IRISH NATIONAL HUMOUR.
The truly well-informed Liberal well knows that the penal laws which our bigoted forefathers enacted against the Roman Catholics, were wholly uncalled for and unjustifiable; patricularly with regard to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. The Nation newspaper places the needlessness and injustice of those laws in a very amusing light by certain statements which it pretends to put forward in reply to the Tablet; that journal having ascribed to the Irish people profound attachment to Her Magesty’s throne, and to British institutions. Historical facts are gravely adduced by the Nation, to show that the Irish never were, and never can be, loyal; but every unprejudiced person will see, that those citations are meant to prove quite the contrary to the point which a Protestant ass would think them intended to demonstrate. For instance, after alluding to the conduct of “St. Lawernce O’Toole” Archbishop of Dublin, with respect to Henry the Second, Mr. Mitchel’s playful organ puts the following question:-
“In later times did not certain Popes grant indulgences to all who fought against the English Government in Ireland? Is not the following an extract from a Bull of Pope Gregory the Thirteenth, addressed to the Archbishops, Bishops, and other Prelates, as also the Catholis Priuces, Earls, Barons, Clergy, Nobles, and People of Ireland- ‘A few years ago, we admonished you through our letters when you took up arms to defend your liberties and rights, under the leadership of James Geraldine, of happy memory, that we would ever be ready to assist you against those English heretics who have deserted the Holy Church of Rome. Praiseworthy throughout all time must his exertions be in thus endeavouring to cast off the hard yoke which the English have imposed on you.’ Those, as we learn, are the words of a Pope written in the year 1580, and called forth by tho circumstances of the time. … Again we learn that the same holy Pope rendered material assistance to the fitting out of a warlike expedition destined for the shores of Ireland, no, as it would appear to us, with the object of enforcing submission to British authority.”
Of course everybody who is at all acquainted with the history of the period to which the above quotation refers, must know that Gregory was joking. So is the Nation; and none but dull men will understand in any but a jocular sense either the foregoing or the further specimen of grave banter:-
“We also learn from Irish history that another Pontiff sent his benediction to a certain Prince Hugh O’Neill, who was by no means remarkable for meekness and obedience to the English monarch of his day, and sent also liberal indulgences to all who should fight – actually fight – under his standard, against the rule and authority in Ireland of the said English monarch. That was done by his Holiness Pope Clement the Eight.”
It is useless to point out to the average Protestant intelligence, that the preceding passages are burlesques of the preposterous tales which popular writers are accustomed to relate in order to inflame the stupid public against what they vulgarly term Popery. Even the following audacious fudge will be impalpable to the dense masses:-
“Again Pope Urban the Eight sent money and blessings to Ireland, to people who were engaged in proceedings which cannot well be called demonstrations of attachment to the British Throne. Subsequently Pope Innocent the Tenth sent his Nuncio Rinuccini to Ireland, with large powers and authority, with money and arms, not for the purpose of inculcating obedience to English law. The Nuncio brought with him 2,000 muskets – for what purpose? 2,000 pike-heads – in the name of common sense for what purpose? 400 brace of pistols – what to do with them? 20,000 pounds of powder, with match, shot, &c. – to be used in what manner?”
The irony of the Nation is exquisite, but too subtle. No doubt the penal laws are defensible only on the supposition that the Popes were the enemies of England, and that the Irish, if not all the Roman Catholics, were a faction of traitors, subservient to the Pope. But just as footmen and housemaids read Swift’s Directions to Servants for instruction, so will the swinish multitude take the Nation’s extravagant fictions about those hostile Popes and traitorous Papists for realities of history. Entertaining that ridiculous supposition, they will only wonder why all the Roman Catholics in Ireland, if not in England also, were not exterminated like vermin; just as they think that Drs. Cullen and Dixon, whom they really believe to have uttered the ravings ascribed to them, ought to be shut up, and that the Editor of the Nation ought to be hanged. Our facetious Irish contemporarty should not cast those pearls of his before the British Public. There are old women amongst us who not only believe that Popes and Papists have in times past burned Protestants alive, but that even now the Pope keeps in his clutches, and refuses to surrender, a little Jew whom he stole from his parents. Many of these anile simpletons are possessed, too, with an idea that “Popery” is something more that a pure, mild, and reasonable religion, and regard it as involving allegiance to an alien rule, opposed not only to the established creed, but also to the established government. A journal which pretends to superior intelligence, and appeals to genteel sympathies, must ever, studiously and systematically, deride those ignorant snobs.
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