Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa

“ I know how men get a bad name, and are called madmen, for speaking and acting in the true faith regarding Ireland’s rights. I have myself been called a madman, because I was acting in a way that was not pleasing to England. The longer I live, the more I come to believe that Irishmen will have to go a little mad my way, before they go the right way to get any freedom for Ireland. And why shouldn’t an Irishman be mad; when he grows up face to face with the plunderers of his land and race, and sees them looking down upon him as if he were a mere thing of loathing and contempt! ”

“ I was not born in that county, for “under the blue sky of Tipperary” my eyes first saw the light of day, but, as you say, my mother was born in Ross Carbery; and where is the son who does not love the spot where his mother was born? I do, with a fondness akin to veneration.
Oh, what memories you will call up in those recollections of yours! How the hearts of the sons and daughters of Ireland will throb as they feel themselves [20] carried back in spirit to the abbeys, the raths and, alas! the ruins, around which in infancy their young feet wandered. ”

“ It is surprising how, even up to the present day, England can fashion into instruments of meanness and servility the kind of men that America sends to represent her in London. The one enemy in the world that America has is England. But then, England is the great land of Christian civilization, and it may not be a thing to be much wondered at that our Americans whom we send to represent us in London become in a short time somewhat civilized, and learn to love those who hate them, bless those that curse them, and do good to those that persecute and calumniate them. ”

“ How would a war with England set this to right? Are the men at Washington so ignorant of human nature as to hope, even in the face of a foreign foe, for a fusion with the South? Then look to Europe. There, the feeling, and what is of far greater weight in human action, the interests of all are decidedly with England. It is by no means impossible—even improbable—that France will be thoroughly with England. America cannot possibly be blind to this; if blind now, her eyes will be opened, probably, in time to stave off a collision. ”

“ I saw Father Molony take hold of a boy in my class one day, and take him over to the class of Tead Red, telling him it was in the Irish language he should learn his catechism. How often here in America have I thought of Father Molony, when I met priests from the most Irish-speaking part of Ireland, who could not speak the Irish language. No wonder that our nationality should become diluted and corrupted, no wonder it should become poisoned with—Trust in the English to free Ireland for us. ”

“ Tell your fellow citizens that the name of Ireland is synonymous with the name of liberty courageously defended against privilege—that it is one common name to every French citizen! Tell them that this reciprocity which they invoke—that this hospitality of which they are not oblivious—the Republic will be proud to remember, and to practise invariably toward the Irish. Tell them above all, that the French Republic is not, and never will be an aristocratic Republic, in which liberty is merely abused as the mask of privilege ”

“ It is useless to conceal the fact it is not regiments encamped in Ireland; it is not the militia of 12,000 peelers distributed over the whole of the surface of the land, which prevents revolt and preserves the peace. During a long period, especially in the last century, the excess of misery to which Ireland was reduced had multiplied the secret societies of the peasantry. Who have denounced those illegal associations with the most persevering, powerful, and formidable condemnation? Who have ever been so energetic in resistance to secret societies as the Irish Episcopacy? ”

“ Yes, that was the other field of priseachh-bhuidhe I saw in America, that equalled in dazzling splendor the field I saw in Ireland, but it was one that was just as fruitless of food for Ireland’s freedom, as the Brigaysha field was fruitless of food for Ireland’s people. There was no home rule for Ireland. Gladstone, or any other Englishman, may humbug Irishmen to their hearts’ content, but he is not going to give them Irish freedom until they pay for it the price of freedom. They are able to pay that price, and they are able to get it in spite of England. ”

“ How often have I thought how well it would be for the Irish National cause of my day if it had a draft law that would make its votaries toe the mark at the call of duty. Those votaries swear it is by the sword alone they are to free Ireland, but when danger threatens it how many of them are found to think the country can be freed without using any sword at all? ”

“ The young lord and the young O’Donovan grow up to be men. They are foster-brothers, “dearer to each other than full brothers,” as those Anglo-Irish story-writers say, who have no conception of Irish manhood or Irish spirit, and who write as if the Irishman and his wife felt it an honor to suckle the Sassenach robber’s child. No Irishman of the old stock feels such a thing as that an honor to his house, though the conditions of slavery may compel him to suffer it. ”

“ The old Irish Catholics were fighting for their nationality, and if the old Irish Protestants were to fight for the same to morrow, it is proved that the tyrant would treat them similarly if she had the power. When will Irishmen cease from doing the work of the enemy? When will they ponder on their present degraded condition? When will the sunshine of unity dispel the clouds of dissension and distrust that hover over their understanding, and make them blind to the interests of their common country? ”

