Patrick M. Foley

“ They fill their pockets with gold, make their homes comfortable, while their neighbours hearts are sad, their hearths cold, their pockets empty and their sons and relatives slaughtered in the battle fields. I honestly believe that it is much nobler to die in thousands in the cause of humanity and freedom than to draw a single sword in this disgraceful war. You leaders of destruction and legalized criminals in power, remember God's commandment—"Thou shalt not kill." ”

“ Author's Most Earnest Desire Is to See Ireland Free.—The author's most earnest desire is to see the morning dawn when Protestant and Catholic in Ireland would be linked together in one bond of peace, enjoying the blessings of good laws made by a free people in an Irish Independent Parliament. He is opposed to a class or creed ascendency, the adoring of human false gods, or the keeping of the whole island in slavery by a few non-productive, pampered gamesters. ”

“ It surprised me to find in such an enlightened place as Castle Gregory any person guilty of such folly as to believe in curing ailments by charms. Corkaguiny in general, I believe, stands as clean from superstition and charms as any barony in the British Isles, judging by the latter actions in foreign lands. The ignorance and superstitions of the few now amongst us are all nearly melted away before the bright rays of science and education. ”

“ Cattle, sheep, hares and deer, will take the places of Irish, Scotch, Welsh, and English, shot down in this war.
England, contrary to the rules of warfare, tries to starve the civil population of Germany, and in return Germany in a more scientific manner does the same thing to England by sinking great liners, thereby causing death on the ocean, of innocent people. Hatred for the people of the nations at war with each other, will live in Europe for the next generation. The slaughter of human beings, now going on, is shocking. ”

“ I fail to understand how any people guilty of shedding so much innocent blood, which our Pilgrim fathers used as divine perfume in witchcraft, cases of which Boston and Salem furnish such an example, could be found to possess a pure religion. ”

“ The High King of Ireland and the Irish could not stand the disgrace of such an act to occur on Irish soil, and consequently declared war on the Prince of Linster. The Prince of Linster appealed to King Henry II of England for aid. The kings, princes and people of Ireland stood for virtue, while the English king and his barons under the color and pretense of restoring virtue to Ireland, stood for a licentious old man and introduced rape, plunder and murder into the country. ”

“ Haunted Houses.—Three houses in the whole barony of Corkaguiny are all I can discover to have the reputation of being haunted now. Thieves, robbers and persons of fraudulent and dishonest intentions manufactured ghosts and imposed them on their innocent neighbors as haunting certain places, while in other cases where an unnatural death took place, such as murder, suicide or the like, a fear would seize the person finding the corpse or one hearing about it. Children seeing white boys assembled by night in open places and not knowing who they were prolonged the belief in the ghosts and fairies. ”

“ In Ireland slight traces of the old Pagan superstitions lingered amongst the people, but between 1580 and 1736 in England, no less than thirty thousand persons were publicly hanged for being witches, and most of the poor innocent creatures were burned at the stake. The most learned judges of the English courts declared from their benches that witchcraft existed, and that persons in one league with the devil could raise storms, destroy life and property, by no further act than taking off their stockings and steeping them in soap and water. ”

“ Few Irishmen drink beer, but many of them drink whiskey, while nearly every man and woman in England likes to have beer. After a careful study of Irish customs, every taxable article desired by the Irish was [15] especially aimed at. To make the tax appear just, the sum for the same quantity was raised alike all over the United Kingdom. By such plans and others of the like, Ireland was robbed of over $28,000,000 a year, outside of her proper proportion, not to mention the millions the landlords or other office pets took out of the country. ”

“ They cannot understand that "all men were created equal," only when they want the common people to fight their battles.
Notwithstanding the isolated and backward state of Ireland under alien rule, yet as far as the author can ascertain the Irish people never demanded a single life to be sacrificed in cases of witchcraft, and if any individual fell, it was at the command of the foreigner and to satisfy his craving for blood and sacrifice. Ireland appears to be much cleaner from superstition than her neighbors in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries of the Christian era. ”

“ The Irish Volunteers asked the Government of Great Britain "If the Orangemen can arm and drill, why cannot the rest of Ireland do the same?" Irish Volunteers were allowed to arm because the war cloud was hanging over Europe and it was considered useful to have Irish half-trained soldiers ready to fight.
When the European war broke out, Home Rule was quickly passed, and on the 18th of September, 1914, signed by King George, and placed on the Statute Book, but suspended from operation until after the end of the war. The German people were painted in every false color for the Irish people. ”

