for, if not indeed apotheosis of, his friends who organised the ambuscades at Orossmolina and Dundalk. Permit me to make three observations in reply.
(1) As to Mr. Stephen Gwynn himself, who pontificates as an inspired authority on national ethics. He was, a few revolving moons ago, a Unionist; next, a Sinn Feiner; next, a convert to Lord Dunraven's Irish Reform Association ; and finally, a Member of Parliament, by the grace of Mr. Dillon, or rather of a respected local clergyman, but for whose favour Mr. Gwynn's hold on his constituency would not be worth the price of a return ticket to Galway. Surely a Daniel come to judgment upon the record of a mere half-centuried Irish Nationalist like myself !
(2) As to the real character of the Crossmolina attempt. Mr. Gwynn pleads that "there are limits to human endurance." Yes ; but to whose endurance P Not that of the people of Mayo, who, as will be plain enough presently, view with abhorrence the scene which moved even the reporter of the Freeman's Journal to describe it as one " which no thoughtful Irishman with any pretension to patriotism could regard with feelings other than those of regret." The strain upon human endurance to which Mr. Gwynn refers was that of his "Standing Committee," the majority of whom are sworn to be "Molly Maguires," and who sent no less than four paid organisers to North Mayo to direct and pay for the attack upon the Crossmolina meeting. Will Mr. Gwynn deny this ? And if he dare not, what becomes of his plea that popular feeling in Mayo was strained to the murder-point?
(3) Finally, I have never made any allegation against Mr. Gwynn's principals except perfectly definite allegations of fact touching their public conduct. None of those allegations has ever been publicly disputed, much less challenged in a Court of Law, as I have constantly invited my assailants to challenge them. Nay, more ; on the night before the Cross- molina meeting I invited Mr. Dillon to have his entire conduct and mine for the past seven years investigated by a Jury of Honour to be presided over by one of his oldest friends, Hon. Bourke Cockran. Will Mr. Gwynn even now beseech his latest political god-parent to accept the offer ? Or, if not, will he in common decency hold his own tongue for the future as to the exploits of his "Molly Maguire" masters, one of whom (a stranger, by the way, to County Mayo, and an officer under Mr. Lloyd George's Old-Age Pensions Act) has just been convicted of firing off his revolver five times in the street of Crossmolina and breaking a plate- glass window with a atone aimed at my head by way of giving some outlet to Mr. Gwynn's exhausted patience P—I am, Sir,
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