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national secular society
CLERICAL INFLUENCES
AN ESSAY ON IRISH SECTARIANISM
AND ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.
BY W. E. H. LECKY.
Edited with an Introduction
By W. E. G. LLoyd and
F. Cruise O’Brien, M.A.
PUBLISHED FOR THE IRISH SELF-GOVERNMENT
ALLIANCE BY MAUNSEL AND CO., LTD., DUBLIN.
1911.
��NOTE.
The First Edition of “Clerical Influences” was published
in 1861 in Leaders of Public Opinion, ist edition.
Only thirty-four copies of the first edition were sold (vide
Lecky’s letter to Mr. Booth, Jan. 24th, 1872).
In the 2nd edition of Leaders of Public Opinion, 1871, Lecky
revised his biographies and left out the Essay on “ Clerical
Influences.” The Essay was also omitted from the subsequent
edition, 1903..
��CONTENTS
Page
Introduction
Clerical Influences ...
I
17
��INTRODUCTION
In venturing to bring what is now an almost for
gotten Essay of Lecky before the notice of the
public, we think it right at the outset to explain our
object. We have not undertaken to publish the Essay
simply as one of the earliest efforts of Lecky’s genius,
and because it has now become a literary curiosity.
While we recognise that it is of the first importance
to students of Lecky’s work that this Essay should
be republished, our aim in bringing it to light has
not been a merely literary one. We feel that the
argument of the book, and the spacious principles,
so characteristic of the author, which underlie it,
possess in the political considerations of our time
a value, scarcely, if at all, affected by the fact that
the book was written nearly half a century ago. We
bring it before the public because of that special
value, and in the belief that the dispassionate character
of Lecky’s reasoning, and his application of broad
principles to the political phenomena of his time,
may serve as a guide to many in the Ireland of our
day who are confused by the conflicting social and
political problems which meet them at every turn.
The many who find in the existence, or the fear of,
sectarianism in Ireland, their strongest argument
against the establishment of a national government
in Ireland,®will be interested in the grounds on
which Lecky advances what is practically the con
verse theory.
�2
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But although our object has been more a political
than a literary one, we hope that we have ap
proached our task in a reverent spirit. With the
exception of one change, the Essay stands exactly
as Lecky published it. The change which we have
made—in adding a sub-title—has been made not
without some hesitation. We consider that the
title “ Clerical Influences ” which Lecky himself
adopted, does not sufficiently describe, at all events
for present-day readers, either the Essay itself or the
spirit which animates it. We felt that by retaining
it alone, we might convey to that section of the public
to which Lecky is unfamiliar, an erroneous conception
of the subject matter of the Essay, and perhaps a
misleading conception even to many to whom his
work is not unfamiliar. For these reasons, we have
felt that we should not be accused of taking an
unwarranted liberty if we added to the title the
descriptive sub-title “ Irish Sectarianism and English
Government,’’ a title which we hope will be found
neither a prejudiced nor an inaccurate one.
The Essay first appeared in 1861 as part of
Lecky’s earliest memorable book, the first edition
of “Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland.” Lecky’s
own rather slighting criticism of the book is of in
terest. It is from the final (1903) edition of the
“ Leaders of Public Opinion ” : he says :—
“ Public opinion on Irish History at that time
hardly existed. Scarcely anything of real value on
the subject had recently appeared, and my own
little book showed only too clearly the crudity and
�INTRODUCTION
3
exaggeration of a writer in his twenty-third year.
At all events it fell absolutely dead.”
In this judgment Lecky was most probably pre
judiced by the fact that the book, from the publishers’
point of view, was a failure, and also to some extent
by that diffidence which was always one of his
marked characteristics. We venture to think that
the Essay which we republish deserves, notwith
standing, to rank with much of the best of Lecky’s
work. The allusion to the crudity and exaggeration
of a writer in his twenty-third year will be more
than discounted when it is remembered that within
one year of the appearance of “ Leaders of Public
Opinion,” he had commenced, and within four years
he had completed, his famous history of the “ Rise
and Influence of Rationalism in Europe.”
On these grounds we have taken upon ourselves
the task of republication, and we are of opinion that
history will yet vindicate all, as indeed it has already
vindicated many, of the views elaborated in this Essay.
An analysis of the change that took place in
Lecky’s political opinions affords an interesting study*
This change is more apparent than real, but to be in
a position to appreciate it, it is necessary shortly to
review the history of Ireland since i860. The
political life of Ireland in i860 was as stagnant as the
Sargasso Sea, but this was only the calm that pre
ceded the coming storm. Within a few years the
country experienced the attempted upheaval of
Fenianism, which, however unsuccessful from a
revolutionary point of view, left an indelible mark
on the political history of the nation.
�4
CLERICAL INFLUENCES
Within ten years of the date of the Essay, the
Established Church had ceased to exist, and with
the fall of the Establishment, political life began
once more to quicken in the land. The Protestant
gentry, smarting under what they considered the
gross betrayal of their Church, turned their eyes
again to the ideal of National Self-Government, and
out of the political ferment caused by Disestablish
ment arose the Home Rule Movement under Isaac
Butt. This fast became strong and vigorous, and
had it maintained its original character, that of a
movement under aristocratic leadership, it is more
than probable that Lecky’s ultimate political views
would have been more strongly tinged with national
sentiment.
But the Land Question, for years a source of dis
content, became more and more acute, and came to
a crisis in the partial famine of the year ’79. It
is now admitted that the system of land tenure,
formerly prevailing in this country, was a singularly
uneconomic and oppressive one, forced on an un
willing country and never properly assimilated to
national thought and national character. Under the
peculiar condition of Ireland the Land War was in
evitable, and was destined to be of a peculiarly bitter
nature.
In our opinion, the rise of the Land League and
the influence of the more vigorous, but also more
democratic, Parnell Movement was responsible for
Lecky’s change of view. Of the argument he uses in
his Essay we can find no repudiation in his later
works. We do find a condemnation of Home Rule,
�INTRODUCTION
5
or rather of Repeal of the Union, but this condem
nation rests on an entirely different basis, and is
supported by quite a different set of arguments from
those that would be required in a refutation of the
Essay. Lecky has, so far as we can find, never
recanted his views as to the causes of sectarian
feeling in Ireland; nor will there be found in his
later writings anything to displace his sound analysis
of the evil effects of a political system that robs the
public spirit and activities of large numbers of the
best Irishmen, of the powerful inspiration to be
derived from a well-grounded national sentiment and
tradition.
Furthermore, it has to be remembered that Lecky’s
attitude towards democracy in general influenced his
judgment of the political tendencies manifested in
Ireland during the last forty years of his life. He
deplores, in the last chapter of Vol. V. of his History
of Ireland, the growth of democratic institutions, and
the fact that they had also been extended to Ireland;
but he reluctantly admits that “The Union has not
/ made Ireland either a loyal or a united country,”
and he acknowledges the fallacy of the prophecy
that the Union would take Ireland out of the domain
of party factions. But, while thus admitting many
of the evil results which have followed from the
Union, he is of opinion that, great as these evils are,
they would be outweighed by the dangers to be
expected from a change in the legislative system of
government. In his own words, “ The lessons which
may be drawn from the Irish failure are many and
Valuable. Perhaps the most conspicuous is the folly
�6
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of conferring power where it is certain to be misused,
and of weakening, in the interests of any political
theory, those great pillars of social order on which
all true liberty and all real progress ultimately
depend.”* The “ great pillars ” of the old social order
in Ireland are now, however, by the policy of the Con
servative party to which Lecky ultimately gave his
adhesion, being removed, and the problem in the
Ireland of to-day is to evoke in a democracy based on
peasant ownership those moral and civic qualities that
will provide a substitute. It is in its bearing upon
this problem that the Essay of fifty years ago has its
lesson for to-day.
The argument falls under two heads, first the
relation of a healthy public opinion to national
government, and secondly, the relation of sectarianism
to public opinion. Lecky sets out to show that a
real national life, the parent of a sound public
opinion, does not exist (except in the doubtful
instance of France), independently of a free govern
ment. He goes on to argue that when public opinion
is diseased, when there is no national life in a country,
sectarianism, which languishes when there is a public
spirit to absorb it, flourishes unchecked. That,
briefly put, is the thesis of the Essay.
But it is in the application of these principles to
the concrete case of Ireland that the Essay is of
most value, and the author most stimulating. Lecky
takes, as his first test, the influence of the Govern
ment of England on the public mind. He shows
that whatever defects there may be in the English
* Hist. Ireland, Vol. V., p. 494.
�INTRODUCTION
7
system, it cannot be disputed that it fosters and
keeps robust and healthy, a vigorous national life
and a sound public opinion.