“ During her long reign, Catholic Ireland became her greatest slaughter field. Although in the Protestant Bible she is said to be the "bright occidental star," "of most happy memory," the truth is that she did not care much for any religion, but used Protestantism as the most favorable one to gain her ends. Bad as "Bloody Mary" was, her reign was a mild one when compared with "virgin" Elizabeth. England became worse in those days than Mexico of today. The instruments of torture in the Tower of London bear silent evidence of many dark crimes. ”

“ The plain leading facts as they appear to me are that Germany wants the expansion of territory and sea power, and England is jealous of the rapid growth of sea commerce of Germany, and therefore avails herself of this opportunity to destroy it for ages. I honestly believe that all the other arguments about militarian little nationalities, etc., ought to at once be rejected as manufactured excuses to justify war. ”

“ Children ought to be told the truth, namely, that faces made against the windows are done by members of the family in order to frighten them. These false impressions created in the minds of innocent children at such an early age make their lives so miserable to them in after years that they imagine every bush that shakes after dark is a ghost or a fairy. ”

“ American Revolution.—In 1775, Irishmen were found very active in the cause of the American Revolution. Shortly after, England granted Ireland an independent Parliament. This Parliament is known as "Grattan's Parliament." The progress of Ireland under her own Parliament surprised the world and immediately England set about for its destruction. In 1801, Ireland was again a bleeding nation—her Parliament was gone. Although an Irish Catholic could not sit in Irish Parliament, yet the people expected Catholic emancipation from it much sooner than from the British Parliament. ”

“ It is strange that the whole of the great Northwestern States of America, by the vote of the people, made their States completely dry, and that without compensation to the saloonkeeper, yet our people, amongst whom it has such a ruinous effect, cannot hold a Christian patron day without traffic in intoxicating liquors. In the United States a minor dare not enter a saloon, and a saloonkeeper is debarred from entering almost all lodges—even many Christian churches have refused to accept their money ”

“ The Sinn Fein movement is purely a political, economic and non-military society. The name "Sinn Fein Volunteers" today throughout the world is more wrongly applied to the Irish Revolutionary Party than calling the Battle of Bunker Hill to the battle fought between the British soldiers and American Revolutionists at Breed's Hill, Boston, Mass. The Irish Revolutionists were made up of Irish Volunteers, Gaelic Leaguers and other Irish societies. They protested against the youth of Ireland under false colors to be drawn into the British army. ”

“ Look at the British soldiers who boasted that they were going to "defend the Catholic nuns in Belgium from the Huns," destroying the women of their own land by the thousands before leaving for the front!
Now, as to curious customs, you will find boys and girls "courting" in Ireland, "bundling" in Wales, "spooning" until midnight in the United States, and for three long years a young man with window bars between him and his sweetheart is "playing the bear" in Mexico, before he is admitted into her room, even in presence of members of her family. ”

“ Catholics were compelled by law to give one-tenth of their crops to the support of the Protestant Church without receiving anything in return but insult and injury. Then came the landlord, giving nothing but claiming everything to the body and souls of the tenants. Up until the land agitation the buildings and all improvements made or erected by the tenant became the property of the landlord. In order to keep Ireland divided, the wealth and power of the Unionist (capitalist) class from England to New Zealand is still lavished on a body of foreigners in the North of Ireland, called "Orangemen." ”

“ I believe Italy, Spain and France, three Catholic countries, were the first to reject witchcraft. Germany, although at first very slow to believe in witchcraft, burned them by the thousands, and that in a most barbarous manner. The Puritan fathers of New England had the hangman's rope pretty busy in Boston Common with the witches of Salem, Massachusetts, and the Quakers of other parts of the State. If a man did not believe in witches, he was classed worse than a heretic. ”

“ It is clearly against the mandate of God, reason and common sense. Civilization is trampled on; barbarism is substituted; bands of legalized murderers sit in gilt chambers, drinking wine bought with the blood of their countrymen in the trenches. ”

