John Mitchel

“ To impose penalties on your worship?—To take forfeited estates from Saxon aristocrats and vest them in Milesian aristocrats?—To enjoy the honour and glory of seeing Irish nobles and gentlemen sitting in College Green?
My good friends, what Irish Repealers really want is, that they may have leave to live, and not die; they want to be made sure that what they sow they shall also reap; they want a home and a foothold on a soil, that they may not be naked and famishing beggars in their own land. In one word—they demand Ireland for the Irish—not for the Irish gentry alone. ”

“ It may be laid down as a rule, admitting of no exception, that in these later ages, wherever the sovereignty,of the People is established, there religious ascendancy can stand no longer.
But the reason why your grand masters and grand chaplains endeavour to represent the national movement in Ireland as a movement for religious ascendancy is tolerably plain. It is merely to disguise from you the true meaning and drift of it. "Repeal," they tell you, involves a religious war, and penal laws against Protestants and seizure of forfeited estates. ”

“ Did you ever hear of an uncivilised and savage country so very uncivilised and savage that those who cultivated the soil, regularly delivered up the produce to others and died of hunger when they had reaped the harvest? ”

“ Repeal is a Papist movement, and Papists want ascendancy, and if we had not Protestant England to back us the number of Catholics in Ireland would so preponderate that they could carry anything they liked against us. Now, I do assure you, my friends, that, except yourselves, there is nobody in all Ireland dreaming of religious distinctions in politics, and such nonsense is kept alive only by our worshipful grand masters with their prate about Jezebel and the Man of Sin. ”

“ They demand back, not forfeited estates, but the long-withheld and denied right of human beings. And, inasmuch as Irish landlordism is maintained here by the English connection, and the English connexion is perpetuated by Irish landlordism, they can see no way to put an end to either but by destroying both.
Now, this—this, and nothing else—is the " Repeal " that stirs and rouses and thrills through the ancient Irish nation from sea to sea. It is essentially not only a national movement, but also—why not admit it?—a class movement. ”

“ If you still doubt that a hankering after religious ascendancy is at the bottom of it all, I ask you to consult the Dublin newspapers of July and August, 1846, the period when the old, corrupt, sectarian, money-gathering, and hypocritical association of O'Connell was broken up and abandoned by honest men merely because it was corrupt, money-gathering and hypocritical, but especially because it was sectarian. ”

“ Now, I confess that I am a "revolutionist,"—that is to say, I desire by any means, peaceable or otherwise, to alter the system of Government and distribution of property in this land, so that men willing to earn their bread may have leave and opportunity to earn it—so that those who till the soil may be sure that they will have enough of the produce to live upon. ”

“ If you look all over the Continent of Europe yon will perceive that the fullest and freest toleration, or rather the most unreserved religious equality, has been everywhere established, and that Catholic countries have taken the lead in this—especially those Catholic countries which have got their revolutions over. ”

“ The truth of the matter is, and you all know and feel it, that the "laws" in this land are not just laws, do not answer the purpose of laws (which is to protect the rights of all alike) , and are, indeed, considerably worse than no laws. ”

“ I am one of the Saxon Irishmen of the North, and you want that race of Irishmen in your ranks more than any other. You cannot well afford to drive even one away from you, however humble and uninfluential. ”

“ Consider this account which I have given to you of the true nature and meaning of the movement which is called for want of a better name "Repeal," and bethink yourself whether you, the Protestant farmers and labourers of the North, have in this matter any interest distinct from that of the Catholic farmers and labourers of the South, the East, and the West. ”