Everywhere” he says,
“ is exhibited a steady, habitual interest and con
fidence in the proceedings of Government.” He
then turns to Ireland, and finds exactly the opposite
state of things. In the free play of a genuine public
spirit in England, the ill-feelings and suspicions of
the people find, as he points out, their natural out
let. But in Ireland where there is no such free
government, the ill-feelings and suspicions of the
people—“ the humours of society,” as Grattan
called them—find no such vent. And the reason, as
Lecky tersely puts it, is that “ public opinion is
diseased—diseased to the very core.”
To this disease of public opinion Lecky attributes
the attitude of the Irish people towards politics,
which he considers a tissue of inconsistencies
a
perpetual vacillation on all points but one antipathy
to the existing system.” His analysis of the “ per
petual vacillation ” is interesting, but we cannot
but think that it is not carried far enough. To
give one instance of what we mean, we would draw
attention to what Lecky says of the inconsistency of
the Irish people on the Italian question. He points
out that the Irish people departed from the very
principle which they hold—the principle uthat the
public opinion of a nation should determine its form
of government—to support the Papal Government
at a time when it was “ maintained only by a foreign
power ” and when it had “avowedly identified itself
with the cause of despotism in Italy.” It seems to
�8
CLERICAL INFLUENCES
us that this inconsistency is not to be attributed
wholly to the sectarianism which follows upon
the disease of public opinion. It was due in as
great measure to the inconsistency of the English
people, which manifested itself on the other side.
England at the time when the Italian question—
happily now become a matter of history—was at its
height, professed herself simultaneously the champion
of national government in Italy, and the enemy of
national government in Ireland. In that inconsist
ency, which seemed to the Irish mind suspiciously
akin to hypocrisy, lies one of the causes of the Irish
inconsistency which Lecky censures.
And it is
worthy of note that the same English inconsistency
may be seen in our day in a section of the English
Press, which at one and the same time protests
against the concession of national government to
Ireland, and against its denial to Finland. It is
manifested also in the fact that while England strains
at the Irish gnat, she has made bold to swallow the
South African camel.
In dealing with the characteristics of the Irish
sectarianism of his day, Lecky prefaces everything
he has to say by declaring that the existence of ill
feeling between the Catholics and the Protestants is
the direct consequence of the Act of Union. He
lays down the principle that “if purely political
feeling be eliminated from a people who possess a
representative system, and who are separated by
rival creeds, the result [that is; the growth of
sectarian bitterness] is inevitable.” Whatever may
be said as to whether Lecky overstates his case
�INTRODUCTION
9
on either side, he cannot, we think, be accused
of acquitting the Protestants while convicting the
Catholics. But we think that he has attached rather
too much importance to the action of the clergy of
both sides as being mainly responsible for fostering
sectarianism. He blames the Protestant clergy for
being anti-national, and for making opposition to the
Catholics the main object of their policy, and he
blames the Catholic clergy for endeavouring to make
the political strength of their country “ a weapon in
the service of the Vatican ” and for labouring to
widen every breach between the Catholics and the
Protestants. No doubt at the time the facts of the
case lent themselves to the interpretation which
Lecky put upon them. When he wrote, the “ Brass
Band” was fresh in the minds of everyone, and the
Italian question was agitating the public mind. But
Lecky erred, in our judgment, by regarding the
phenomena of sectarianism which he describes, as
solely the result of clerical influence and as charged
with purely a sectarian meaning. There were politi
cal causes at work which tended to keep alive
sectarian fires, quite apart from clerical influence
on either side. The democratic tendencies of the
O’Connell movement, and the linking together of
the Catholic agitation for Emancipation and the
national movement for Repeal of the Union had no
doubt their effect in alienating the feelings of the
Protestant gentry, and that alienation reacted upon
the National party who were Catholics, and who
more and more identified the Protestant religion
with the anti-national party, and directed their re*
�IO
CLERICAL INFLUENCES
sentment against the Protestantism as well as the
Unionism of their opponents. This coincidence
of the lines of political with the lines of religious
cleavage has unfortunately left a confusion in the
minds of both sides which has lasted, though not in
all its strength, to the present day. Thus, even in
our day we find the Catholic peasantry using the
term Protestant as a political term and a synonym for
Unionist. And with the terms reversed, the same is
true of a great many Orangemen in Ulster. But
while sectarianism is unhappily still with us, no
serious student of the history of the country during
the last fifty years can deny that it has lost much of
its force and nearly all its bitterness. Outstanding
differences of a semi-religious and political nature
which formerly existed between Catholics and
Protestants have been settled; the Irish Church,
freed from the political shackles of the Establish
ment, is no longer looked upon by the Catholics as
an institution devised primarily to foster English
influences. What the Church has lost in prestige,
she has more than gained by that infusion of energy
and vigour, and of that democratic spirit which was
impossible for her under the Establishment. The
University question, which was such a burning one
in the sixties, has since been settled in a friendly and
amicable spirit. Even the Land question, which in
its essence was secular and economic rather than
religious, had still within it the germ of sectarianism,
owing to the fact that a large and preponderating
majority of the Irish Landlords were members of the
Protestant religion, while the Irish peasantry are
�INTRODUCTION
11
mainly Roman Catholic. The land question is now
happily almost settled and another cause of friction
is removed. Such incidents as the popular re
joicing in the South of Ireland on the elevation of an
esteemed Protestant clergyman to the Episcopal
Bench, and the action of the Irish Protestants in
welcoming and assisting the change in the Royal
Accession Declaration, are evidences whose signifi
cance is not to be denied, of a new era of mutual
goodwill and respect.
While we have endeavoured to trace the undoubted
decay of sectarianism, we do not deny that sectari
anism still exists in Ireland. We do not wish to
emulate that unfortunately rather numerous class of
people who, because they do not wish to face the
disagreeable truths of life, have an ostrich-like habit
of putting their heads in the sand. We think that
while the tendency has been, on the Protestant
and Unionist side, to accentuate and draw public
attention to every remaining aspect of sectarianism,
the Catholic and Nationalist is sometimes too prone
to ignore its existence completely, or at all events
only to admit it to the disadvantage of his Protestant
fellow-countryman.
We think that the explanation of this attitude is
to be found in the history of the two religions in this
country. The Protestant, for centuries the ruling
caste, the upholder of existing institutions, is prone
to see in the increasing social and political power
of the Catholic a sinister attempt to dislodge him
from positions of public trust; and to attribute reli
gious motives to a natural political evolution. The
�12
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Catholic is apt to seize upon the newly found
political power with a zest which may, and indeed
sometimes does, amount to injustice.
It would
be well if each party would sometimes admit the
possibility of sectarianism on its own side, rather
than attribute it solely to the rival creed.
In our opinion, the sectarianism that exists in
Ireland at the present day is more rife in Ulster
than in the other provinces, and the cause is pre
cisely that on which Leckylays stress in his Essay:
national feeling is almost non-existent amongst the
Protestants of the North, and hence they are thrown
back on religion as the motive of political action. This
creates the sectarian spirit which is encouraged and
exploited by the political party opposed to the demand
for National Self-Government, in order to keep alive
the feeling against Nationalism.
On the Catholic side, the growth of a large organi
sation, such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which
within the last few years has spread throughout the
country with singular rapidity, deserves careful
attention. The conception krf religious benefit and
philanthropic societies is an admirable one, and as
such, the Ancient Order of Hibernians deserves a
generous tribute. But there is another aspect to the
society which is more open to criticism, and is viewed
with alarm by many, Protestants and Catholics alike.
The Ancient Order 'of Hibernians, besides being a
benefit society, is a frankly political organisation.
It has spread with such rapidity of late years
throughout Ireland, and has obtained such influence
in Irish politics that it endangers the unsectarian
�INTRODUCTION
*3
character of the national movement. It has been
said "that there should be no politics in religion,
and very little religion in politics,” and the evil of a
purely sectarian society, such as the Ancient Order of
Hibernians, becoming a factor in Irish public life,
lies in the apprehension it creates of the establish
ment of a Catholic Ascendancy.
We do not anticipate any ’ deliberate attempt to
establish such an ascendancy in this enlightened age,
and if such an attempt were made it would be sternly
suppressed and reprobated by public opinion, both
Catholic and Protestant: we believe that Irishmen
will soon recognise that one is the complement of the
other, and that upon the ashes of past ascendancies
may be kindled the fire of a true Nationality.
