MAP OF IRELAND, SHEWING THE PROCLAIMED DISTRICTS. The portions coloured green of the above Map indicate the "proclaimed districts," namely, Galway, Mayo, Kerry, Limerick, Leitrim, also the West Riding of the County of Cork, and the Barony of Innishowan in County Donegal. The first Proclamation was issued October 7th, and the last December 18th, 1880. J.Bartholomew, Edont SEDITIONS; THEIR ORIGIN AND HISTORY From 1792-1880. IRELAND'S CURSE-ENGLAND'S TROUBLE. WITHI MAP OF IRELAND, Indicating the proclaimed Districts. LONDON: DIPROSE & BATEMAN, SHEFFIELD STREET, LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS. 1983 INTRODUCTION. THIS Survey of Irish Seditions, from 1792 till 1880, may be fitly described as a Book of the Play. It is a real-life drama now being performed in Ireland; a revival of the tragedy herein named The Green Spectre; or, Ireland's Curse and England's Trouble. A tragedy deep-dyed in blood, depressingly non-heroic, in which there are farcical scenes devoid of wit and the humour thereof being of the harlequinade sort. This Book of the Play may help those who are too busy to read long histories of Irish Seditions to a more precise and accurate appreciation of the present performance which almost monopolises the attention of Parliament and the nation. The Irish people, or rather the inhabitants of Ireland, would be shamefully calumniated by the assumption that the hysterical rant and the foul deeds of Irish seditionists were representative of the Irish character. Let us beware of casting the wheat in the fiery furnace of loathful contempt, because vilest tares grow and abominably flourish in the same field. There is no warmer heart than the Irish. Upon the people of Ireland mental gifts have been freely bestowed. Irishmen-the wheat, not the tares-for bravery hold their own among the bravest of the brave. The Irish soldier, when the occasion demands it, combines heroic endurance with splendid dash. Let not the Irish people suppose England is so foolish and so unjust as to judge them by the words and deeds of those who disgrace their country and afflict it with dire misery. What of the tares? The quantity of human tares to human wheat in Ireland exceeds the usual proportion because the sowing of the pernicious seed has not been duly checked. Here is a vivisection of the despicable Irishman. He is an amalgam of the coxcomb, the snob and the cad. He has the heart of a rat, and the spirit of a peacock. He is false to all to which he should be most true. To gratify a paltry vanity, to get a little notice from society, he will be faithless to his Church, to mother and father, to wife and child. He cringes to his social superiors, and he is a brutal tyrant to those whom he deems his social inferiors. He is not ashamed to beg, and is quite ready to injure a benefactor. He boasts of his generosity though he is the incarnation of meanest selfishness. He commits crime when he can do so with impunity, but he shirks personal risk; for though he brags of his courage, he is an arrant coward. Boast and brag are the beginning, the middle, and the end of his loud talk. So immense is his vanity that he is self-deceived by his own lying, and believes that he is what he says he is, a man; whereas he is a reptile, a most despicable reptile, in human form. No wonder that Irish seditions are disgustingly, nonheroic, and are branded with vile crime, most ignoble baseness, and most inhuman savagery. |