Is Ireland a Nation? [pp. 65-83]

Is Ireland a Na/lia?n6
IS IRELAND A NATION?
Country', from the Latin contra, on the
opposite side, signifies a distinct and separ ate land or region, as distinguished from any
other, and the word nation, from nasci,natus.
to be born, means the body of inhabitants
or natives, of the country. Government is the
ruling power or authority by which the es tablished laws are administered. That every
country is prosperous and happy or poor
and miserable in proportion to the quality
of its government is a proposition the truth
of which is so manifest that no process of
reasoning or demonstration can make it
plainer or more self evident. Given favor able conditions of soil, climate, and popu lation, with an honest and capable adminis tration of the public affairs, national pros perity and contentment follow as a matter
of course. A just, sympathetic, and pa ternal government, having the interest of the
people at heart, infuses energy and life into
the nation, opens up sources of industry
and enterprise, and when necessary finds
out new fields for employment. This may not
always be done directly, it being doubtless
more politic to encourage private endeavor
than to seem to enter into competition with
it; but the whole aim and purpose of a good
national government is to promote the well being of the people-the masses, who con stitute the bone and sinew, the power, sta bility and real wealth, of the state.
I propose in this brief, and necessarily
imperfect, sketch to prove from the facts of
history that the government of Ireland by
England has been the inverse of this, and
to show that were it not for the marvelous
vitality and power of endurance, arising
from the physical and racial superiority which
characterize the Irish as a nation, they must
inevitably have perished from off the face
of the earth through the inhuman treatment
VOL. IX.-5
they received at the hands of the English,
just as inferior or uncivilized races have, as
the phrase goes, disappeared before the ad vance of the white man. This physical and
intellectual superiority has been proved a
thousand times, by flood and field, in court
and council, in every country throughout
the world (witness the names of McMahon
in France, O'Donnell in Spain, Taaffe in
Austria); and it is placed beyond doubt, by
those who have written the history of the
time,'that although the English had on
their side the advantage of overwhelming
numbers, wealth, and resources, they never
could have succeeded in their designs against
Ireland but through treachery, chicane, and,
unfortunately also, through the divided
counsels of the Irish leaders themselves.
In the Contemporary Review of December, i878, in an article entitled "The Greatness of England," Mr. Goldwin Smith wrote
as follows: "That the stronger nation is entitled by the law of force to conquer its
weaker neighbors, and to govern the conquered in its own interest, is a doctrine
which civilized morality abhors." Mr.
Gladstone, on a recent interesting occasion,
when replying to the deputations on being
presented with the freedom of four Irish
cities, and an address, signed by half a
million of Irishwomen, expressing gratitude
for his noble endeavors to settle on just
lines the long standing Irish difficulty,
quoted from the writings of Mr. Goldwin
Smith, referring to him as a man of high
character and consummate ability in the historic field. It would be difficult therefore
for me to find a more appropriate text for
my purpose than the axiom laid down by so
high an authority.
English and Protestant historians by the
score, from Hollinshead and Fynes Mory
1887.1
65