That the establishment of National Self-Govern
ment in Ireland is the surest means of destroying
sectarian ill-feeling can hardly be doubted by any
one who weighs impartially the arguments put
forward in the Essay. We have endeavoured to
show that political and historic causes lie at the
/ root of the evil, and that already, since Lecky wrote,
much of the bitterness which existed in his day has
been removed. A national government, by creating
an Irish public opinion irrespective of religious diff
erences, and by bringing together, in the adminis
tration of the country, people who now belong to the
Unionist minority, most of which is Protestant, and
people who belong to the Nationalist majority, most
of which is Catholic, will obliterate the line upon
which politics and religion coincide in Ireland. In
stead of Protestant Unionists and Catholic Nationa-
�14
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lists, the division of a diseased nation, we shall have
the natural and healthy divisions of a nation which
is no longer diseased. And in each of these divisions,
Conservative and Liberal, Individualist and Socialist,
or whatever they may be, we shall find members, not
of one religion, but of all religions. That is the ex
perience of all normal states, and we see no reason
whatever to believe that Ireland alone in Europe
will, in this respect, disprove the experience of the
civilised world. On the contrary, there is every
reason to believe from the history of the national
struggle during the last century and a half, and from
the character of the people, that Ireland is likely to
behave, when she is entrusted with her own affairs,
precisely as other European States in which there
exists a difference of creed.
We do not think that the majority of Irish Pro
testants would find much to differ with in this view,
so far as the Catholic laity is concerned. But it is
idle to disguise from ourselves the fact that they fear
that clerical influence might assert itself as a retard
ing, if not a destroying, force in the working out
of harmonious relations between the two creeds.
There can be little doubt that the influence of the
Catholic clergy in Ireland has been exaggerated by
many people, but still every impartial inquirer will
readily allow that it does exist in a somewhat ex
cessive degree. This is to be attributed more to
historical causes, and to the politico-religious char
acter of Irish division than to any peculiar readiness
of the Irish Catholic laity to accept it, or of the priest
hood to exercise it. The Irish priests became the
�INTRODUCTION
political leaders of the Catholics in Ireland at a time—
the time of the Penal enactments—when the people
were bereft of any other guides, and we would
direct attention to the well-deserved tribute which
Lecky pays them in this connection. That the
spiritual and the political leadership of the priests
should have become intermingled in the minds both
of the priests themselves and of the people, was
natural and perhaps inevitable. Nor is it to be
wondered at that the connection once established,
and the memories of the past borne in mind, the
priesthood should be loth to relinquish the double
power, any more than it is to be wondered at that
some of them should have abused the influence. To
the calm and dispassionate mind, these things are
in the natural order, and are seen in their due pro
portion. They have their source in an abnormal
condition of affairs, and they will just as certainly
have an end when affairs are normal. We do not
share the view that would deny to clergymen the
common right of taking that part in politics, which
g is the privilege of every citizen. But every serious
student of politics, whether clerical or lay, will agree
that the dangers of the political leadership of the
clergy are great, if for no other reason than that
there is a tendency to confuse the purely spiritual
authority with the purely secular influence, and that
what should be merely an opinion tends to be re
garded as a jurisdiction.
Already there are not wanting indications that
whatever undue clerical influence there is in Irish
politics tends, either through the action of the people
�16
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in resisting it, or in the action of the priests irl
relinquishing it, to disappear. And there are very
few, if indeed there be any, instances in which even
the undue influence that exists is being exerted to
widen the breach between Catholics and Protestants.
In the healthy public opinion which is bound to
follow on the attainment of self-government, the
influence of the clergy in politics will be precisely
the same as that of educated laymen, with no more
and no less weight. That is the conclusion to which
all the evidence points, and it is one which will be
acquiesced in by patriotic priests as well as by
patriotic laymen. An influence which is abnormal
and which has its basis, not in the needs of the
present, but in the exigencies of the past, cannot last
for ever.
In conclusion, we commend this work of Lecky’s
to the serious and unprejudiced attention of all Irish
men and of all well-wishers of Ireland, whether they
be Catholic or Protestant, clerical or lay, Unionist
or Nationalist, in the hope that the considerations
which it advances, and the principles which it applies,
will help them to a better understanding of this
country, and will inspire their love of Ireland with a
deeper and a richer meaning.
W. E. G. LLOYD.
F. CRUISE O’BRIEN.
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES.
One of the principal objects of a good Government
should be to attach the affections of the people to
itself. That lively interest in public affairs, that
healthy action of public opinion which we call the
national sentiment, is the true essence of all national
prosperity. Geographical position, material wealth,
military resources, and intellectual pre-eminence, are
all of secondary importance. Wherever this national
life exists in robust energy, prosperity may be fairly
expected. Wherever it is wanting calamity will in
evitably ensue. No truth is more clearly established
in history than that the political decline of a nation
is never an isolated fact. When public opinion is
most vigorous, and the political condition of a
country most satisfactory, the moral and intellectual
development of the people will be highest. When
public opinion grows faint, when patriotism dies, and
factious or personal motives sway the state, a corres
ponding decadence will be exhibited in every branch.
Departments of intellect that appear entirely uncon
nected with politics begin to languish; classes that
seem far removed from Court influences visibly
deteriorate. The analogy between the individual and
the nation holds good in its details. The disease
that has infected the head pervades and emasculates
the members.
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
In one European nation a strong national life
seems to exist independently of the Government.
This rare privilege France owes partly to the division
of the soil among the entire people, and, we think,
still more to her military system. Her army is so
large that it includes a representative of almost every
family, so open that its highest positions may be
attained by any Frenchman, so popular that it is the
constant centre of the attentions of the nation. It
thus discharges one of the principal functions of a
government. It is the visible type and representative
of the people, the embodiment of their feelings, and
the chief object of their affections.
In other countries national life depends chiefly
upon the Government; and it is one of the principal
advantages of free Governments that they, beyond
all others, foster the public opinion which is the
essence of that life. The neglect of this portion of
the functions of a Government forms, I think, the
great error of Carlyle and of his school. A Govern
ment is not merely an agent appointed to discharge
certain business (in the ordinary sense of the word)
in the most economical and efficient manner. It is
also a great system of political education, and a
great representative of popular feelings. It is perhaps
not too much to say, that its adaptation to the
character and the wishes of the people is a more
important subject of consideration than its intrinsic
merits.
It is especially needful to dwell upon the import
ance of the national sentiment in the present day,
for, in addition to those we have noticed, there are
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
T9
many who virtually deny it by making wealth the
one test of national prosperity. This school may be
said to rise chiefly from a perversion of political
economy. Political economy is simply the science
of wealth. It teaches the laws that regulate it,
and the relation it bears to other elements of
national prosperity. But, while retaining its limited
scope, it has unfortunately been regarded by many
inaccurate thinkers as the science of politics; and
thus, by an easy transition, wealth is made the acme
of political greatness. Nor was this confusion as
unnatural as might be supposed; for political
economy, in pursuing its appropriate object, touches
incidentally upon nearly all political subjects. The
system of credit is intimately connected with ques
tions about the comparative merits of despotic and
constitutional Governments; the luxurious tastes pro
duced by wealth have an important influence upon
the increase of population; the moral character of
the people and their material prosperity act and re
act upon each other. But while political economy
regards these things, it regards them merely in their
relatiomto the main object of the science. It repre
sents them all as subordinate to the great aim it
proposes to itself—the development and increase of
wealth.
This, view, though perfectly just, if adopted by the
political economist when considering merely his own
science, is eminently false if adopted by the states
man when surveying the whole field of politics. The
first condition of true national prosperity is the
harmony of the Government with the wishes and the
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character of the people. When this harmony is
replaced by discontent or indifference, material and
other prosperity invariably prove illusive. Wealth
becomes but a dangerous plethory; the extension of
territory only multiplies the elements of discord and
of dissolution; military prowess serves merely to
invest a dying system with a transient and an un
substantial beauty.
“ Government,” to adopt a fine saying of Kossuth,“ is
an organism and not a mechanism.” It should grow
out of the character and the traditions of the people. It
should present a continuous, though ever-developing,
existence, connecting the present of the nation withits
past. The statesman should be merely the repre
sentative of his age, accomplishing those changes
which time and public opinion had prepared. The
mechanical system, which regards only the intrinsic
excellence of a political arrangement, irrespectively of
the antecedents and the public opinion of the people,
proves the invariable source of national calamity.
Sometimes it produces vast and heterogeneous
empires, disunited in feeling in proportion as they
are centralised in government; exhibiting a legisla
tive system almost perfect in compactness, symmetry,
and harmony, and a people smouldering in continual
half-suppressed rebellion. Sometimes, as in Ireland,
it exhibits the strange spectacle of a free Government
almost neutralised in its action by the discontent of
the people, and failing in the most glaring manner
to discharge its functions as the organ of their feel
ings and of their opinions.
