ENGLISH CREDULITY ON THE IRISH QUESTION, [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPEOTATOR.1 SIR,—An article in the World of April Llth was returned to nee from London lately with this observation :—" A perfectly true picture; but the misfortune is it will not be believed on this side of the Channel." The article was a description, by an eye-witness well known to me, of the agonised terror of helpless persons in the South-West of Ireland at the discovery f their crime of signing the petition against Home-rule; and the author of the observation is a gentleman who repre- sented this his native county in Parliament on Liberal prin. .ciples until he found himself unable to adopt the Home-rule policy. In this and other ways, evidence accumulates that an important factor in the present crisis is the credence given by English Gladstonians to the Irish Nationalists rather than to the Irish Unionists. Now, why is this, or why should it be so P It can scarcely be that the men of property, position, and education in Ireland, who are almost all on the Unionist side, are thought less truthful, as a class, than those on the other .81de, who are commonly without these advantages. It can scarcely be that the Protestant is thought less truthful than the Roman Catholic. No doubt it is largely due to Mr. Gladstone's personal influence, as well as to the fact that we Irish Unionists failed to put our case with sufficient earnest- ness until the Gladstonian mind had been already occupied for some years by the case of our opponents. But is it not also partly due to a national character, a slowness of appre- hension, a misplaced credulity, a something difficult to describe, for want, I suppose, of an English word to ex- press it ? I am in the habit of hearing a word borrowed from the Irish language. It is a good many years now since some merry and clever young people of my acquaint- ance taught me to distinguish and recognise a peculiar character which they called "the English Omadhawn." They did so in connection with trifling mistakes, in comparatively unimportant matters ; but, in serious matters, I may in- stance the amazing and fatal mistake of the Times in giving credence to the absolutely unsupported testimony of Richard Pigott and his forged letters, though almost every man in Dublin could have given evidence that Pigott had been pre- viously suspected of forgery, and bore the general character of being about as unreliable a witness as could well be found in that or any other large city. I think that instances could be multiplied from Irish history of similar fatal simplicity of character and general gullibility; and the cleverest statesman, University professor, or man of business, who is a genuine Englishmen, can be easily outwitted and deceived by the ordinary Kerry or Galway peasant. Now, nothing is farther from my desire than to offend any English reader ; but when everything we have in Ireland is at stake, we must speak out. The Englishman's credulity is a part of that character of truthfulness, straightforwardness, and justice, for which we shall always admire him ; which makes us cling to him as the ruler of this country. There are few, if any, Anglo-Irish families in Ireland of any length of residence there, and whatever may be their station or position in life, who, in the long strife of six centuries, have not lost blood, or property, or both, in holding Ireland for England. They are ready to do so again ; but, in this matter of Home-rule, if the English Gladstonian persists in playing the " Omadhawn," in believing his enemies in preference to his friends, he will have a rude awakening some day. A hundred thousand men will be found to take up arms against him, of whom, but a short time ago, it would have been thought impossible they could do such a thing ; and instead of Ireland made pros- perous by his policy, be will see a bloody battle-field, and heaps of slain.—I am, Sir, &a., Gowran Rectory, Kilkenny, May let. E. F. HEwsow.
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