“ Those who denounce us go beyond their duty as clergymen. They are either bad Irishmen, who would not wish to see Ireland a nation, or very stupid and ignorant zealots, who do not understand what they are about. Our association is neither anti-Catholic nor irreligious. We are an Irish army, not a secret society. We make no secret of our objects and designs. We simply bind ourselves to conceal such matters as are needful to be kept from the enemy’s knowledge, both for the success of our strategy and for the safety of our friends. ”

“ Granted, too, that Europe shall rise above mere interest, stand aloof from the fray, and leave England to fight it out single-handed. What will then be the consequences to us? Do you hope for good results? I am not by any means sanguine; or, to be thoroughly outspoken, it seems to me—I apprehend—that, in the case in question, far more evil than good shall accrue to us. Once engaged with England, our communications with America are at an end; at least, no men can come home, and even money, only in an indirect and roundabout way. ”

“ Ireland’s trained and marshalled manhood alone can ever make—could ever have made—Ireland’s opportunity. And this opportunity, the manhood of Ireland alone, without the aid of any foreign power—without the aid of even our exiled brothers, could have been made any time these thirty years; and, whether England was at peace or war, with this manhood alone we could have won our own. ”

“ The landlords of Ireland are the lords of Ireland. England makes them landlords first, and then, to put the brand of her marauding nobility on them, she makes them English lords. And they do lord it over the Irish people, and ride rough-shod over every natural and acquired right belonging to them. Whether born in England or Ireland, they must be English, and anti-Irish in spirit, in action and in religion. Some of my readers may say that some of the lords and the landlords in Ireland at the present day are Catholics. ”

“ The representatives of all the Irish societies, and of all the Irish Counties and Provinces are there, arrayed in their finest and best; the large platform is sparkling with diamonds; every man, every woman is a sparkling gem. The governor of the State of New York tells the world, represented there, that the thanks of the whole Irish race is there transmitted to Mr. Parnell and to Mr. Gladstone, for the freedom of Ireland. Handkerchiefs and hats are waved, and twirled in every circle that hands can motion ”

“ These Orangemen societies grew strong in many places, and became so aggressive and so fostered and patronized by the English governors, that they acted as if their mission was the English mission of rooting the old Irish race out of Ireland altogether. The spirit that harmonized with their education was the spirit expressed by those words painted on the gates of the town of Bandon:
“Turk, Jew or Atheist may enter here, but not a papist.” ”

“ We may bravely fight all the battles of all the peoples of the earth, but while Ireland’s battle for Ireland’s freedom remains unsuccessfully fought—while England continues to rule Ireland—all the historical bravery of our race in every land, and in every age will not save us from the slur of the unfriendly chronicler who writes that we fight well as “mercenaries,” that we fight bravely the battles of every land on earth, except the battle of our own land.
The Irish language was the language of the house at my grandfather’s place. ”

“ But I have sent no such man since my return to Ireland.
No sooner did I find myself in possession of even limited means than I took the old track once more. I left Dublin on the 31st of May, and have since visited the counties of Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Tipperary, Waterford, on to Cork. I could not now do justice to the firmness of all our friends; but such is my faith in them that I can surely defy, not only the clique but all influences whatever. Our position here is all that heart of man could wish. ”

“ We, the undersigned local representatives, in Ireland, of the Irish Firm—over the American branch of which John O’Mahony has been appointed Supreme Director—hereby express our unlimited confidence in the ability and integrity with which that gentleman has conducted our affairs in America; and, also, our admiration of the noble constancy which has enabled him to sustain our interests unflinchingly amidst the severest trials, and in the face of the most shameful and unmerited calumny. ”

“ All right for him who wants to forget all belonging to him in the past, and who wants to be the Adam and Eve of his name and race, but it is otherwise for men who are no way ashamed of those who have gone before them, and who do not want to bury in the grave of American citizenship, all the duties they owe to their motherland, while it remains a land enslaved. ”

“ But with England’s strong army and navy, it was nothing but folly for us to think we could do anything against her wonderful power. That is the kind of talk that is of most use to England in Ireland; particularly when it comes from men who have the character of being patriots. And we have many such patriots among us to-day; not alone in Ireland, but in America, and in every other land to which the Irish race is driven—patriots who [252] will do anything to free Ireland but the one thing that MUST be done before she is freed. ”

“ One woman of the name lives as heritor of the old family tomb in the Old Abbey field.
And that is the story of many another Irishman of the old stock. Families scattered in death as well as in life; a father buried in Ireland, a mother buried in Carolina, America; a brother buried in New York, a brother buried in Pennsylvania, a sister buried in Staten Island. The curse that scattered the Jews is not more destructive than this English curse that scatters the Irish race, living and dead. ”