There is, perhaps, no Government in the world that
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21
succeeds so admirably in eliciting, sustaining, and
directing public opinion, as that of England. It does
not, it is true, escape much adverse criticism among
the people. A system so complex, and, in some
respects, so anomalous, presents numerous points of
attack, and the transparent element of publicity that
invests all political matters in England, renders its
defects peculiarly apparent. Its very perfections
betray its faults, for, as Bacon says, “the best govern
ments are always subject to be like the fairest
crystals, where every icicle and grain is seen, which
in a fouler stone is never perceived.” But in one
respect its excellence is indisputable. No intelligent
foreigner, we believe, could land upon the English
coast without being struck with the intensity of the
political life prevading every class of the community.
It permeates every pore; it thrills and vibrates
along every fibre of the political body; it diffuses its
action through the remotest village; it differs equally
from the dull torpor of most continental nations
in time of calm, and from their feverish and spas
modic excitement in time of commotion. Every
where is exhibited a steady, habitual interest and
confidence in the proceedings of Government. The
decision of Parliament, if not instantly accepted, is
never without its influence on the public mind. The
ill-feeling, the suspicions, the apprehensions, the
peccant humours that agitate the people, find there
their vent, their resolution, and their end.
Little or nothing of this kind is to be found in
Ireland. Severed from their ancient traditions, and
ruled by a Legislature imposed on them contrary to
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their will; differing essentially in character and in
temperament from the nation with whom they are
thus associated; humiliated by the circumstances of
their defeat and by the ceaseless ridicule poured on
them through every organ of the press, and through
every channel of literature, the Irish people seem
to have lost all interest in English politics. Parlia
ment can make their laws, but it cannot control or
influence their feelings. It can revolutionise the
whole system of government, but it cannot allay one
discontent, or quell one passion. Public opinion is
diseased—diseased to the very core. Instead of
circulating in healthy action through the land, it
stagnates, it coagulates, it corrupts. The disease
manifests itself in sullen discontent, in class warfare,
in secret societies, in almost puerile paroxysms of
hatred against England, in a perpetual vacillation on
all points but one—antipathy to the existing system.
Sometimes we have a eulogy of the Sepoys, some
times an enthusiastic movement in favour of the
government of the Pope. At one time doctrines are
urged concerning the tenure of land which can only
be justified on the principle of Prudhon, that “ pro
perty is robbery;” at another, the sympathies of the
people are directed towards Austria, the political
representative of the Middle Ages. Admiration for
Italian Revolutionists is stigmatized as grossly irre
ligious, yet agrarian murders are not unfrequently
extenuated till they are almost justified.* The mass
* Let any one who thinks this an exaggeration, turn to the
articles in the ‘ Nation,’ upon the attempted murder of Mr. Nixon,
in the county of Donegal, a year or two ago.
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23
of the people seem to have no intelligible principles
and no settled sympathies. Two-thirds of the popu
lation—the portion that is most distinctively and
characteristically Irish—the classes who form the
foundation of the political system, and who must
ever rise in wealth and importance, seem to follow
implicitly the guidance of the priests, and, like them,
to be thoroughly alienated from England. Those
who examine the popular press, or who attend the
popular meetings* in Ireland, will easily appreciate
the extent of this antipathy. During the few years
that followed the famine it was supposed to have
passed away, but the Russian war, the Indian re
bellion, and the Italian question dispelled the illusion;
and the journals that once dilated most eloquently
on the tranquillity of Ireland have since confessed
that the people are at heart as discontented as ever.
Grattan, in one of his speeches against the Union,
described by implication the effect of destroying the
Parliament, in language which has almost the weight
of prophecy. “The object of the minister,” he said,
seems to be to get rid of the Parliament in order to
get rid of the opposition—a shallow and a senseless
* We remember once hearing a lecture upon India, delivered in
Dublin,by one of the most popular of the Irish priests, before an
immense audience—chiefly, we should say, of the middle classes. In
the course of his observations, the lecturer expressed his opinion,
that England would sooner or later lose India. The prophecy, one
would fancy, was not very startling, or very novel, and it was
delivered in a simple conversational tone, without any of those
rhetorical artifices that are employed to excite enthusiasm. It was
responded to by a burst of the most impassioned and unanimous
applause, and it was some time before the lecturer could resume.
We believe that those who attend popular meetings in Ireland will
recognise this as a fair specimen of the prevailing feeling. These
things are not trivial,for they indicate an intense and a deep-rooted
aversion to England.
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thought! What! when you banish the Parliament,
do you banish the people? Do you extinguish the
sentiment? Do you extinguish the soul? Do you
put out the spirit of liberty when you destroy that
organ, constitutional and capacious, through which
the spirit may be safely and discreetly conveyed?
What is the excellence of our constitution? Not
that it performs prodigies and prevents the birth of
vices that are inherent to human nature, but that it
provides an organ in which those vices may play and
evaporate, and through which the humours of society
may pass without preying on the vitals. Parliament
is that body, where the whole intellect of the country
may be collected, and where the spirit of patriotism,
of liberty, and of ambition, may all act under the
control of that intellect and under the check of pub
licity and observation.”
The gravity of the facts we have mentioned is
sufficiently evident, yet, if these were all, the evil
would most probably be but temporary—a discontent
which was purely retrospective would hardly prove
permanent. Ill feeling would grow fainter every
year, as the memory of the past faded from the minds
of the people, and the existence of a free press
necessitating sow public opinion would gradually
identify the public mind with that of England. Un
fortunately, however, there exists in Ireland a topic
that effectually prevents discontent from languishing,
or the sentiments of the two nations from coalescing.
Sectarian animosity has completely taken the place
of purely political feeling, and paralyses all the
energies of the people. This is indeed the master
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25
curse of Ireland—the canker that corrodes all that is
noble and patriotic in the country, and, we maintain,
the direct and inevitable consequence of the Union.
Much has been said of the terrific force with which
it would rage were the Irish Parliament restored.
We maintain, on the other hand, that no truth is
more clearly stamped upon the page of history, and
more distinctly deducible from the constitution of
the human mind, than that a national feeling is the
only effectual check to sectarian passions. Nothing
can be more clear than that the logical consequences
of many of the doctrines of the Church of Rome
would be fatal to an independent and patriotic
policy in any land—nothing is more clear than that
in every land, where a healthy national feeling
exists, Roman Catholic politicians are both inde
pendent and patriotic.
But, putting this case for a moment aside, consider
that of an evangelical Protestant. If the power of
government be placed in the hands of a man who
has a vivid, realising, and ever-present conviction
that every idolater who dies in his belief is doomed
to a future of wretchedness, compared with which the
greatest earthly calamity is absolutely inappreciable;
that the doctrinal differences between the members
of a church whose patronage he administers really
influence the eternal welfare of mankind; that this
visible world, with all its pomp and power, with all
its intellectual and political greatness, is but as a
gilded cloud floating across the unchanging soul, and
that the political advantages of the acquisition of an
empire would be dearly purchased by the death of
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a single soldier who died unrepentant, and who
would have repented had he lived;—we ask any
candid man to consider what sort of a governor
such a person would prove himself. Is it not selfevident that anyone who was thoroughly penetrated
with a belief in these doctrines, who habitually and
systematically observed in his actions and his feelings
the proportion of religious to temporal things which
he recognises in his creed, would govern almost
exclusively with a view to the former ? Possessing
enormous power that might be employed in the service
of his church, he would sacrifice every other con
sideration—the dignity, the stability, the traditional
alliances, the future greatness, of the nation—to this
single object. His policy would dislocate the whole
mechanism of government. It would at least place
an insuperable barrier to the future prosperity of his
country. And if men who believe these doctrines do
not act in the manner we have described, the reason
is very obvious. Just as in everyday life, the man
who has persuaded himself of the nothingness of
human things finds his conviction so diluted and
dimmed by other feelings that he takes an interest
in common business, such as he could not take if he
realised what he believed; so the politician finds
the national and patriotic spirit that pervades the
atmosphere in which he moves a sufficient corrective
of his theological views. These latter give a tincture
and bias to his political feeling, but they do not sup
plant it. They blend with it, and form an amalgam,
not perhaps quite defensible in theory, but exceed
ingly excellent in practice. The nation which is
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27
actuated by the same mixed motives always selects
for power men who are thus moderate and unim
passioned in their views, and it is deeply sensible of
the fact that no greater political calamity can befall
a land than to be governed by religious enthusiasts.
