LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are often. more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.]
THE POWER OF THE PRIEST IN IRELAND. [To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."J
other methods for the pacification of Ireland, or at all events all attempts to cause a cessation of the murder campaign having failed, there yet remains one chance of a remedy. It lies with the ministers of God of the Roman Catholic religion; they have the power in their hands. If, for whatever cause, the greater number of the Irish bishops and priests have not yet moved in the interests of religion to stay the carnage, will not those of their own faith in this country, both clergy and laity, appeal to them in the name of Christ to be no longer supine but to exert themselves to bring about an abatement of the daily murders of their Irish brethren and parishioners? That if they are willing to stop the prevailing horrors they are able to it I know from ocular demonstration. In the days of the
Land League, in the years 1881 and part of 1882, I was quartered with my company of the King's Own Scottish Borderers at Mitchelstown, Co. Cork, a few miles from Fermoy, with which city, however, there was no connexion other than that afforded by a hilly road. This place Mitchelstown, lying In the shadow of the Galtee Mountains, was then looked upon as being the most disorderly town in Ireland. There certainly were ructions galore, the details of which I need not, however, now go into. Suffice it to say that they were suffioient to keep our small body- of troops from stagnating at the time, while subsequently "Remember Mitchelstown! " became a slogan or war cry which is probably not even yet forgotten throughout the South of Ireland.
Upon the occasion of one of the biggest of the Mitchelstown riots, one in which the whole of the inhabitants of the country, round had participated for over five hours, I was, after some very exciting events, left with a small rearguard of only four- teen or fifteen files of young soldiers to cover the retirement of the rest of the company, which was guarding Mr. O'Mahoney, the agent of Anna Countess of Kingston, upon whom several murderous attacks had already been made that day. A mob of some three or four thousand men had been heaving rocks freely, but after a little harmless prodding behind with the bayonet, in which some forty of its members had suffered in a brewery yard, whence they had been throwing stones, the mob paused for a few minutes in a side street. During that period I drew up my little party in extended order across a lawn-tennis ground in the centre of Mitchelstown. Square, thus covering both the approach to the Mitcheletown Castle gates and the road to the small barracks up which the rest of my company had moved as if going home, although this manoeuvre was really only a ruse to hide another operation which proved successful. Presently masses of the mob surged out of the side street and, headed by two priests, both mounted, occupied the , whole of the end of the square facing us. The stone-throwing recom- menced, the missiles being huge stones which the rioters had brought with them. The Riot Act had already been read by the Resident Magistrate, which gentleman had also verbally given, me the order to fire on the mob some time previously. He had, however, being anxious to save his own skin, positively refused to sign the order I wrote out for him to sign, and well did I know if I fired without written orders that I ran great risk from Mr. Gladstone's Government of losing my commission, if not of being tried for murder. Nevertheless, seeing we were about to be rushed, I ordered my young soldiers to load and come to the "Ready." Only the word "Present " was necessary subse- quently in those days, the command " Fire " having been abolished at that time. Fortunately not one of the men fired prematurely from the hip, which was remarkable considering the exasperated condition they had been in for hours, to say nothing of some of their comrades having been struck down and badly injured.
I was about at last to give the fatal word " Present " when I thought that as a last chance Iwould try the priests, with both of whom I was, by the way, acquainted. I stepped forward to them where they headed the mob and addressed them: "Father B—n and Father O'C-1, I appeal to you to stop this disorder instantly or I shall fire—my men are now at the Ready V One hint, you on your horses are the most conspicuous objects in the whole mob ! " In a second those two priests stopped the stone-throwing. Further, they drove the whole truculent mob before them out of the square—the thousands •retreated before them like a flock of sheep—back into the street from which they had entered the square, and thus by their action the effusion of blood was prevented. In this manner I learned a lesson which I have never forgotten, and I believe that the power of the clergy is no weaker in the Ireland of Sinn Fein than it was in the Ireland of the Land League. If such be the case, is it not possible that an appeal from the loyal and law-abiding Catholics might be made, with the result that that power might henceforth be directed towards the preservation, not the destruction, of human lif el—I am, Sir, &c.,
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