“ The writer is not finding fault with the people of those countries which honestly believed in the existence of witches, but he is protesting against those who leave the very dens of superstition and come to Ireland to magnify trifles, at the same time pretending that they have none of their own. Every country has had people some of whom are more or less superstitious. It is not even confined to any one religion. In many houses in America for good luck you will find the horseshoe nailed inside over the door. ”

“ Patrick, and judging by the way he handled the Pagan Irish kings and chiefs, he must have been a wise statesman.
From 432 to 812, Ireland was known throughout the world as the "Island of Saints and Scholars." Foreigners came from all parts of the Old World for education. The ancient language of the country then, as now, was Irish. In the Irish wars most of the fine Irish arts and buildings were destroyed by foreign invaders. Probably the "Book of Kells" is the finest production of its age in the whole world.
Latin was the written language of England in the 12th Century, or thereabouts. ”

“ It is more remarkable still when we consider that if snakes which live in the British Isles will die on their arrival in Ireland, and many of them, it is said, before they ever touch the Irish soil, and that science so far has not discovered any means to overcome it. It is also said that if pure Irish earth was scattered in a garden snakes would become scarce. ”

“ Protestants of England, who held Catholic confiscated lands, feared King James, and invited William into England. In England, James offered very poor resistance; in Ireland it was different. Although the Irish had never much love for any English King, yet the leaders and clergy worked upon the sympathies of the people by pointing out the wrong of the King's Protestant daughter to be depriving her father of his lawful throne, his home and country. Blinded by sympathy, the Irish were induced to fight. ”

“ This famine was caused by a failure of the potato crop, on which the common people lived for sustenance. The blackest feature of this famine was that the Irish branch of the Church of England availed of it to seduce the starving people into Protestantism with soup and bibles, and that these years there was enough corn shipped out of Ireland to maintain the class ascendency in luxury, that would feed as many as died through hunger. ”

“ Whether the middlemen were of Irish descent or foreign, Catholic or Protestant it did not matter much to the tenant, as they were nearly all oppressors of the worse kind imaginable. [6]
The middleman of the Eighteenth Century were the very scum of society and the seeds of immorality. They destroyed and brought to sorrow most young girls that put any confidence in them or entered their service. Parnell's land agitation destroyed the last of them. ”

“ The origin of these factional fights in those parts was the betrayal of the Earl of Desmond—a Fitzgerald—by a Moriarity. However, in the course of time they branched into minor factions. There, too, was a class of idle half-gentry, called middlemen, in the country who pretty often caused faction fights. They made it a practice to attend fox hunts, horse races, cock fights and country fairs. They were idle, extravagant drunkards having the pretentions of gentlemen, and by the common people were called master "D—R—fe," while in truth and in fact they were the very pest of society. ”

“ The custom of hanging bells to horses, cattle, sheep and goats is very common in the Republic of Old Mexico, also in the States of Nevada and California in the United States. Without those bells goats, sheep and cattle could not be located amongst the thick brush.
[15] Whisky is the water of death to every person. The saloonkeeper, or publican, who gives drink to a child or young girl under the age of 21 years is the devil's best agent on earth. ”

“ These, together with some of Queen Elizabeth's followers, became Irish landlords and tyrants of the worst kind. The people who reclaimed, tilled, improved and erected buildings on those lands, could not understand how a foreigner who never tilled or improved one inch of land could claim ownership of everything which the farmer raised. For two hundred and fifty years, war has gone on between the landlords and the tillers of the soil. Today the descendants of ancient occupiers of the holdings are repossessing same and Cromwell landlords are disappearing. ”

“ However, worse still were their representations of dances at the ancient crossroads by young men and maidens years in their graves, long funeral processions of the dead at night through certain roads in which a living companion of the dead would pretend to see and recognize some of his dead neighbors and at the same time he would order those in his company who could see nothing wrong to step aside and let the dead pass. ”

“ In this journey the English soldiers slaughtered every man, woman and child they met. At Standbally, they tossed the children for pastime from pike to pike and next stabbed to death the feeble mothers. ”

“ Nevertheless, there must be something of an unknown nature existing in the shape of a wireless telephone, electric feeling or otherwise in the blood, flesh or nature of certain Celtic families whereby some relative of a sudden feels, pictures and imagines death, trouble or misfortune approaching without apparently any means of knowing it at the time. I hope science will soon more clearly solve the cause of this and thereby strip off all superstition and uncertainty. ”