Now the application of what we have said to the
case of the Irish Roman Catholics is evident. The
Roman Catholic doctrines concerning the nature of
heresy, the duty of combating it, and the authority
of the Pope in every land can be easily shown to
be in many conceivable cases incompatible with a
patriotic discharge of the duties of a representative,
especially in a Protestant country. The opponents
of emancipation dilated continually on this fact, and
they argued that the Roman Catholic members
would never assimilate with the Protestants, that they
would never really seek the welfare of the country,
that they would remain an isolated and, in some
respects, a hostile body, drawing their real inspiration
from the Vatican. The advocates of the measure
replied by pointing to the numerous instances in
which Roman Catholic politicians in other countries
discharged their duties as patriots, in defiance of the
exertions of the priests and of the wishes of the Pope.
With scarcely any exception, the greatest men of
both countries adopted the views of the supporters
of the measure, yet we suppose most persons will
now admit that the predictions of Dr. Duigenan
have been more fully verified than those of Grattan
or of Plunket. I do not mean to imply that Emanci
pation should not have been accorded in 1829. To
pass over many other reasons, it seems plain that it
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could not have been for ever withheld, and the
longer it was delayed the greater was the ill-feeling
created by the contest. But at the same time most
persons, we think, will allow that the predicted
assimilation of the Roman Catholic with the Pro
testant members has not taken place, that the
sectarian feelings of the former have not been neutra
lised or materially modified by other sentiments, and
that their chief interests are attached to Rome and to
the priests. The explanation of this fact seems to
be that the tenets we have adverted to have these
dangerous tendencies when their force is undiluted
and unimpaired. In most countries a purely political
and patriotic feeling exists to counteract them—in
Ireland it does not exist. The people of Ireland do
not sympathise in the proceedings of the Imperial
Parliament, and they have no national legislature
to foster and to reflect the national sentiment. If
purely political feeling be eliminated from a people
who possess a representative system, and who are
separated by rival creeds, the result is inevitable.
The people and their representatives will be divided
into those who are actuated by personal and those
who are actuated by sectarian motives. We greatly
doubt whether any conceivable alteration of religious
endowments or of the other semi-religious matters
so much complained of would effectually check the
sectarian character of Irish politics. The evil has a
deeper source, and must be met by a deeper remedy.
If the characteristic mark of a healthy Christianity
be to unite its members by a bond of fraternity
and love, there is no country in the world in which
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Christianity has more completely failed than in
Ireland, and the failure is distinctly and directly
attributable to the exertions of the clergy. With
the religious aspect of this subject we have now no
concern, but its political importance is of the most
overwhelming and appalling magnitude.
It is a lamentable but, we fear, an undoubted fact
that if the whole people of Ireland were converted
to Mohammedanism nine-tenths of the present ob
stacles to the prosperity of the country would be
removed. The great evil that meets us on every
side, that palsies every political effort, and dwarfs
the growth of every secular movement, is—that the
repulsion of sectarianism is stronger than the at
traction of patriotism. The nation is divided into
two classes who are engaged in virulent, unceasing,
and uncompromising strife. Differences of race, that
would otherwise have long since been effaced, are
stereotyped by being associated with differences of
belief. Rancour, that would naturally have passed
into the domain of history, exhibits a perpetual
and undiminished energy; for of all methods of
making hatred permanent and virulent, perhaps the
most effectual is to infuse a little theology into
it. The representatives of the Protestants scarcely
disguise their anti-national feelings. They have cut
themselves off from all the traditions of Swift, of
Grattan, and of Curran. They have adopted a
system of theology the most extreme, the most
aggressive, and the most unattractive. They have
made opposition to the Roman Catholics the grand
object of their policy, and denunciation of the
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Maynooth Grant (which they stigmatise as sinful)
the most prominent exhibition of that policy. There
is scarcely an article that appears in The, Times
newspaper, ridiculing Ireland and the Irish, that is
not reproduced with applause by a large section of
the Protestant journals.
It is an observation of Burke’s that “ when the
clergy say their church is in danger they speak
broad, and mean that their emoluments are in
danger; ’’ and perhaps upon this principle the
policy of the Protestant clergy may be considered
advantageous to Protestantism in Ireland.
In
every other respect there can be little question that
it is not merely detrimental—that it is absolutely
ruinous to it. Religion is the empire of the sympa
thies, and a Church that is in habitual opposition to
the sympathies, the wishes, and the hopes of the mass
of the people—a Church which is identified in their
minds only with a recollection of bygone persecutions
and of the defeat of a great popular movement—a
Church which has cast aside its nationality, and
associated itself with all that is unpatriotic, will
never progress among the people. Persecution has
sometimes caused such a church to triumph; by
argument and eloquence it never can. The ex
perience of three hundred years has sufficiently
demonstrated the fallacy of the old theory of the
“expansive character’’ of Protestantism, and of the
irresistible force of truth.
Simple, unmingled
reasoning never converts a people. When the taint
of selfishness is on a preacher, his arguments are as
empty wind. It would be impossible to conceive a
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31
more invidious position than that which the Protestant
Church now occupies in Ireland, in spite of the
numerous and the immense advantages it possesses.
Historically the Protestant can show that in the time
of her national independence Ireland was unconnected
with Rome—that it was England that introduced
and fostered the Roman Church in Ireland; that
most of those illustrious men whose eloquence
furnishes even now the precepts and the expositions
of patriotism were Protestants and were Liberals;
and that even when the Protestants as a body were
opposed to the national cause there were never want
ing men of intellect and of energy who left the ranks
to join it, and who not unfrequently proved that
“ the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim is better
than the vintage of Abiezer.’’ He can show that the
landlords, who are chiefly Protestants, are obviously
the natural leaders of the people. He can prove
that Protestantism is eminently adapted, from its
character, to coalesce with every form of Liberalism ;
that “ the Reformation was the dawn of the
government of public opinion ”; * that every
subsequent step towards the emancipation of mankind
may be distinctly traced to its influence; and that the
Church of Rome has associated herself indissolubly
with the despotic theory of government. When
Gregory poured forth insults on the brave Poles who
were struggling to disenthral their crushed and dis
membered land—when in his condemnation of
Lamennais he authoritatively and in detail denounced
the principles on which modern Liberalism rests,
* Mills.
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he but confirmed the antagonism which the French
Revolution had begun—an antagonism of which the
Church is now reaping the fruit, not only in the
destruction of the temporal power of the Pope, but in
the alienation of the sympathies of a vast section of its
members. *
Yet notwithstanding all these advantages—not
withstanding the zeal, the piety, and the learning to
be found among the Protestant clergy—notwith
standing the eloquence which they exhibit to a greater
extent than any other class of their fellow-country
men, the Protestant Church seems doomed to a
hopeless unpopularity in Ireland. Its position is so
obviously a false one—its estrangement from the
people is so patent that mere arguments avail little
in its behalf. Its opposition to the national cause
reacts fatally upon itself. The Church that has sold
the birthright will never receive the blessing.
Of the political attitude of the Roman Catholic
priests it is not necessary to say much. No generous
mind can withhold a tribute of admiration from the
fidelity, the zeal, and the disinterestedness they have
manifested as religious teachers under obstacles of
almost unparalleled magnitude. No sincere Liberal
can deny that their political leadership has been
ruinous to nationality in Ireland. Since the
death of O’Connell their continual object has been
to make the political strength of their country a
weapon in the service of the Vatican. They have
* We have a new and very striking illustration of this antagonism
in the Allocution in which the present Pope recently denounced
“modern civilization”—the admission of persons of various
creeds to public offices.
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exerted their whole influence to prevent that harmony
and assimilation of classes which is the only hope of
their country. They have laboured most constantly
and most effectively to widen every breach, to
increase every cause of division, and to prevent in
every way in their power the Roman Catholics from
mingling with the Protestants. No one, we think,
can deny this who has followed their policy on the
educational question, who has observed the tone of
their organs in the press, or who has perused those
dreary semi-political pastorals which their prelates
are continually publishing, as if to illustrate the
wisdom of the saying of an early Father, “ the more
a bishop keeps silence, the more let him be re
spected.’’ But they have gone further than this.
The very essence of the policy of O’Connell and of
his predecessors was, that the public opinion of a
nation should determine its form of government. Of
this principle—the only principle upon which the
policy of O’Connell was defensible—the Irish
Roman Catholics, guided by their priests, are now
the bitterest opponents. They have come forward
more prominently than any other people as the
supporters of the Papal Government at a time
when that Government is maintained only by foreign
power, and when it has avowedly identified itself
with the cause of despotism in Italy.*
*We would lay special stress upon the fact that the Papal
Government makes itself the representative of the old principles of
government, because there is another ground on which it might
be consistently defended, even by Liberals. It might be argued
that the temporal power was essential to the welfare of the
Catholic Church—that the interests of religion were higher
D
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They have in their hostility to this principle in a
great measure abandoned the Liberal party, to which
they owe almost every privilege they possess, to
identify themselves with the party which has been
the unwavering opponent of all religious equality.
