You are here
قراءة كتاب Irish Historical Allusions Curious Customs and Superstitions
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Irish Historical Allusions Curious Customs and Superstitions
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.
Charles I Beheaded.—After this hateful Queen dying, James I, son of Mary, Queen of the Scots, came upon the throne. He was followed by King Charles I, whom over a question of a little tax, Cromwell beheaded and established the Commonwealth. Cromwell did not confine his butchery to England; he landed in Ireland, took Drogheda, killed women and children and put the priests to the sword; he caused both the real and personal estate of the people to be seized and had the lands parcelled up amongst his officers or "gamesters." 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.
Cromwell.—When Cromwell died, England did not become a Republic, and again a king in the person of Charles II ascended the throne.
King James II and the Battle of the Boyne.—The next most important event in Irish history is the Battle of the Boyne—the disgraceful boast of some Englishmen—fought in Ireland between King James II of England, a Catholic, of the Stuart family, and his son-in-law, William of Orange from Holland. In America this war is called a religious war, fought between Catholics and Protestants. It is true that because this king declared himself openly a Roman Catholic, Protestants in wrongful occupation of Catholic property became intensely alarmed for their future, and invited William, Prince of Orange, to invade England.
King James was one of the greatest cowards that ever lived. With his English troops he lost almost every engagement in England. He then fell back on Ireland. William, Prince of Orange, on landing in Carrick-a-fergus, Ireland, on the 14th day of June, 1690, found himself at the head of about 40,000 men. The Irish had no love for any British king. However, priests and Catholic leaders influenced the Irish to come to aid King James, on the pretense that his own daughter and her Protestant husband, a foreigner, were depriving this old man of his kingdom because he was a Catholic. The Irish, blinded with sympathy, entered the fight. On the 1st of July, 1690, the Battle of the Boyne was fought. William in person led his own army while King James stood at a distance, ready to mount his horse and ride away if the battle should be favorable to the Prince of Orange. The Irish fought bravely for over half the day, but as they began to retreat in good order, the English King mounted his horse and rode away into Dublin, leaving the Irish fighting behind him. He was designated "Dirty James" by the Irish.
The Irish, although deserted by the King and others, continued the fight for over one year from the River Boyne to the walls of Limerick and Athlone. On the 3rd of October, 1691, the generals of both armies signed the famous treaty of Limerick. According to the articles signed, full religious liberties were granted to the Roman Catholics, but no sooner did the Irish soldiers sail away to France, than England wilfully and wickedly broke the treaty. England has never yet kept a treaty with the Irish, if it stood in the way of plunder or gain.
Treaty of Limerick Broken.—In 1692, contrary to the articles of the treaty of Limerick, the Catholics were excluded from the Irish Parliament. Education of a Catholic child, shortly afterwards, was declared to be a serious crime. Catholics were required to take an oath declaring the mass damnable. No Catholic could learn a trade.
In 1701, contrary to the treaty of Limerick, Catholic solicitors were disqualified. Priests found in Ireland were branded with redhot irons on the cheeks. The law made it death to shelter, and penal servitude to know where a priest was concealed and not to inform the government. Priests were dragged from the altars, branded, disemboweled, quartered, hanged and transported. A Catholic could not have a horse worth more than five pounds (twenty-five dollars). Any Protestant tendering a Roman Catholic five pounds for his horse, the horse would have to go.
Flight of Wild Geese.—The young Irishmen of that period rushed to France and were called "Wild Geese." Catholics could not send their children to be educated at home or abroad, and Catholic doctors were not allowed.
The Irish Brigade at Fontenoy, France.—At Fontenoy, France, on Tuesday, the 11th of May, 1745, the Irish Brigade in battle swept before them the British and their flag. The war cry was "Revenge! Remember Limerick!! Dash down the Sassenach!!!" From that day onward Irish priests and Irish Catholics could move about without the danger of being hanged or transported. At Fontenoy the Irish exiles made the British ministry conscious of the harsh and unjust manner in which they had treated the Irish Catholics, and gradually the penal laws were forced to disappear.
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.
Tithes and Orangemen.—During all this time Roman Catholics resisted the payment of tithes to the parson. The parson was a minister of the Protestant church, who was substituted for the priest and never ministered to a Roman Catholic. 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."
Orangemen.—It must be remembered that it is not the Orangemen alone the Irish have to contend with in their fight for Home Rule, but the whole power and wealth of the Unionist Party in England, Scotland, Ireland, India, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The English under the color and pretense of peacemakers and Christians are always doing the utmost in their power to sow the seeds of discord and dissension amongst the Irish people. One of the sharpest wedges they can drive to divide the people is religion. If the English Unionists believed that by granting Home Rule they could set Irishmen fighting, a full measure would be granted in eight hours.
Irish Patriots.—Amongst the Irish patriots the following