In other words, they have connected themselves
with those who, according to their own principles,
have ever been the curse of Ireland, in hopes of thus
making themselves the curse of Italy. The only two
possible solutions of the present discontents of Ireland
are the complete fusion of the people of Ireland with
the people of England, or else the creation of a
healthy national feeling in Ireland, uniting its various
classes, and giving a definite character to its policy.
Since the death of O’Connell the Roman Catholic
priests have been an insuperable obstacle to either
solution.
Among the Roman Catholics the priests seem
almost omnipotent. Among the Protestants, though
the clergy do not exercise by any means the same
sway, they have nevertheless succeeded in giving a
completely sectarian character to politics. The
Protestant press is thoroughly sectarian in its tone.
The great questions on the hustings are semi
religious, the Maynooth Grant, the Educational
system, the proportion of Protestants and Roman
Catholics appointed to office by the Government.
It is thus that Ireland, being deprived of that
than those of liberty, and that, therefore, in case of collision, a
liberal Catholic might consistently prefer the former. This, how
ever, is not the ground adopted. The Pope has placed the question
upon another issue. He has made his cause one with that of the
old dynasty in Naples—with that of despotism against revolution.
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legislature which has hitherto proved the only effec
tual organ of national feeling, has come completely
under the influence of sectarian passions: class
against class, creed against creed, nation against
nation; a spectacle of perpetual disunion, of virulent
and unabating rancour. All the various elements of
dissension of the present and of the past are flung
into the alembic of sectarianism, and there fused
and blended into an intense, a relentless, and, as it
would seem, an increasing hatred. During the life
time of O’Connell there was a kind of reversionary
loyalty among the people. They looked forward to
the restoration of the Irish Parliament as the ter
mination of all agitation. Their leader endeavoured
earnestly to conciliate the different sections of the
people. He placed patriotism before sectarianism,
and adopted intelligible principles of policy. While
he held the reins of power we should never have
heard a eulogy of the Sepoys, or seen the people
identifying themselves with foreign despotism; but
since he has passed away national feeling seems to
have almost perished in the land, and sectarianism
to have become more unmitigated and undiluted
than in any former period. With the exception of
the upper orders, who are in every country some
what cosmopolitan in their sympathies, and who
always readily adapt themselves to any political
arrangement, the alienation of the people from
English politics seems as absolute and as fixed as
ever.
There is something inexpressibly melancholy in
such a condition. Political decline, whatever may
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be the symptom it manifests, must ever be a touch
ing sight to men of feeling and sensibility. Few
such persons could gaze unmoved upon the gorgeous
palaces of Venice, as they lie mouldering in their
loveliness upon the wave, or could contemplate with
out a feeling of irrepressible awe the subversion of
that Papal throne which is shadowed by the glories
of so many centuries. Yet there is a spectacle more
deeply mournful than the destruction of any city,
however lovely, or any throne, however ancient. It
is the perversion of a nation’s character, it is the
paralysis of a nation’s energies, it is the corruption
and decay that ensue when the spirit of patriotism
is extinguished, and when sectarianism and fana
ticism rage unchecked. The lamp of genius burns
low, the pulse of life beats with an ever fainter
throb; the nation, in spite of natural advantages
and material prosperity, becomes but a cypher and
a laughing-stock in the world.
We have spoken of the evil effect of this state of
things upon the Irish character. Its evil effects upon
England, if not so serious, are nevertheless very real.
In the first place it implies a great loss of charac
ter. One of the most conspicuous of living English
statesmen has again and again declared, in language
as explicit as any that can be conceived, that
every nation has a right to a form of government
in accordance with its will, and should alone judge
what is expedient for itself. This doctrine has
been continually applauded by Parliament. It has
been accepted by almost the whole of the British
press. It has been represented as a complete justi-
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fication of recent events in Italy. The universal
suffrage by which the sentiments of the people of
that country have been determined has been the sub
ject of almost unmingled eulogy, yet the present
form of government in Ireland is retained in distinct
defiance of the principle so emphatically enunciated.
It was imposed in 1800 contrary to the wish of the
people, and notwithstanding the exertions of all the
intellect of the land. It was reaffirmed when the
mass of the people, guided by the two greatest Irish
politicians of the century, were denouncing it. It is
retained to the present day, though the amount of
discontent, if tested only by universal suffrage, would
probably be found to be as great as exists in the
Papal States, notwithstanding the contagion of sur
rounding revolution. We do not deny that these
facts may be in some degree attenuated, but that
they are directly inconsistent with the liberal pro
fessions of England is a position so self-evident that
no special-pleading can evade it. The condition of
Ireland and of the Ionian Islands may attract little
notice in England, for they are subjects on which
the British press is usually remarkably silent; but
they are constant topics in every foreign newspaper
that is hostile to England. It is inconsistencies of
this kind that make foreigners regard England as
the Pharisee of nations, enunciating high principles
for others which she never thinks of applying to
herself. Perhaps no great nation ranks so high in the
moral scale if measured only by her acts. Perhaps
no great nation ranks so low if measured by the
relation of her acts to her professions.
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Another important consideration is the influence
of Irish emigration upon the public opinion of
America and of the Colonies. “ Nations,” as Grattan
once finely said, “ have neither a parent’s nor a
child s affection. Like the eagle, they throw off
their young and know them no longerbut though
they cannot reckon upon the tie of gratitude and
affection, they can usually count to a considerable
extent on that of community of race, of language,
and of sentiment. No nation can afford to despise
the opinion of its neighbours; and the maintenance
of the “ empire of ideas ” is almost as important as
the preservation of the territory actually subject to
the sovereign. The two nations that do most to
spread their influence beyond their borders are the
French and the English. The former owes its
success chiefly to the character of its literature, the
fascination of its manners, and the spirit of political
proselytism that characterises it; the latter, to the
genius of colonisation that it possesses to a greater
degree than any other nation. Yet everywhere, side
by side with the extension of English influence, the
Nemesis of Ireland appears. The Irish people, so
inexhaustibly prolific, scatter themselves through
every land, and leaven every political assembly.
Their spirit of enterprise, their versatility, their
popular manners, have everywhere made them
prominent, and have given them an influence of the
most formidable character. In Australia we have
seen a Ministry presided over by an Irishman, and
reckoning among its leading members the former
editor of The Nation. In America Irishmen occupy
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a foremost place in almost every department; and
their political importance is so great that an
American party was formed in the vain hope of
counteracting it. Everywhere they bring with them
their separate religion, and that extraordinary
tenacity of old opinions for which they are so
remarkable. Everywhere they labour with un
wearied and most fruitful zeal to kindle a feeling of
hostility against England.
Nor should we omit from our calculations the
possibility of future rebellion in Ireland. There is a
tendency in nations that are guided chiefly by a
daily press to overlook such distant eventualities,
and to concentrate attention exclusively on the
present. In time of prosperity and peace the
existence of a deep-seated discontent in Ireland may
not seriously affect the interests of England, but
who can fail to perceive how difficult it might be if
calamity was goading that discontent into despera
tion, and an invading army directing and sustaining
it ? In the present day, when the conditions of
warfare are so entirely altered—when there are so
many great Powers in the world, and when military
operations are conducted with such startling
rapidity—the supremacy of a great nation rests on
the most precarious basis. There was a time when
the naval strength of England enabled her to defy
the entire world, but that time has passed for ever.
A coalition of great Powers—a single unsuccessful
battle—a scientific discovery monopolised by her
opponents, might destroy her empire of the seas, and
leave her coasts open to invasion. If this were to
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occur it would not be forgotten that the greatest
military genius the world has ever known, when
reviewing his career at St. Helena, declared that the
capital mistake of his life had been the omission of
an expedition to Ireland. That rebellion would be
disastrous to Ireland if unsuccessful, and still more
disastrous if triumphant—that it would imply civil
war of the worst character, and private suffering to
an almost incalculable extent—may be readily
admitted. But, if calamitous to Ireland, there can
be no doubt that it would be also most calamitous
to England. These things may one day come to
pass, for every year shows more clearly that the goal
to which Europe is tending, is the universal recog
nition of the rights of nationalities.
Another and more pressing danger arises from the
position of the Irish members in Parliament. The
British constitution, though in some respects ex
ceedingly strong, is, in other respects, one of the
most fragile in the world. It remains unshaken
amid storms of public opinion that would shatter
any other Government; but it is essential to its very
existence that all its component parts should be
pervaded by a strong spirit of patriotism. It is so
complex in its character, and represents so many
opposing interests, that if it were not for the per
petual sacrifice of party and provincial feelings to
patriotism, and for the spirit of mutual forbearance
displayed by all shades of politicians, it would long since
have perished. Under these circumstances the pre
sence in Parliament of a body of men acting together,
inspired by a different feeling from attachment to
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
4i
the empire must always be a danger, and more
especially at present. The disintegration of parties
in England seems tending dangerously towards a
Government by clap-trap. There are so many
small sections of politicians, and so many indepen
dent members, that the most transient unpopularity,
the slightest deviation from the opinions of the hour,
may produce a combination that would destroy the
strongest Ministry. Hence a perpetual weakness of
Government, and an antipathy to any line of consis
tent and profound policy. An Irish party, skilfully
guided, and availing itself of this state of things,
might now turn the balance of power. Nor is the
evil likely to stop here. If we put aside occasional
periods of political lassitude, or of conservative reac
tion, and consider the general tendency of politics, it
will scarcely, we suppose, be denied that it is towards
the ascendency of democracy. If we put aside those
exceptional circumstances under which the Irish
priests coalesce with the Conservatives on questions
of foreign policy, it will scarcely be denied that the
political influence of Ireland weighs strongly and
unmistakably in the democratical scale. A poor and
populous country is indeed naturally democratic.
Should another great step be taken in the demo
cratical direction, two results may be confidently
predicted. In the first place, the Italian party would
be greatly strengthened, for the power of the priests
is strongest in the lower strata of society. In the
second place, the evil of such a party would be far
greater than it is now, for the dangers of collision
between the different sections of the constitution would
E
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be much increased. The best reason for entrusting
political power chiefly to the upper orders, in a constitu
tion like that of England, is not because they are better
educated or more thoroughly patriotic than others,
or because they have a greater stake in the country,
or pay a larger proportion of the taxation, but because
they, of all classes, are most skilled in compromise.
The refinements of good society, which mould and
form their entire natures, are all but an education in
compromises. They teach how to conceal disagree
able thoughts—how to yield with grace—how to
avoid every jar, and control every passion—how to
acquire a pliant and acquiescent manner. The
lower classes feel more intensely in political
matters—they express their feelings more emphati
cally—they pursue their course with a more absorb
ing vehemence.
A democratical assembly may
govern with energy and wisdom, but it is scarcely
possible that it can continue to govern in har
mony with another assembly of a different shade
of politics.
Should further reforms render the
House of Commons thoroughly democratical in
feeling, the present constitution of England would,
doubtless, be much endangered, and the evil of
a party whose primary wishes are not attached
to the interests of the empire proportionately
increased.*
* Another striking tendency of parliamentary government in
England is to decline in its efficiency on account of the over
whelming and ever-increasing amount of business to be discharged.
The evil is likely to be a growing one, and it seems as though,
sooner or later, some measure must be adopted to remove a con
siderable portion of this business from the jurisdiction of the
parliament at Westminster.
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
43
And, under any circumstances, dissension be
tween two nations that are so nearly associated
must be in itself an evil. Seven hundred years, if
they have multiplied causes of dissension, have
also multiplied ties of connection. The two nations
seem naturally designed for each other, and each
without the other is imperfect. Each possesses
many of the attributes of greatness, but each is
deficient in some qualities for which the other is
distinguished. In both nations we find an almost
perfect courage and an almost boundless spirit of
enterprise ; but Englishmen exhibit that steady per
severance, that uniform ascendency of reason over
passion, which we so seldom find in Ireland ; while
Irishmen possess the popularity of manners and the
versatility of disposition in which Englishmen are
lamentably deficient. Ireland, if contented, would
be the complement of England; while hostile, it
continues a constant source of danger.
Is this state of things likely to continue? We
confess we are not as sanguine as some persons seem
to be about the effect of time in assimilating the
character of the two nations, and banishing the
existing animosity. The discontent in Ireland
differs, we think, in kind from that of the twenty
years preceding the Union. Then it arose from the
imperfections of the national organ of public opinion,
now it arises from the want of any such organ ; then
it diminished every year, while at present political
feeling seems to fade more and more into sec
tarianism. The evil at present is not a torpor of
the public mind, but a substitution of a semi-religious
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for a purely political public opinion. We see few
symptoms of this evil abating. The Government,
indeed, labours with evident earnestness and con
siderable success to steer evenly between the two
creeds, but the super-abundant theological energies
of the English people are constantly welling over
upon Ireland. England is consequently but a
synonym for Protestantism with the people, and is
therefore the object of an undiminishing sectarian
antipathy. The very attachment of a large section
of the Irish Protestants to England is sufficient to
repel the Roman Catholics, for that attachment is
more sectarian than political. It is as the Bible
loving land, the bulwark of Protestantism, the terror
of Popery. The Established Church serves also to
foster the sectarian spirit, which, under all these
circumstances, possesses an astonishing vitality. It
has been observed, too, that the Roman Catholic
system being essentially traditional, has a tendency
to petrify and to preserve all traditional feelings.
We sometimes find Roman Catholic nations changing
greatly, but it is generally when their Church has
lost its hold upon their characters. The difference
between the two religions is much more than a
difference of doctrines. The Roman Catholic system
forms a type of character wholly different from that
of the Protestants, with different virtues and vices,
with different modes of thought and feeling. There
is so little affinity between the two types, that the
Roman Catholics can go on year by year within
their own sphere, thinking, acting, writing, speaking,
and progressing without being in any very great
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
45
degree affected by Protestant thought, without losing
their distinctive tendencies or sentiments. Much
has been said of the effect of the spread of education
in destroying sectarianism. A system of education
that would attack the religious policy of the Roman
Catholics would be, of course, absolutely out of the
question; and, in a country like Ireland, where the
people are intensely religious in their feelings, we
believe the education of the priest must ever prove
stronger than the education of the schoolmaster.
Nor should we forget that there seems at present a
strong probability of national education becoming
separate, and consequently thoroughly sectarian.
While the bulk of the clergy of both religions
denounce the only system of mixed education that
appears practicable, it becomes a grave question how
long such a system can be maintained.
One thing, however, seems certain—that no system
of education that directs the attention of the people
to the history of their own land can fail to quicken
the national feeling among them. The great obstacle
to every liberal party in Ireland, has been the pre
vailing ignorance of Irish history. The great engine
by which the Repeal movement progressed was the
diffusion of historical treatises and of the speeches of
the leading orators of the past. There are, perhaps,
few better means of conjecturing the future of a
nation, than to examine in what direction its en
thusiasm is likely to act. In Ireland there can
scarcely be a question upon the subject. Ever since
the dawn of public opinion, there has been a party
which has maintained that the goal to which Irish
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patriots should tend, is the recognition of their
country as a distinct and independent nationality,
connected with England by the Crown ; that in such
a condition alone it could retain a healthy political
life, and could act in cordial co-operation with
England; that every other system would be tran
sient in its duration, and humiliating and disastrous
while it lasted. To this party all the genius of
Ireland has ever belonged. It is scarcely possible
to cite two Irish politicians of real eminence who
have not, more or less, assisted it. Swift and
Molyneux originated the conception; Burke aided
it when he wrote in approval of the movement of
’82, and denounced the Penal Laws and the trade
restrictions that shackled the energies of Ireland;
Sheridan, when he exerted all his eloquence to
oppose the Union; Flood, when he formed the
national Party in Parliament; Grattan, when he led
that party in its triumph and in its fall. The en
thusiasm which springs from the memory of the
past will ever sustain it; the patriotic passion, which
makes the independence of the land its primary
object, will foster and inspire it. This passion is too
deeply imbedded in human nature to be eradicated
by any material considerations. Like the domestic
affection, it is one of the first instincts of humanity.
As long as the nation retains its distinct character
and its history, the enthusiasts of the land will ever
struggle against a form of government which was
tyrannically imposed, and which has destroyed the
national feeling among the people. Statesmen may
regard that enthusiasm as irrational, but they must
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
47
acknowledge its existence as a fact. He who elimi
nates from his calculations the opinions of fools,
proves that he is himself worthy of being enrolled
under that denomination.
Another important element of dissension is the
tone habitually adopted by English writers towards
Ireland. Reasoning a priori we might have imagined
that common decency would have rendered that
tone guarded and conciliatory; for, if England has
sometimes had cause to complain of Ireland, Ireland
has had incomparably more cause to complain of
England. For seven hundred years England has
ruled over a nation which has exhibited more than
average intellect at home, and far more than average
success abroad—a nation which, though its faults
are doubtless many and serious, is certainly neither
unamiable, ungrateful, nor intractable—and she has
left it one of the most discontented and degraded in
Europe. She has ruled over a country which seemed
designed by Providence to be one of the most flourish
ing in the world: indented with the noblest harbours—
placed between two continents as if to reap the
advantage of both—possessing a temperate and
salubrious climate and a soil of more than common
fertility—and she has left it one of the poorest, one
of the most wretched on earth. A fatal blast seems
to rest upon it and to counteract all the advantages
of Nature. The most superficial traveller is struck
with the anomaly. His-first inquiry is: What tyranny
has so thwarted the designs of Providence ? He
finds that, according to the confessions of English
writers for the six hundred and fifty years that
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elapsed between the Conquest and the emancipation
of the Catholics, the English government of Ireland
was one long series of oppressions—that massacres
and banishments, confiscations and disqualifications,
compulsory ignorance and trade restrictions, were
all resorted to; that the industry of the country was
so paralysed that it has never recovered its elasticity;
that the various classes of the people were so divided
that they have never regained their unity; that the
character of the nation was so formed and moulded
in the die of sorrow, that almost every prominent
vice ingrained in the national character may be dis
tinctly traced to the influences of bygone tyranny ;
and that, when the age of disqualifications had
passed, a legislative system was still retained in
defiance of the wish of the people, by the nation
which proclaims itself the most emphatic asserter
of the rights of nationalities.
Such is the past of English government of Ireland—
a tissue of brutality and hypocrisy, scarcely surpassed
in history. Who would not have imagined that in a
more enlightened age the tone of the British press
towards Ireland would’have been at least moderate
friendly, and conciliatory ? Let any candid man
judge whether it is so. Let him observe the pro
minence given to every crime that is committed in
Ireland, to every absurdity that can be culled from
the Irish press, to every failure of an Irish move
ment. Let him observe the ceaseless ridicule, the
unwavering contempt, the studied depreciation of
the Irish character and intellect habitual in the
English newspapers. Let him observe their per-
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
49
sistent refusal to regard Irish affairs in any light
but the ridiculous, and then answer the question
for himself. We believe impartial Englishmen will
scarcely deny what foreign observers unanimously
declare, that the object of the most influential sec
tion of the English press is to discredit the Irish
intellect and the Irish character before England
and before Europe. “ The tone of the British press
towards Ireland,” said a writer in the Revue des
Deux Mondes, when urging the Irish people to give
up the dream of nationality, “ is detestable.” “ It
would be about as reasonable,” remarked a recent
German tourist, “to judge of the Irish character from
English writers as to take an Austrian estimate of
Italian affairs.” As long as this tone continues, the
two nations never can amalgamate, or assimilate, or
cordially co-operate. A war of recriminations is an
evil, but it is a greater evil for a nation tranquilly to
suffer its character to be frittered away by calumny
veiled in sarcasm, and by a contemptuous suppression
of all facts but those which tell against itself. As
long as Englishmen adopt a tone of habitual
depreciation in speaking of the present of Ireland,
Irishmen would betray their country were they to
suffer the curtain to fall upon its past.
In considering the future of public opinion in
Ireland, there is one measure which may some day
be carried into effect that would probably have a
very great influence, though in what direction it is
exceedingly difficult to determine—I mean the disendowment of the Established Church. I waive
altogether the discussion of the justice of such a
�50
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measure, and confine myself to the results that
might follow it. There is scarcely any Irish ques
tion more perplexing, or on which authorities are
more divided. Plunket predicted that the destruction
of the Establishment would be the death blow of
the connection; Macaulay, that it would be the only
effectual means of pacifying Ireland. If we regard
the question in the light of the past, it seems
evident that the Establishment has hitherto been
the strongest bulwark of the Union. O’Connell
could scarcely have failed if the bulk of the Pro
testants had not held aloof from him. A very large
section at least of those Protestants opposed him
simply through love of the Establishment, which
they argued could not continue to exist under an
Irish Parliament. To the present day we believe
that a considerable proportion of the Protestants
are attached to the Union on this ground alone.
Whether, in the event of a disendowment of the
Establishment, their alienation would be compen
sated for by any permanent attachment of the
Roman Catholics, is a matter of opinion on which
it is impossible to pronounce with any certainty.
While, however, I regard the pictures drawn by
some writers of the future content of Ireland as
absurdly overcharged, I am far from wishing to
paint the prospects of the country in colours of un
mingled gloom. I do not believe that mere material
prosperity or the increase of education will neces
sarily reclaim public opinion, but I do not overlook
the fact that the general tone of thought and feeling
in England and on the Continent must modify it
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
5i
greatly. One of the most prominent characteristics
of the spirit of the age is its tendency to disassociate
politics from religion, and to diminish the extraor
dinary stress once laid upon dogmatic theology. A
strong party spirit is the best index expurgatorius,
and the new principles penetrate but slowly amid
the fierce passions that still convulse the Irish
people; but penetrate, I doubt not, they will. The
habitual sacrifice of the spirit of Christianity to
sectarian dogmas is now happily an anachronism,
and there are very few countries in the world in
which it would be possible. The liberality of senti
ment pervading the literature of the century will
sooner or later do its work, and should any man
of transcendent intellect arise in Ireland, he will
find that the public mind has been gradually pre
paring to receive him. There is, perhaps, no country
in the world that would respond to the touch of
genius so readily as Ireland in the present day.
All* the elements of a great movement exist among
the people—a restless, nervous consciousness of the
evil of their present condition, a deep disgust at the
cant and the imbecility that are dominant, a keen
and intense perception of the charm of genius.
Irishmen sometimes forget their great men when
they are dead, but they never fail to recognise them
when they are living. That acute sense of the
power of intellect, and especially of eloquence, which
sectarianism has never been able to destroy, which
has again and again caused assemblies of the most
violent Roman Catholics to hang with breathless
admiration on the lips of the most violent Orange-
�52
CLERICAL INFLUENCES
men, is, we think, the most encouraging symptom of
recovery. Should a political leader arise whose
character was above suspicion, and whose intellect
was above cavil, who was neither a lawyer nor a lay
preacher, who could read the signs of the times, and
make his eloquence a power in Europe, his influence
with the people would be unbounded. The selfish
ness, and bigotry, and imbecility, that have so long
reigned, would make the resplendency of his genius
but the more conspicuous; the waves of sectarian
strife would sink to silence at his voice; the aspira
tions and the patriotism of Ireland would recognise
him as the prophet of the future.
We look forward with unshaken confidence to the
advent of such a leader. The mantle of Grattan is
not destined to be for ever unclaimed. The soil of
Ireland has ever proved fertile in genius, and in no
other country in Europe has genius so uniformly
taken the direction of politics. Meantime the task
of Irish writers is a simple, if not a very hopeful one.
It is to defend the character of the nation, aspersed
and ridiculed as it is by the writers of England, and
still more injuredby the vulgarity, the inconsistencies,
and the virulence of a large section of those of
Ireland. It is to endeavour to lead back public
opinion to those liberal and progressive principles
from which, under priestly guidance, it has so
lamentably aberrated. It is, above all, to labour
with unwearied zeal to allay that theological fever
which is raging through the land; to pursue this
work courageously and unflinchingly amid unpopu
larity and clamour and reproach ; “ to sit by the sick
�CLERICAL INFLUENCES
53
bed of their delirious country, and for the love they
bear that honoured name to endure all the insults
and all the rebuffs they receive from their frantic
mother.” * A thankless but not an ignoble task !
The Irishman who makes a friend of a fellowcountryman of a different religion to his own is a
benefactor to Ireland. As long as the frenzy of
sectarianism continues; as long as blind hatred is
the actuating principle of the people, Ireland never
can rise to a position of dignity or prosperity. She
never can act in harmony with other sections of the
empire; she never can find content at home or
become respected and honoured abroad. Her power
would be at once an evil to herself and to England.
Her independence would be the dismemberment of
the empire. The greatest of all our wants is a lay
public opinion. When a healthy national feeling
shall have been produced, uniting the different
sections of the people by the bond of patriotism
and shattering the political ascendency of the clergy,
the prosperity of Ireland will have been secured.
Whether the public mind may then tend to the ideal
of Grattan or the ideal of Pitt, to a distinct Parlia
ment or to a complete fusion with England, I do
not venture to predict; but I doubt not that, in
whatever direction it may act, it will eventually
triumph.
In our age, and under our Government, the
coercion of a nation is only possible by its divisions ;
and next to the omnipotence of God is the will of a
united people.
* Burke.
��
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Victorian Blogging
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Clerical influences : an essay on Irish sectarianism and English government
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Lecky, William Edward Hartpole [1838-1903]
Lloyd, W.E.G. (ed)
Cruise O'Brien, F. (ed)
Description
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Place of publication: Dublin
Collation: 53 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: First published 1861 in Leaders of public opinion. Published for the Irish Self-Government Alliance. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Maunsel and Co., Ltd.
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1911
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N436
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Ireland
Clergy
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Ireland (Republic)
Ireland-History-1837-1901
Irish Question
NSS